Have you ever enjoyed a Pop Tart so much, like REALLY enjoyed it, that you just started sucking on it without shame?
Yeah no, me neither… asking for a friend.
Kellogg’s Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts
Well this weirdo friend of mine must be super stoked right now because everyone’s favorite hard candy (does anyone even like hard candy?) is now a breakfast pastry. Not in one flavor, not in TWO flavors, but THREE new flavors of Kellogg’s Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts. From soft drinks to hard candy, the product development team at Kellogg’s has officially lost their minds.
The three new flavors are Frosted Watermelon Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts (ugh), Frosted Cherry Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts (ugh), and Frosted Green Apple Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts (UGH).
I haven’t puked in a while and I feel like I’m due, so let’s get right to it.
Frosted Watermelon Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts
Kellogg’s Frosted Watermelon Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts
I started with the Kellogg’s Frosted Watermelon Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts because I wanted to see how they compared with the Frosted Watermelon Pop Tarts that came out two winters ago. Truthfully, they are similar in a lot of ways. Both have that extra candy sweetness instead of just natural fruity sweetness. The former Frosted Watermelon Pop Tarts, however, had a sour element that I didn’t get as much of here. The watermelon flavor is exactly that of the Jolly Rancher.
Allow me to skip ahead and spoil portions of the next two reviews, because I want to say that the Frosted Watermelon Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts work the best with the pastry dough. Especially once toasted, they don’t completely overpower the floury, slightly salty flavor of the breakfast pastry. Hate to say it but these feel kind of at home in the Pop Tart family. Also, this is my favorite Jolly Rancher.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Frosted Cherry Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts
Kellogg’s Frosted Cherry Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts
The Frosted Cherry Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts also tastes exactly like the Cherry Jolly Rancher, and boy let me tell you that this a terrible, terrible thing. The flavor of the candy punches you in the throat before anything else, and then continues to beat the shit out of your taste buds before any pastry flavor can surface. Imagine sucking on two or three Cherry Jolly Ranchers simultaneously and then shoving the unfilled end of a Pop Tart in your mouth, then chomping all of it together. Some things are an obvious no, and you’re looking at one right now.
When toasted it goes from “garbage” to “hot garbage,” so don’t expect any miracles here. The only reason these don’t score lower is because I am certain the Orange Crush Pop Tarts were that much worse.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10
Frosted Green Apple Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts
Kellogg’s Frosted Green Apple Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts
The main points in the Cherry review above hold true for Kellogg’s Frosted Green Apple Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts. The green apple flavor is immediate and intense, but the sour factor actually works in its favor here. The sour at least gives it some novelty that the Cherry one lacked. To some degree, the sour also works to emulate a kind of granny smith apple flavor – just throw in a lot more table sugar than necessary. I do think that apple, no matter how artificial, pairs better with pastry dough.
Unfortunately, toasting the Frosted Green Apple Jolly Rancher took the sour up a notch and turned me off in a hurry. This is simply not an enjoyable breakfast once the novelty wears off.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10
Summary
Make no mistake, Kellogg’s nailed the exact Jolly Rancher flavors they were going for; it was just a pretty awful idea from the start. Kellogg’s new Jolly Rancher Pop Tarts are better suited for Jolly Rancher diehards (if such horrible creatures exist) than regular ole’ Pop Tart lovers.
If curiosity strikes your fancy, I recommend starting at Watermelon to assess tolerance, and then proceeding until you hate yourself.
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They did not make a blue raspberry one because it already exists but without the Jolly Rancher brand name. It still has a blue filling though but I haven’t tried it yet so I don’t know if it tastes like a jolly rancher or not.
See, I didn’t hate the Orange Crush ones. They were just weirdly orange. If you hadn’t told me it was a soda flavor, I wouldn’t have guessed. However, I hate Jolly Ranchers and won’t even bother with these.