Thursday, March 25, 2010

Little Debbie Does Easter

God, I love holidays!! Easter is a big one at the Church of Chocolate (and not for the reasons it's big everywhere else). I mean we're down with the whole pagan celebration of spring thing and hey, the Son of God stuff is amazing, but for us - this is the last big candy holiday for a while. And it's a doozy!

According to the NCA (National Confectioners Association - hosts of Candy Expo) 88 percent of Americans create baskets for their kids (yeah, right - one for you Little Johnny, two for Mommy) - using 90 million chocolate bunnies! 90 million! And you guys thought I had a lot of chocolate bunnies!

Today, however, I say - let them eat cake!

My girl Little Debbie is back in the house!

This is a staple in both chocolate and white - change the sprinkles - change the cake. This shape with red, yellow and orange sprinkles was a Fall Party Cake. But there was yellow cake and chocolate icing, so I can't give Lil' D too hard a time.


Here's the main problem - they are kinds dry. I keep finding this with theses cakes and it's breaking my heart. Come on - my childhood memories of these being good are being replaced by my adult reality of them kind of sucking. Lil' D hook a girl up and fix these things!

Look at these festive things:




There is something about these. something that makes me want to eat them. I'm not even a big brownie lover. They are definitely moist and chocolately. They taste pretty damn good. They are a whopping 200 calories each so it must be all the fat and sugar. Lil' D maybe you don't need to hook me up anymore than you already have.

You gotta laugh at this shape for an egg:



But pretty damn creative and so good! And cheap. I warn you, if you get these, you will eat them. But the box and keep one, take the rest to the office. Play Easter bunny and leave them on people's desks. They are so random and funny!

Once again - the seasonal Marshmallow Treat:



This time I decided to do a taste test with the King of marshmallow treats - Rice Krispies treats.

The Little Debbie treat is about twice the size of the RK treats for the same number of calories - 100.

Now these all have chocolate, which puts them ahead right there.



This one is my favorite - with just the right ratio of chocolate to rice crispy:



This one has too much chocolate in my book. But sometimes that's what you want.



Bottom line - there is more of the Lil D treat, so if you want quantity - go with that one. Also it has the cool seasonal factor - a big hit with me. But for sheer taste - the Rice Krispies treats are better - more flavor. And my favorite is the second one - chocolately drizzle. YUM!

I decided to go ahead and review these while I was on a cereal bar roll:




Peanut Butter and Chocolate Marshmallow Golden Graham Treats. Not as light and airy as the Rice Krispies like things, these are heavier. I thought I would love the peanut butter one, but it was nothing to write home about. I took a couple of bites, then trashed it.

Chocolate marshmallow, however, was a different story. Now the picture looks bad because there's some bloom on the chips, but that's probably because it got hot at some point. It still tasted great and I ate the whole bar. These are giant and have 260 calories. I'd say this was better than the typical cereal bar and very filling. Try one next time you're grabbing something on the run and don't want to go completely insane with a Snickers.

I reviewed these last year and I love them just as much this year. I'm not even that crazy about marshmallow! But I love these! Only 100 calories each.

These I hate. They have orange filling - maybe supposed to look like an egg yolk?

See how big the Little Debbie is?

Boo! Orange! But egglike - points for creativity! The chocolate coating is great, but the orange was so overpowering to me - I just didn't like these at all. Bleech.

Yay - chocolate! The base is like the Little Debbie brownie - rich and moist. I don't know exactly why this crazy thing works, but it does, baby, it does!

For $1.79 you get 8 of these - now if that's not worth celebrating, I don't know what is! Cheap, festive, fun - and, well, depending on how you look at it, holy.

Thank you, Easter Bunny! More marshmallow to come! As well as Easter candy by See's, Bissinger, and L.A. Burdick.

8 comments:

jeff said...

"Ahhh, Little Debbie, Little Debbie...Say, you don't mind if I get that quarter from underneath your pointy boot, do you?"

-Southern Culture On The Skids

Kris, in New England said...

This one has too much chocolate in my book.

Sacrilege! There is no such thing as too much chocolate - ever.

Please, don't scare us like that again! :-)

Denise Ryan said...

Ha, ha - Jeff - great to hear from you!! I love Southern Culture on the Skids - great line!

Denise Ryan said...

Kris - it's like the cookies with too much chocolate - sometimes a balance is good - and with Rice Krispy Treats it's kind of the same. But you make a damn fine point, my friend!!! : ) And I didn't mean to scare you!

Effie said...

Oh my god, everything looks so yummy! Thanks for posting!

Denise Ryan said...

Thanks, Effie!!! and thanks so much for reading my craziness!!

Unknown said...

Where can I buy the Little Debbie seasonal easter rice krispie treats ?

Denise Ryan said...

Hi Erica! I didn't see them this year - so they may not make them anymore. I originally found them at Target - you might also check Walmart.