Frosting Creations in the Aisle

Here's an interesting new product I stumbled across at Target last weekend. Frosting Creations from Duncan Hines. Pretty cool stuff!

In case it isn't straightforward, the basics are as follows. You start with the plain frosting.

Then you add the flavor packet and mix to create your new frosting mix.

The most interesting thing though are the flavor selections.

If you think about the kind of demographic who are going to be interesting in this kind of a product it makes sense. These are flavors made for kids, and the joy of something like this is the mixing and creation factor. A very cool product for kids. And its not like Duncan Hines would ever really put out a bubble gum flavored frosting for reals, so this is perfect.

Obviously one of the great things here is you could make multiple flavors batches of frosting out of a single jar. But for my money the best thing though will be the flavor combinations kids can create by actually mixing two or more of the flavors together. I mean what kids hasn't taken their cup at the soda fountain and mixed together a little bit of all the drinks?! I would probably try Chocolate Mint and Strawberry Shortcake, or maybe Chocolate Marshmallow and Orange Creme. The possibilities are kind of endless.

Weather this is successful or not remains to be seen, but I applaud the innovation.

Aisle Walking - July

Every day while walking down the candy aisle, or the toy aisle, or the ice cream aisle I see fun and weird things. Some of these I want to mention but lots of them are just so brief that I can't be bothered making a stand alone blog post, so to alleviate that I thought I'd try a new blog monthly series called Aisle Walking. Essentially this will be a mish mash of things seen in the aisles. I'd love it to hear about it you have fun things you've seen. New stuff is always showing up and I'm always interested in strange variants on existing products. Now I'm still planning on posting some things on their own, but for the lots of little items this will be the round up.

So lets have a look and see what we can see for this past month or so :)

I found this out at a Staples of all places (that's an office supply store). I don't know why I am surprised to see this, I mean of course Planters should be competing with Reese I'm just surprised that I've never seen this before.

We all know that Red Velvet is the hippest of all cakes, and in cupcake form it cannot be beat. I'm impressed that this package comes with some frosting packets included.

This is just a small note that all of the formerly named "Dessert Delight" products seem to now be called simply Desserts. I noticed this a while ago with the Lemon Square flavor, but am surprised to see the entire line change it up. Could this be an only in Canada thing???

I've seen these Kit Kat flavors (only available in the 8 packs) out at the local Wal Mart for a while now, but they seem to be expanding their reach. I had assumed that they were just going to be limited editions around for a little while, but maybe they'll actually be staying.

So this exists. It shouldn't really be a surprise since Nestle also owns the Carnation brand, but for some reason seeing chocolate bars in other places always strikes me as interesting.

Lets talk cookies for a sec. Seriously these Chunks Ahoy look great! I am sold :D

Birthday Cake flavor Oreos are back. Seriously does it count as a Limited Edition if its been on shelves for like 4 years?!

Now this is new, and it looks amazing! Chocolate and Mint together in a triple stuff? yes please!

I've seen Rolo ice cream before, but did you know there was Rolo Peanut Butter ice cream? Sounds great.

So that's all I've got for you this month. I'll try to make this a regular feature. Its fun to just touch on all of the quick stuff that's going on in the candy aisle and beyond.

Crunchie Cakes

It was back in early October that I told you about Cadbury's initial efforts into the snack cake world, at least to my knowledge, with their Caramilk and Mr Big cakes. Then of course there was the very interesting step with the Screme Egg snack cake at Halloween. Now though they've found another product to bring to the public in cake form: Crunchie.

For those of you who may not know, Crunchie is and has always been one of my personal favorites. Its a honey flavored sponge toffee bar dipped in chocolate. The bar is unlike almost anything I can describe, although I've been told that Australia's Violet Crumble bar is similar.

Crunchie is also one of the handful of lost reviews for the Candy Aisle. Yes we have had a few reviews not work out for one reason or another. I'm sure I'll take another stab at it in the not too distant future but when you look at Cadbury's interesting plan to launch their bars into new territory (see their efforts with fondue, and ice cream bars) then you have to give them serious props for at least attempting to innovate.

I'm interested to try a Crunchie snack cake. Hopefully I'll get a chance to soon!

Aisle Walk Mish Mash

I've got a few random things I wanted to post today. New and interesting always catches my eye and there has been no exception to that since I've been back in Canada. To start there are a few Limited Time items in the aisle... I suppose they're her just for the holidays, so check them out quickly if you're interested.

Yes that is in fact Cinnabon bread! Seems like a great idea, although personally I never go to Cinnabon I know there are a lot of people out there addicted to it so this is probably a win for them. They should sell Cinnabon branded frosting spread as a side for that bread.

This product has me concerned. I feel like I want it to be great. I mean Ritz are great, and fudge is great... so what could possibly go wrong? I suspect everything.

 

And as expected Little Debbie has gotten into the holiday spirit too with these Christmas Snack Cakes. I wonder if these have really been around as long as the dated graphics imply. That seems to be the Little Debbie motif for everything even if its brand new. I will say though that I like the back of the box since it has cut-out gift tags on it. Kinda weird, but maybe works if you're planning on giving a Little Debbie snack cake for Christmas...

Now here we have a bit of an odd, not overly seasonal special edition. You remember what the Aero bar is supposed to look like right? Well if not click here to check out my review from about a month ago. Why the bubbles need to be actual bubbles I'm not sure... Maybe it saves on chocolate overall. I don't think I'm a fan though.

Finally there's this:

That is a whole display case full of Jelly Belly scented air fresheners! Seriously, that's pretty awesome. I totally want my car smelling like Buttered Popcorn!

Walking the Toy Aisle

This time of year many of us are thinking of the holidays, and if you're like me, probably dreading the inevitable trip to Toys R Us for those gifts. Oh not that I don't like Toys R Us. Hey I love toy stores; but even the most rabid toy store fanboy gets flustered when it comes to the insanity of holiday crowds. I think the best strategy is to know exactly what you want to get, and if possible have a backup idea ready to go. Then just get in and get out. Hopefully you can do it all while wearing headphones and ignoring the throngs of people.

Well for those of you who might be a little behind on the gift giving, here are a few ideas I came across while walking the toy aisle. There are a lot of candy themed and inspired toys out there these days, and if I don't share them with you, who will???

Its so much more than this these days... Although, that said this version of Candyland (which has been significantly updated since my youth) is pretty great!

Mark my words now, this is the big one to know about. Cake Pops.

 

Heard it here first. Cake Pops. Its a thing. Tell your friends...

Sorry that second picture above is a bit blurry, but just look at how excited that little girl is!!! I mean seriously this is THE greatest day in her life! I actually wonder if they photoshopped her eyes to make them even bigger here...

 

Of course, if you'll remember I posted about the Pillsbury Brownie and Cake Pop kits back in August. Now it seems they have hit the big time... A few weeks ago, one of the kids at my sons school who already has this, brought a bunch in to the class for his birthday... This is a really big thing.

Does that mean we should ignore the classic though? No of course not! What little girl doesn't want to spend 8 hours making whoopie pies with a lightbulb???

I will say that I like the graphics on these boxes. At least they've updated them. I remember it was a few years ago when they re-packaged and made a big push to get these things back in stores and homes. I think they were only moderately successful though. I guess kids today just don't want to play homemaker... At least not the way they used to.

If you're looking for candy themed toys though you really need look no further than Play-Doh and the Sweet Shoppe or Sweets Cafe line... I want to like this product line, I really do, but ultimately I have the same complaint about this that every 'old' person does about Play-Doh. The sets like this do not encourage kids to be creative, make up new things, and imagine the literally endless possibilities of creating with play-doh. They encourage a very certain kind of focused play. Its not terrible, I mean kids like structure and direction, but I can't help but feel that it  places limits on kids.

This is of course the exact same argument 'old' people have about modern Lego sets. Essentially its just a statue builder, its not as much about real creative play.

That said, there are a lot of different sets in this line and some of them are pretty darn cool.

But do you think that's all I found on my trip through the toy aisle?! Hardly!

Do you know any kid who would not seriously flip their lid if they got this on Christmas! I mean who doesn't want their own Cotton Candy Maker!!! That is awesome!

What about this beauty? I'm not a huge Dippin' Dots fan but it'd definitely be cool to have this bad boy on your shelf...

And finally the DQ Blizzard Maker. Yes that is awesome. And practical. I should totally get that....

As I left the aisle though I was wondering where my long lost favorite was... the classic Snoopy Sno Cone maker. Good luck on your Xmas shopping everyone :)