Favorite Day Holiday White Chocolate Mini Pretzels

Well, I've reverted back to this blog's original blogspot domain in case you hadn't noticed, partly due to a lack of traffic and partly due to the fact that GoDaddy sucks. I probably won't be posting on this blog quite as often, but if I come across something interesting from Target, I'll be sure to throw up a quick line or two to let you all know. In the mean time, What's Good at Trader Joe's? will be entering its 15th year of reviews soon and is still going strong.

My wife apparently bought these off of target.com recently and they just appeared in our office. Not sure why she chose these. She's not the biggest white chocolate gal. Maybe it's because I like white chocolate. Aww, how selfless of her. I like chocolate/candy coated pretzels, too, in general.

However, I've never been a big fan of Christmas snacks that are only "Christmas" because the packaging tells me so or they just added green and red food coloring. Know what I mean? At least throw in some cranberries or figs or peppermint or something tangibly Christmassy.

Sorry, I meant holiday-ish. I don't mean to exclude non-Christians here. But whatevs. These coated pretzels are exactly what you'd expect. They're small, salty, sweet, and crunchy.

When there are sweets and salty snacks and cookies and candies every-freaking-where for over a month from late November into the early new year, I feel like you really have to choose which treats to indulge in. These pretzels barely make the cut, but at the same time, it's hard to punish a product for simply being exactly what you knew it would be. Sometimes I feel the same way about people.

But now we're waxing a bit too philosophical for a food blog, aren't we? Let's keep it simple, folks. It is what it is.

Three bucks for the 6 oz resealable bag. Probably wouldn't go out of my way to buy this product again, but I never know when I'll get a white chocolate covered pretzel craving, so I can't rule it out completely.

I give this holiday snack 7 out of 10 stars.

Favorite Day 25 Days of Chocolate Joy

I don't think I've ever mentioned it on this blog before, but I built my very own time machine out of an old recliner and some spare refrigerator parts. It's called the magical DeLorean TARDIS time sled hot tub—you know, as an homage to some of the greatest time machines throughout classic literature and cinema. I use it whenever I need to travel back in time to check out products that are no longer available in stores OR whenever I need to jump forward a few days in time to see what treats I'll be getting in my advent calendar. I'll be traveling to December 5, 2023 this time—a full five days beyond the date of this blog post's original publishing. In the future, I'll sample each flavor of candy present in this Favorite Day 25 Days of Chocolate Joy advent calendar and report back. Here we go...

Whoosh! I'm back. Holy cow. I'm still shaking. Here are the findings from my research.

Friday, December 1 — It was a chocolate star wrapped in gold foil. It was just your basic solid chocolate with some peppermint flavoring. Actually, I don't see anything about peppermint flavoring on the ingredients. Come to think of it, all of these chocolates tasted a little like peppermint. I think since they all sat in the same package for so long, a bit of the mint flavor rubbed off on everything.

Saturday, December 2 — I got a dark chocolate raspberry truffle. Initially, the flavor of this one tasted great. The raspberry flavor could have been stronger, but it was a nice combo of rich dark chocolate and fruitiness. There was a bit of an aftertaste, though—not unlike purple cough syrup.

Sunday, December 3 — Chocolate with sea salt on top and caramel in the middle. The whole sea salt caramel thing isn't really my favorite flavor, but it was done well in this instance. It tasted fairly high quality to me.

Monday, December 4 — I had a case of the Mondays this coming Monday. White chocolate is usually my favorite, but the nice subtle sweetness of it was completely overpowered by the intense peppermint flavor. Way too much peppermint oil! I wish they would have left it out completely.

Tuesday, December 5 — It was like a mini Oreo covered in chocolate and sprinkles...with some mint flavor. Again, I don't even think they added mint to this one, it just absorbed it via osmosis or whatever that weird process is called. It's like when you have something pungent like onions in the fridge and it makes everything else smell and taste a little bit like onions. That happened here except with peppermint. Meh. I'm over cookies already and there are still weeks and weeks before Christmas.

The presentation is interesting and there are two magnetic doors on the sides of the calendar. You could save the box and use it next year, putting your own little goodies in the compartments. The candy is definitely not my favorite, but it's not awful, either. Fifteen bucks at Target. Probably would not buy again next year.

I give this advent calendar 6 out of 10 stars.