"Gone Nutty" Peanut Butter Pop-Tarts

When it comes to peanut butter, I'm the type of guy who likes it on its own.  I love peanut butter sandwiches, especially my triple deckers, and can eat them all week.  When I'm looking for protein, I'll eat tablespoons worth of peanut butter right out from the jar just to get a few grams.  I love it with jelly, particularly when it's Goober!  But when it comes to peanut butter flavored things, that's where I get a little picky.  Reese Peanut Butter Cups?  Hell yeah!  Peanut butter flavored cookies?  Eh, that really depends.  There is no one answer from me when it comes to what I like and what I don't like.

That brings us to these brand new Pop-Tarts!

As soon as I walked into Wal-Mart, I saw the "Gone Nutty" Peanut Butter Pop-Tarts sitting on the shelf.  The box immediately caught my eye because, as you can tell, it's completely different!  It's orange with a yellow glow.  It's like the Sun is illuminating these Pop-Tarts to add a little extra shine on these new varieties.  What you can't tell from the pictures, is that these boxes are embossed to create a 3-D appearance.  Kellogg's really went all out on these boxes and, ya gotta believe, it's because PB is so damn popular.  Luckily, after I picked up the 12-pack of Peanut Butter Pop-Tarts, I found two smaller 6-packs of both the Peanut Butter and Frosted Chocolate Peanut Butter Pop-Tarts.  Now that the tongue twister is over, we can review both editions!

First thing's first, look at the glorious foiled wrappers!  If you've ever had a Pop-Tart, you know what to expect when you open the box.  You're going to get those 2nd place silver wrappers and feel like you haven't won anything.  But, in this case, you're a champion.  

As soon as you open the box, you feel like Charlie himself and you're on your way to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  It's probably the closest I'll ever to get to winning any type of Golden Ticket, so I'm going to savor the moment and run with the emotion.  In all seriousness, I love the gold wrapper and appreciate the extra effort.  The only other time I remember seeing these was last year during the 2012 Summer Olympics.  Kellogg's released a Red White and Berry edition of Pop-Tarts and included the gold foil to represent the gold medal.  I believe the Pop-Tarts have been re-released this year, but don't know about the gold foil.  Perhaps that's been reserved for Peanut Butter; Kellogg's favorite child.

Judging by texture alone, I can already tell you that I'm going to like the Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor better.  The regular PB is chalky.  It's dusty.  Without the frosting, it's plain and boring.  The Chocolate PB is much thicker, has that big slab of chocolate frosting, and smells better than the original.  

But I'm not going to go by look and feel, alone.  I have to pop these into the toaster and give them both a fair chance to wow me and knock me Nutty!

 As expected, the Chocolate Peanut Butter is really good!  It reminds me a lot of a warm Reeses Peanut Butter cup and that's certainly not a bad thing!  These are tasty!  I wasn't sure where'd they'd rank amongst my top 10 Pop-Tart flavors, but I'd put them in the top 5.  My favorite are the Halloween Pop-Tarts, and that may just be because I love Halloween, but these have a similar flavor thanks to the chocolate.  These were, as expected, the better of the two.

The regular Gone Nutty Peanut Butter Pop-Tarts are okay and a bit better than expected when heated, but they're way too dry and flaky.  I'm not the biggest fan.  If I wanted to eat PB, I'd put it on a sandwich before I'd eat this Pop-Tart.  I needed a drink after one bite because it was overwhelming.  And, it's funny, because, like most Pop-Tarts, the filling is so thin that it's barely even noticeable.  I blame the poor review on the "crust" more than the PB.  Too dry for my liking.

Now, I still saw potential in the new Peanut Butter Pop-Tarts.  I knew the wouldn't be released in such an awesome package without the belief that they were going to be a huge success.  Obviously a Kellogg's employee tasted these and said "Oh yeah, I just created Pop-Tart Heaven!  3-D this box, ya'll."  He's from Texas, I don't know why.

So I thought long and hard.  It took me a good 7 seconds to figure out what to do next.  Since I knew my problem with these Pop-Tarts was that they're too dry, I had to solve it by moistening them up.  Well nothing goes better with peanut butter than his best friend, Jelly!  That's right, chocolate!  You're PB's second bestie.  You guys only hang out when Jelly's unavailable.  That's right, chocolate...PB and J will always go together like, well, PB and J.  Yeah, who's jelly now, chocolate?

Much better!  Warm up the Gone Nutty Peanut Butter Pop-Tarts and throw some Jelly on there are you're going to be much happier with the result.  Then you can go and tell your best friend that you two go together like GNPBPT & J.  That'll be the end of that relationship.

Blame it on The 'Daze :)