Here’s a sweet seasonal food product that until yesterday I had never tried before: pumpkin spice-flavored marshmallows! (Try as I may, I can never bring myself to call marshmallows “mallows.” It just doesn’t have the same appeal.) Apparently these have been around since last year and were a huge hit on a lot of baking and cooking sites, but since they’re new to me I decided to review them anyway. For shiggles.
Believe it or not, I received this package of Kraft Jet-Puffed Pumpkin Spice Mallows as part of a Halloween-themed birthday gift. The first thing I noticed was the very pumpkin-y scent, which I could smell through the bag before I even opened it.
In addition to being flavored with pumpkin-spice and dusted with a subtle orangey-brown color, these marshmallows are pumpkin-shaped. That’s fun and exciting…right?
Once again I’m feeling the need to apologize for my phone’s crappy camera and my complete lack of photography skill. So, yeah, sorry about that. On the plus side I discovered that taking pictures of pumpkin-shaped marshmallows is more fun than it should be.
I was a little worried they wouldn’t taste good since the smell of pumpkin spice in these is so over-powering, but I was pleasantly surprised. The pumpkin-y taste is, thankfully, much more subtle than the smell. On the other hand, because these are just marshmallows, it’s also kind of a tease. It’s a bit like hovering over a freshly-baked pumpkin pie and breathing in the fumes. But I’d much rather eat marshmallows that are faintly kissed with fake pumpkin flavor than marshmallows that taste overwhelmingly like fake pumpkin flavor–so these get a pass from me.
The All-Important Hot Chocolate Test
Because what good is a marshmallow if it doesn’t taste good in hot chocolate? For this review I went the extra mile and brewed up a steaming cup of hot chocolate, which took all of a few seconds thanks to my Keurig–and yes, that totally qualifies as “going the extra mile” for me–and plopped in a few Pumpkin Spice Mallows.
I let them sit a few moments so the marshmallows would start to dissolve and get all melty in the chocolate before taking a sip.
What did it taste like?
Happiness.
So the bottom line from me on Pumpkin Spice Mallows is this: passable as a standalone snack, AMAZING in a cup of hot chocolate.
P.S. — My Halloween to-do list now includes using Pumpkin Spice Mallows to make Pumpkin Spice Rice Krispy Treats.
