Burger King Peach Granola Sundae

Soft serve ice cream at fast food restaurants is no astounding aberration from the Holy Grail of All Things Caloric. Restaurants like Shake Shack and Culver's have turned it into a feat for the stomach and palate, with gourmet flavors of frozen custard and seasonal offers. And yet there's nothing so quintessentially paired such as the classic hot fudge sundae from McDonald's. Burger King has recently gotten into the soft serve game and sent me a gift card to try all of their new sundaes and shakes. Lacking the resources and time to write a fudge-stained suicide note, I decided to try them throughout the month and report my findings.

Burger King's peach granola sundae is the last and latest of the big three to do their own spin on a seasonal sundae, following the success of the Wendy's caramel apple Frosty and McDonald's caramel apple sundae. Peach granola may not quite reek of fall as much as the other two, but it carries its own special place in the dwindling days before autumn really sets in. It bridges the gap between autumnal flavors and the last days of summer, a season that New England really seems to want to hang onto.

The composition of a sundae is key, as evidenced not only by the confusion in my server's voice when I ordered this, as though I'd come from the King's HQ and made it up on the spot to test her, and also when she made it. While I didn't get a chance to snap a photo of her fatherly manager guiding her hands as she constructed it, trust me when I tell you it was worthy of an after school special. For $1.49, this is a neat little innovation on the part of the King. I think this is the first time BK has used peach as an ingredient, and it proves itself to be a worthy contender to more traditional sundae toppings. However, eating this is not an easy feat. If you've eaten frozen fruit before, whether before making a smoothie or just as a snack, you know how agonizingly cold it is to bite into one of those mushy, sweet pieces. It's the same case in this sundae. Each bite had to be held in the mouth for no less than a chilly twenty seconds before the peaches began to thaw and the ice cream melted. The toppings retained the chill for much longer than they should have.

In this sense, it is worth noting that this is exactly the reason why a hot fudge sundae is so palatable. The counterbalance of hot and cold elements is comforting and adds a bit of variety and when it's lacking in either, it ceases to be. With this, the balance was thrown off, and while the peach sauce had nice chunks of fruit and a sweet, jammy flavor, it was all ignored as I tried to diffuse the cold. Heating this up would be much tastier. The granola, applied in abundance, provided a nice crunch to the sundae, but lost its honeyed nuances in the sweetness of the ice cream and peaches. Eaten alone, it was fairly plain and bland. There never seemed to be enough granola to maintain a strong presence in each bite.

Overall, with a few slight changes to the sundae, I think this could be a strong contender for the upcoming fall season. I liked it enough to try it again, and as a die-hard chocolate lover, my endorsement for anything containing fruit is ground-breaking within itself. At the very least, it's an innovative and different sweet treat than the standard sauce-drenched sundaes, and makes for a delicious seasonal dessert.

Birthday Sriracha Nectarine Crisp

Good news- I'm no longer MIA!

Bad news- I don't think I have any readers in the immediate vicinity of this awesome kitchen. Because if you were, I'd hand out steaming bowls of this beautiful birthday crisp, of which we have leftovers, from Tuesday's birthday bacchanal.
It's been a whirlwind of a week for us. My new website is in its final stages of development. We've been spending some good quality time with family and friends, too. We started off last weekend by taking a trip down to my mom's to start my birthday celebration and celebrate my father's wedding, and throughout the week, extended the partying for a few days here and there.

On my actual birthday, we relaxed and hung out, and I made this beautiful crisp. Easily the best part of the weekend, tied for first place with today's purchase of a Fur Real kitten to boggle our own kitten.

This recipe is from Budget Bytes, and it's anything but budget-looking. Sriracha and nectarines seemed like a no-brainer, that is, in a marinade. In a crisp, though, I was skeptical. Using a sauce of honey, cinnamon, and sriracha, which, again, wouldn't be out of place slathered on some chicken, humble nectarines are transformed into a fun dessert.

In this sense, it reminds me of the talking stuffed kitten. It's a fun experiment with whimsical results and wasn't a huge risk to take. I made a few changes to the recipe from the original version. I used a special apricot honey creme, courtesy of Honey Ridge Farms and their PR firm. The honey's rich, deep flavor boosted the nectarines, and used about twice the amount of sriracha as called for in the recipe. I didn't feel like the original featured the heat and prickle enough, but my modification really drove that point home. I added some hot cayenne pepper for color in the streusel part, but it disappeared while cooking.

The best part of this recipe was that it made a ton of crisp, and each 1/4, 1/3 cup serving was just enough to enjoy without going overboard. It wasn't overly sweet and the heat made it easier to gauge when I wanted to stop eating rather than eating too much of it at once. I think next time I'd cut down on the butter and use about twice the cornstarch or tapioca to thicken it. It was a little soupy. It was an incredibly unique dessert, though, and paired perfectly with a Thai dinner and a spot of birthday wine, a poised yet quirky 2006 Zind Humbrecht Gewurztraminer Herrenweg de Turckheim. Delicious and filling, and a fantastic way to kick off another year. After all, what better dessert for a Riesling and Gewurz fanatic is there?

Trader Joe's ¡Mango! ¡Mango! Fruit and Yogurt Gummies

After I work out, I reward myself with something small to eat. Usually, it's gummies. Today I rewarded myself not for working out, but for sitting through the entirety of Ree Drummond's premiere episode of her new show on The Food Network. Is there nothing that ginger buffoon can't infiltrate? Even my sacrosanct workout ritual is now sullied with her pinched grimace. Soon, the grocery store. Soon, my sex life. So after my G ritual, as my pasty Swedish skin refuses to tan and laundry is for people with lives, I took a brief jaunt to Trader Joe's to check out the latest goods.

Little did I know, of course, that the path of Hurricane Irene, mere incontinence when I arrived at the store, would lead me directly to the bombardment of bumper stickered Prius cars and corn oil powered bicycles hinting at the frenzy inside for the last cases of organic tofu chili and free range bottled kombucha. We escaped with a few necessities (read: frozen pizza) and these gummies, half of which we ate in the car on the ride home. These are new from Trader Joe's, at least in our area, and are surprisingly made in Germany. Regardless of their provenance, they are exceptionally good. Their bite in relation to Sharkies or Haribo fare is very, very stiff, with an almost meaty, substantial chew. One gum takes about six or seven good chops to macerate it into oblivion.

The gummies came in three flavors, all incorporating mango into the chew. There was a plain mango gummy, a mango and yogurt, and a mango and passionfruit. Personally, I would have liked to see a mango chili as well. The molding was decent and did a good job at mimicking the rough shape of a mango. The texture wasn't filmy or overly oily, but slick and smooth. Each flavor replicated the flavor of a mango, with a tangy, creamy, somewhat mild peachy flavor. They were quite jammy, with a richness similar to fruit leather with the sweetness coming mainly from the fruit without relying on too much extra sugar. The yogurt flavor added a sweet creaminess to its gummy, but didn't really taste like yogurt. Of the three, our favorite was probably the passionfruit and mango as the tartness from the passionfruit complimented the mango beautifully. Unfortunately, there were very few of these in the bag. It was roughly 60% plain mango and 20% each of the yogurt and passionfruit gummies.

These were phenomenal and very well made. The chew of these was enough to tire our jaws out after half the bag and we finished the bag over the course of an afternoon. For a mere $1.99, these were not only an excellent value, but were a sophisticated way to enjoy a classic childhood treat. I'll definitely get these again, and am hoping that Trader Joe's continues to tinker with gummies.

Avocado week: Beverage

Riding on our Limered-induced addiction to bubble tea, Keepitcoming and I decided to try our hand at copying the avocado boba that Joe and co. have been churning out.

Needless to say, our prototypes for an avococktail were trashed and the avocado boba wasn't quite the right texture, so we wound up making an avocado milkshake. Know ye, a judicious application of avocado will save you headaches later on from trying to slurp it out of the glass. The mixture gets extremely thick!

Wendy's Berry Almond Chicken Salad

Last night, Swagger, FF, and I took a jaunt in the jalopy so I could bribe them into eating some of the fast food world's newest offerings. I ended up eating this one myself, the new Berry Almond Chicken Salad from Wendy's along with their new Wild Berry Tea. The press release came in a scant three hours before I tried the salad, and boasted a plethora of things I love, including an exhaustive array of one specific component of the salad. Or so I thought. What with the recent mayonnaise-based chicken salad popularity in the Subway and Arby's markets, I expected a similar coup from their female counterpart with the advertising focused on the trendy acai and fruit additions, but it turned out to look like most of the salads on the commercial market today.

All of the components of this salad were represented differently than how I'd expected them to be. With an absurd $6.99 price tag, I inwardly groaned. Not because I'd also just bought Swagger twenty five spicy chicken nuggets, but because I'd never willingly spent so much on a vegetable based salad before. From the get-go, the salad distinctly separates itself into two categories: ingredients that work well together, and ingredients that just fall short.

This being the first day of the salad's nationwide debut, I was disappointed, but not surprised, that my local Wendy's employees got the chicken wrong. Instead of the grilled chicken, one of the spicy chicken fillets was diced up in the salad. Oddly enough, this combination worked. With the nutty creaminess from the parmesan, the chicken's spice was toned down and I found myself enjoying the different play of textures within each bite. The salad appears to give you your money's worth in the parmesan department. The entire upper third of my bowl was filled with curly parmesan slices. The berries, though obviously fresh and juicy, came few and far between with each bite. The blueberries erred toward the anemic side and ended up uselessly rolling into the nether regions of the bowl, but the strawberries were the real star of the show, providing less flavor than the more powerful proteins, but a sweetness that balanced the dish out. The lettuce, some pieces clearly leftover from crappy iceberg salads and others, leafy and earthy, brought it all together with an interesting textural distinction and vaguely healthy air.

Honestly, if the salad had just stopped at chicken, cheese, berries, and a little arugula on top, I'd have been happy right there. With the addition of more textural elements, like the raspberry-acai vinaigrette and the toasted almonds, the salad took an irritating spin toward the overloaded. Both the nuts and the sauce completely disappeared behind the wakes of the more powerful flavors. The sauce left a wet, acidic aftertaste behind and the nuts acted as though they weren't there at all. It bothered me that elements that definitely bumped the price and calorie level of the salad played no integral role in improving the flavor.

Overall, I was pleased that Wendy's, in attempting to go beyond the traditional constraints of limp, over-dressed fast food vegetal fare, provided a good prototype for its imitators, but could not find enough to enjoy about this salad that justified its price tag and uniqueness. In a fast food market, this is an anomaly, but for home cooks, Wendy's isn't reinventing the wheel.

Cranberry Citrus Oat Newtons Fruit Thins

If you remember my post about cereal, you'll know that it often gets the short end of the stick come breakfast time. Well, like cereal, cookies rarely ever get their due when I need a snack. I've been spoiled with a plethora of good homemade cookies so I rarely give notice to their storebought counterparts. That's right- I'm "that guy" who turns away Girl Scouts when they're selling cookies. Recently, Nabisco came out with a cookie that seemed to combine the best of Nabisco Fruit Crisps with the eponymous Fig Newtons with different, if not eclectic, flavors and a strange dearth of marketing. It was almost refreshing. Nobody was telling me to defriend ten friends on Facebook to get a free pack of Fruit Thins in a "Thin your Friends" campaign. The Old Spice Guy wasn't hawking these. It was great, but strange. It was only when Keepitcoming Love spotted these in the grocery store that I remembered them and decided to try them out for Healthy Month.Three of these little buggers will set you back 140 calories. With three Oreos at 160 calories and three Chips Ahoy cookies at 160 calories, they didn't seem to have much of a health advantage over any other leading brand. But I'm a sucker for an interesting flavor and the package looked like it provided a thick, soft cookie with a jammy filling.
Well, as you can see, I was a little off base. The cookie is rather flat with a wide surface area and isn't filled, but studded with dried fruit pieces. That was a little disappointing. The bag, a neat resealable dealy like ground coffee, had thirty cookies inside. At $4.29 at Stop and Shop, this puts them above the average price of most cookies. The initial flavor is oaty and nutty and very heavy on the citrus, with more of an orange flavor than any other. The cookie base really reminds me of animal or graham crackers, with a buttery and slight salinity. The cranberries are only slightly present in the cookie, more as a textural irregularity than an additional layer of flavor. It was good and different from what I normally encounter in snacks, but not impressive enough to warrant the price tag. Maybe I'd have better luck with the other flavors. If you're hesitant, too, don't fret. Just wait a little while- with the lack of marketing and high price, this looks like a product we'll see on bargain shelves six months from now.

A. Fieschi Mostarda di Cremona

Where did all the apothecaries go? As I write this I feel like I'm giving the weltschmerz laced air of a woman who has seen it all and bought the t-shirt. Granted, I have never seen an apothecary, but I would trade the sterile, monochromatic blandness of Walgreen's Pharmacy for those musty coiffers. The closest thing I've found lies in foreign groceries, the kinds in small cities where dust comes free with every purchase and meat comes in alive and often leaves alive as well. This particular treat resembles those murky jars with mysterious contents and comes from First Tracks as an intriguing gift. With a little research, we found that mostarda di Cremona is a condiment from Northern Italy consisting of preserved fruits in a mustard powder sauce. Despite looking a lot like alien eggs, it's quite a unique regional product. It's one of those things that has been around for centuries, unbeknownst to most of the American population. I had not heard of this prior to receiving it, making it that much more intriguing.First Tracks advised us to consume the little fruits with preserved Italian meat, like proscuitto, but before that, we had to perform an initial investigation. In other words, I needed to touch that fruit. It's not every day you get to pry tiny fruits out of a gel-filled jar. The fruits inside were mainly stone fruits- peaches, nectarines, pears, and such, but also included a tiny orange. The consistency was thicker than a standard canned fruit syrup and more like a corn syrup texture- just as sticky. It had a spicy, sweet scent. The strangest thing about it, though I suppose this was more disorientation strange than actually strange, was that it tasted exactly like mustard, though with this thick, syrupy mouthfeel. Definitely unique.
The little fruits inside were surprisingly firm with mushiness only from the baby pear. When we cut into them, they harbored a crystalline, jellied texture reminding me of solidified polymers and tasted like the sauce in varying degrees. Out of all the fruits, the orange worked best with the spicy gel, the rind infused with a bitter, sweet flavor and a citrusy zing from the oils. I'd definitely try chopping this up in sesame noodles or on top of some roasted chicken. It was the kind of flavor that really seems to impart its sensations on other foods. We wanted to try these in a traditional application, so for dinner tonight we made a prosciutto and fresh mozzarella pizza with a few sliced fruits on top. Keepitcoming snacked on a few slices with some pieces of prosciutto as an antipasto. To drink, we took the cava and basil cocktail from The Roost and tweaked it to our liking. The end result was casual, and yet decadently sophisticated, something I could see myself eating out of the fridge as a snack or serving as a light summer lunch to friends. We extracted the little gems and sliced them into translucent wedges on top of the pie. Though we tried to wash some of the syrup off for fear of burning, a good deal of it seeped through the pizza crust and caramelized into a sticky area underneath. However, this was no problem- it transformed an unseasoned crust into a delicious, savory sweet treat! It did make it a bit difficult to handle. The flavor of the fruits really changed during the cooking process. The orange still remained the most intense and sauce-infused, but the peaches were gelatinous and juicy. The overall flavor was a charred, meaty, juicy spiciness, like pineapple ham or citrus marinated meat. On top of the pizza with crispy mozzarella, it was absolutely heavenly. A natural combination- meat, fruit, and cheese, just seemed to be bumped up another level as it was paired with peppery, piquant flavors. The heating element seems to be tricky- heating it too much dilutes the full spectrum of flavors.If I hadn't already loved such a combination, this would have rendered me into a convert for sure. I was surprised at how versatile a condiment it was. I think my next step would be to incorporate this into a dessert, perhaps as a key ingredient in an individual crisp or mixed in with some ice cream. It really defied its hyper-specific ingredients, creating a delightful and universal set of flavors for all seasons.

Archer Farms Blueberry Pomegranate Real Fruit Twists

My suitemates and I are obsessed with Target. Ever since we won a gift card for the third most awesome looking suite, we've been buying snacks by the dozen. Third most awesome. That's going on the resume. Likewise, Keepitcoming and I love the snacks at Target, so most of my life is infused with Target joy. When I reviewed the Sharkie-like fruit twists a month or so back, I was enamored. Now there's a new flavor in town. A powerful flavor. A powerfruit flavor. Blueberry pomegranate.Pomegranate is hit or miss. For that matter, so is blueberry. When done correctly, it can be satisfyingly sweet with the perfect balance of herby, tea flavor and fruity love. When done badly, it's astringent yet achingly sweet, like being saddled up and strapped by Daria. Or Pepper Ann. Ah, Rule 34 at its best. In this case, they straddle somewhere in the middle. The chews are very aromatic, moreso than their strawberry mango counterparts, and smell sticky and slightly chemically. Luckily, their flavor fares much better. They are not very pomegranate heavy, but rely more on the sweetness of the blueberries and taste natural rather than relying on artificial additives.Again, I loved the chewy texture on these, because they had that organic graininess and jammy lush mouthfeel, but they had to be at least twice as sticky as the last ones with that strange wet, slippery feeling. It made me want to wash my hands or wipe them on the couch. Overall, though, not a bad snack.

Quaker True Delights Wild Blueberry Muffin Instant Oatmeal

I always wing a silent prayer to the Flying Spaghetti Monster as I dive into my first bite of foods that try to imitate other foods. It just seems a little farfetched, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster himself, to spend so much time and research money to make a food only to have it taste like something else. And then it's like a cruel joke- to the blind.

"Wait, the fuck is this? I ordered a muffin." LOL!

That's actually not funny at all. But I outsource my writing these days, so blame India for my problems. Quaker True Delights Wild Blueberry Muffin Instant Oatmeal, aside from being a card-carrying member of the Obnoxiously Long Title Association, does exactly that- play a cruel joke on my mouth by failing at both the food it attempts to mimic and the actual food form it comes in. I usually trust the Quakers as far as philosophy and oatmeal go. It's a brand that has stayed unwaveringly familiar after all these years, despite a failed advertising scheme with the ever-obscure Jordin Sparks, now relegated to informing America about products that ensure healthy bowel movements and artery declogging. Ahem. The man on the box isn't nearly as scary as the Burger King. And it's a healthy and easy food to make.I'm sure you already know by now that this does not taste like a muffin. Far from it. Maybe gas station muffin batter, whatever that means. But I was surprised when this fell far from my normal expectations of Quaker Oatmeal. It was pretty bad. From the get-go, the oatmeal, after being mixed with boiling water, had a creamy, slimy texture, suggesting the addition of a creamer for an experience with more indulgences than Tetzel. Hey-o! The flavor was even stranger. Despite being dotted by small, turd-like "wild blueberries," about as "wild" as shrunken testicles, it carried the burden of tasting identical to the unpleasant combination of both lemon and coffee creamer. No joke. And the coffee creamer was actually a welcome change compared to the strangeness of the other flavors. The blueberry flavor disappeared in the strange myriad of all the other flavors and when isolated, tasted fake. Come on. Even McDonald's makes syrup balls that actually taste like syrup.It seems as though Quaker, in a brazen foodglomerate experiment, tried too hard on the "muffin" aspect of their oatmeal and rested on their laurels with the oatmeal. Too bad, because that's the main reason why I ate it in the first place. Otherwise I would have eaten a freaking muffin and left it at that. Quaker normally scores high with their breakfasts, but in this case, seems like too far of a reach to guarantee success on.

Tsubu Tsubu Orange Hi-Chew

Hi-Chew, like most Japanese candies, undergoes more flavor changes and makeovers than Ru Paul and frequently keeps updating its line of limited edition and regional candy flavors. Needless to say, it can be difficult for a food blogger to keep up with the trends, especially with the high overseas shipping prices it costs to import them. But every so often, my local Asian grocery will have a few new flavors for me to try out.

This flavor plays off the idea of using Japanese onomotopoeia as a textural component. In this case, "tsubu tsubu" refers to the sensation of chewing little bits of something hard within something soft, similar to bubble tea or in this case, fruit rind bits. The candy is made up of a soft, chewy orange center and cream-based outer later studded with pieces of orange rind or imitation rind.If you've had Hi-Chew, you're familiar with the alluringly unique texture. It starts out rock hard and tough to chew, and then melts away into a creamy, taffy-like sweet that lasts for about a minute before you're able to swallow it. The pieces of rind don't interrupt the smoothness of the candy at all, rather, they meld quite nicely into the overall experience.The flavor is mainly orange and cream, like a slightly more intense creamsicle, but with a hint of mint at the end that reminds me of the short-lived Crest orange toothpaste with a much better execution. The little pieces of orange rind provided a slightly bitter counterpart to the sweetness of the candy and gave a nice bite to the chew. I definitely enjoyed these. They weren't the most unique or unusual Hi-Chew flavor I've tried but offered an authentic and satisfying taste.

King Leo Soft Pomegranate Puffs

Whoa, son, "soft right out of the box." Probably great for these candies, not so much for Justin Timberlake and a certain SNL song, if you know what I'm sayin'.

You know what I'm sayin'.

Anyhow, these were some puffs from King Leo that I did not want to pass on. Despite being more of the "hugs not drugs" type, I know my puff. This is not a puff. It's a hard candy. I expected these to be the love child of melting restaurant mints after the check comes and marshmallows, conceived to a soundtrack of Billy Squier's "My Kind Of Lover," but this was not the case. It was less of a beautiful hybrid and more of a discounted mutt with a heart, harboring a mediocre texture with a fascinating flavor.The pomegranate flavor of these starts out accurate, like sucking on a few fresh pomegranate seeds, but then turns acidic and a little bitter and invades the mouth as the puff breaks apart. I really enjoyed sucking on the outer shell before it separated. It's difficult to bite into these because they seem to have a thin candy shell, like that of the Earth's, before exposing the inner core. It's an odd texture, because after it gets soft in your mouth (whoa!) it pills off in small pieces and dissolves shortly after. One puff is just enough because after that it's just sour and sweet enough to adequately satiate.This is the most accurate pomegranate flavor I've had in a candy, and for that, I would order these again. On someone else's bill. However, get this essence into pomegranate chews or smokeable rocks or something because the puff is not a matching vessel for the flavor.

Polar Natural Pomegranate Seltzer

I feel like seltzer really toes the line of drink preferences. Soda is obvious, you either like it or you don't, and then you're a giant pussy. Juice is great until you're six, and after that, it's just a mixer. Albeit a BITCHTASTIC mixer, but still. Energy drinks are only appropriate if you're 14 and raging at the world or in college and studying for finals. Milk is all across the board because everyone has different preferences of fat content, and everyone over the age of 10 in most countries has a glass of wine with dinner, but seltzer is a wild card. Like Mr. T. It's pushed aside for more palatable beverages, but can be a tasty addition to beverages or a decent stand-alone drink.

I've always seen it as a cop-out to a real beverage- not enough fruit flavoring and/or artificial colors to warrant being an alternative to juice, and not enough excitement to be lumped into the soda conglomerate. But then the PR department of seltzer decided to revamp that shit for the 21st century, yo, so now the good citizens of America are faced with difficult flavor choices such as Georgia peach, triple berry, watermelon-basil, or vanilla.One of my phabulous suitemates, Ptaradactyl, was kind enough to let me borrow not only one of her Polar Springs pomegranate seltzers, but also a shot glass to photograph it in and drink out of because I am Classy Spice in this crib. The seltzer is noncaloric and boasts luscious pomegranates on the front of the can. That is literally all I can say about this, and that's coming from someone who regularly composes 1,000 word write-ups about limited edition hamburgers.

The soda is harshly carbonated with a nicely prominent pomegranate flavor. The scent is stronger than the flavor, which is a little disappointing. It's not sweet, but is tart and is a much less pungent than pomegranate juice. This is a good selling point, as I tend to get tired of the sour flavor of that particular libation. The aftertaste tastes a bit saccharine, less like fruit and more like Fruit 2 O.If I were to have this again, I'd probably use it to dilute some juice, but as a stand-alone beverage, I'm not very inclined to keep drinking it. I suppose I need a little more flavor in my drinks, because this just feels a little too unsatisfying for regular consumption. Mad props to staying true to the fruit, though.

Archer Farms Strawberry Mango Real Fruit Twists

I'm always a little skeptical of foods that have the disclaimer "real" in front of them. Does it need to be stated in print? I mean, that stripper told me she had a real penis. But that's a different story. On a whole, I tend to enjoy grocery store food lines, like Archer Farms and Nature's Promise, so when Keepitcoming and I saw these Sharkies-esque fruit snacks in Target, (or Tar-Jay for the socialites) we were immediately intrigued. Could these take the place of our beloved, though difficult to procure, shark-shaped fruit snacks?

The answer is yes. A thousand Great Whites screaming "yes" before they tear into their victim's hapless, vulnerable flesh. These are delicious.They're bite-sized tiny braids of intertwining flavors- strawberry and mango. Two flavors I'd expected to be distinctive of each other, but in most applications, may have been muddled. Separating the flavors was a smart move, as they really melded perfectly. The tartness of the berries and the sweet mango tastes completely natural and jammy. The fruit snacks themselves are the perfect size and have a nice, pulpy chew to them with a resistance similar to fruit leather.The best part about these is that fifteen of them is only one hundred calories. And they're all natural and good for you, at least in comparison to other fruit snacks you could be consuming. We nommed these quickly and are excited to have found such an accessible alternative to Sharkies. Highly recommend these to those who can handle them. Infants and crying babies not included.