two-bite filled red velvet cupcakes

Early Happy Valentine's to me! (and you, I suppose). Time to celebrate with these Canadian nut-free cupcakes. Sadly they are one of the most toxic edibles around in terms of the ingredos (artificial, red 40, intense fat/sugar content), but may I repeat: nut-free cupcakes. I wasn't sure what "filled" would mean, but it turns out there is a little blop of frosting on the inside, like a Twinkie! (or ho-ho? whatever the chocolate twinkie equivalent is, IDK, that segment of the market is closed to me). Honestly the taste is kinda overwhelming/weird/not great?? Two-bites is too few to really figure out the components. Let's try to break it down:

Top frosting: supposedly cream cheese frosting, but tastes exactly like the extremely sweet vanilla frosting they always have on these things (or on a store bought cake, etc). Very very sweet, too sweet, but OK in tiny amounts. There is also red sugary sprinkle stuff on top, which is cute and I think just powdered sugar. Ah, there is the tiniest tangy note at the end, so it really is cream cheese flavored, but it's like, the vitamin water of cream cheese flavor. I would think there was something slightly expired about it if I didn't know it was cream cheese. 

Cakey bit: Yes, it is red velvet color (dark red), and very moist. Also very sweet. Basically chocolate flavor, but slightly black forest-y. But also was too sweet. Might be okay on its own though.

Inner frosting pocket: I think it's just the same as the top frosting but it's honestly impossible to tell. Too soft/small of a cakey to be sure. Like trying to taste fig newton filling without the outside bit (impossible).

My general assessment is just: these are way too sweet!!! If you crushed up one of these and blended it into unsweetened frozen yogurt or something, it'd still make a crazy sweet dessert. (Would like to try that though. I miss froyo. sniffle.) And I like very sweet things, a lot!!  But somehow the attempt at complexity in flavor & design makes the sugar content more egregious, I guess. Still I do like that they're making different flavors and stuff. The more nut-free desserts the better, it's just, I wish they were better. Ah well. Keep at it, Canada! And send us your nut-free Mars bars while you're at it!! 

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [5.50$ish?]
Taste: 6/10 

McCormick Rubbed Sage

I like my sage like I like my elbows... rubbed. This is an odd duck. Of course there was no reasonable fresh sage at the store, so I resorted to the dried version, of which you can get ground or rubbed. No leaf. Why no leaf? They have other herb leaf (dried). Mysterious. I guess the rubbing releases the flavors.  I used about one tsp of this in my good ol' pumpkin pasta, and it was as if I used nothing at all. Needs more rubbing! No allergy or freshness complaints, though. Smells like sage. Sage is a medium good herb. All is well.

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [8$ish, but a BTGOF sale also]
Taste: 6/10 

Boursin Basil & Chive

After so many mid-to-good recipes with the very-meh-on-its-own boursin garlic & herbs, I finally decided to try a different boursin (in more stuffed mushrooms #inmymushroomera)! But even though basil and garlic are very different tastes outside of a boursin blop, in boursin these flavors were near indistinguishable. The "cheese" (such as it is) is just very overpowering. I don't like it that much, but it's in so many of my brain-diet recipes that I may as well alternate between the boursin flavors until I develop a discerning enough palate to prefer one. Actually, this one is slightly better to me -- slightly more herb flavor, slightly brighter -- but that might just be the novelty of it. As of now this is my mild favorite between the two. Bore-sin!

Overall
Cost: 4/10 [7$!!!!]
Taste: 6/10 

Pepperidge Farm Chessmen - Cinnamon Sugar

It's raining (chess)men! Hallelujah? I wouldn't go that far. These are striking in appearance, a very bright orange buttery top not represented by the packaging. The taste is identical to my grandma's cinnamon log cookies (something like these, I think), which were always my least favorite holiday cookie (but still delicious). More dense and gritty cookie than a shortbread (or than the other chessmen), so at least it's unique. I guess that's down to cinnamon+molasses, plus less butter/shortening(?). It's less delicious than the other chessmen, because butter > cinnamon, but if you like a cinnamon dessert, this is a great iteration of it. Plus there is still a nice buttery undertone, and a mild cronchiness. Less good than the OGs, though, for me. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10 

Guittard Choc-Au-Lait Baking Chips

Choc-au-lait is a silly name, played very seriously here. Two thumbs up. Yes, I really went deep into my baking chocolate stores when I was snowed in, and now they're fully depleted. But I actually did bake with these (in addition to eating some as a wee snack, of course)! They taste a lot like the outside of a Hug, which isn't the greatest tasting white chocolate (maybe there really is no great tasting white chocolate and my childhood memories aren't to be trusted?) but did grow on me. Most importantly, these are white chocolate chips that are safe! (Allergy-wise and brain diet wise, if we still cared about that last thing). They're a small size, like a normal chocolate chip (serving size=30), which is notable because the Guittard milk choco chips are like twice as big as these (serving size=12). The small size is less fun but probably better for melting, baking, etc. Overall I am not blown away with delight, but these are the only nut-free white chocolate chips I know of, so they are very important nevertheless.

Overall
Cost: 4/10 [~15$]
Taste: 7/10
Market importance: 10/10 

Pepperidge Farm Salted Caramel Chessmen

Breaking news: I've finally left my house. Just in time for these New Cookies! There's also a new pecan flavor (which contains soy protein and "pecan distillate"), but this flavor seems to be safe from both of those evils. Honestly their allergy labelling is not so hot, but, I've been eating their cookies for so long that I'm like "surely it's fine". Plus they taste good. 

Well, I don't know that there was anything wrong with regular ol' chessmen (chesspeople), but these do indeed add an additional level of salty, buttery caramel coating. Both as a top glaze and as little speckles in the cookie itself. It's good, and increases the textural diversity (the caramel speckle parts are extra cronchy), but it's really not too different from the original flavor. I guess I prefer this version, but it's a very close call!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10 

Sauder's Free Range Large Brown Eggs

Whew, things are bad over here, y'all. But these eggs are OK. Honestly they aren't as good as my usual white eggs, because those were jumbo and these are large and it turns out that large is actually small and jumbo is actually large. Starbucks-ass egg sizing!! Older hens lay larger eggs, so maybe there's a baby boom among chickens, which I guess is good. That's probably what's going on. No questions, please. 

But I digress. These are free range, which is good. Apart from being weirdly small, and brown, they also have thinner shells than I'm used to, with some red specks inside of unknown origin. Are they chicken parts?? Wee feet?? Blood?? Best not to think about such things. They taste fine. Only one was cracked. No complaints, because large is actually fine if you eat 2. 

Overall
Cost: 6/10 [4$]
Taste: 6/10