Trader Joe's Mini Ginger Pumpkin Ice Cream Mouthfuls

Confession time yet again: Unlike Nathan and most of the Western world, I'm not a big pumpkin fan. At all. Truth be told, and I realize how deeply I may offend you by saying so, but I really don't get the big fuss about pumpkin this and pumpkin that this time of year. Wanna know something crazy? You know what a pumpkin all by its naked lonesome tastes like? NOTHING. It's all the pumpkin pie spices y'all love - the cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves,whatever else. I'll enjoy a piece of pumpkin pie every once in a while, but everything else - your lattes, your pancakes, your mochi (for goodness sake) - you can have them. All of them. Consider me the anti-Linus, a pumpkin agnostic not personally believing in any Great Pumpkin and lacking any faith in any sort of all-powerful, all-good gourd. This time of year, give me a honeycrisp apple straight from the tree, and that's what fall tastes like to me.

Another favorite autumn taste: ginger cookies, much like some spiced wafers my dad always seemed to pick up to pair with some apple cider. It was only because of those memories that I was personally willing to give these Trader Joe's Mini Ginger Pumpkin Ice Cream Mouthfuls a try.

Man, oh man, oh man....am I glad I did.

These ice cream cookie sandwiches are just about the tastiest dessert I've had from TJ's in a while - even better than that key lime pie I was raving about a couple months back. Not a single complaint from me at all. Much like their semi-minty predecessors, the dominant flavor for these beauteous bites is the cookie itself - soft, a little chewy, super gingery. Perhaps not as gingerish as the triple ginger snaps (the bomb) but close. For a guy who likes ginger as much as I do, they're the idea framework for a tasty little treat. The pumpkin-pie-ish ice cream (not too far off from the Pilgrim Joe variety, if I remember right) is a perfect counterbalance, offering a soft, creamy, kinda sweet kinda spiced filling, that in both texture and taste melds perfectly. For a little extra oomph, let the ice cream get just a little bit melty for a little extra soft creaminess - you won't be sorry.

I love the fact that these are are as small as they are, too. For such a rich, vibrant tasting treat, a normal sized ice cream sandwich would have been too much. When TJ's says "mouthful" here, it's meant quite literally - if I didn't have to worry so much about making a good example for my super-observant two year old, I could easily chomp it down without taking the two or three bites I did. Because they were so small, I can also tell myself they were a "not that bad of a diet cheat" to eat just one (a serving size is two), though, really, I know, that's somewhat debatable.

I've tried pretty hard to come up with any sort of reason to dislike these even a scintilla. I can't. Neither can the wife. If every thing with pumpkin tasted this good, I'd be a much different man. I'd be a believer.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Mini Ginger Pumpkin Ice Cream Mouthfuls: 10 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pie Mochi Ice Cream

Regardless of whether you're in the middle of a pumpkin blitz or on a paleo diet, there's always time to take a break for newfangled cookie butter. So Sonia and I did, just like the Shellys, and we concur with their assessment of the confection. But now, difficult as it may be, it's time for me to return to my strict regimen of pumpkin-flavored desserts.

In this particular instance, we're looking at an Asian-inspired treat meets country pumpkin patch meets dairy farm meets Hawaiian-themed grocery store headquartered in California: Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pie Mochi. If you're familiar with mochi ice cream, not to be confused with mochi potstickers, you'll know that it's basically balls of ice cream coated with a thin, chewy, rice-based shell. Scrump-dilly. And just like most other mochi I've tried, the exterior texture of this pumpkin pie variety is soft, gummy, and delicious.

As for the taste, well...they're perfectly sweet, pumpkin pie spice-laden, and creamy. Pretty yummerrific. That is, if you like the taste of pumpkin ice cream. It was very similar to, if not exactly like, Pilgrim Joe's Pumpkin Ice Cream. And if any of you remember that review—or if you decided to click that link just now—you'll know my main issue with that ice cream was a lack of "pie" texture.

Even though mochi shells are nothing like actual pie crust, they served the same purpose. They added a bit of breadiness to a product that would have otherwise been too smooth for me. Plus there were, in fact, a few crumbs of graham cookie scattered sparsely throughout the ice cream. Even though I would have loved a lot more of the cookie bits, they still added an extra hint of pie-ish-ness. So in that way, I found this product to be much more impressive than its counterpart in a quart cup.

Value-wise, you're getting more ice cream for your buck with Pilgrim Joe's, but in my opinion $3.49 for six mochi is well worth the money. Plus, it's a seasonal item, so it's not like you're going to be purchasing it all the time. All in all, I'm pretty impressed with pumpkin pie mochi, and I have to give it a big thumbs up with 4.5 stars, but with one final note: Try letting them thaw for a few minutes before shoveling them down your gullet, if you can. There's enough texture from the cookie crumbs and mochi shell, so in my opinion, the whole product is better if the ice cream is just a tad melted. 

Sonia gives these little guys 3.5 stars, adding that the pumpkin flavor in the mochi wasn't strong enough, and that she needed to eat three of them before the flavor built up on her taste buds enough to tell it was pumpkin.

Bottom line: 8 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Cookies & Creme Cookie Butter

COOKIE. BUTTER.

Seriously. Just when you thought the speculoos train had left the station. Nothing new to see here in Cookie Butter Town, folks. You got your regular. You got the crunchy, err, crispy. You got it in chocolate. You got it mixed with chocolate. There's cookie butter ice cream. And for those who like their speculoos unbutterfied, there's the regular ol' cookies. There's nowhere else to go with cookie butter, right? Right?


Haha. Nope. We've only just begun!

As amazing as speculoos cookie butter is....there's more than one fish in the sea and one kind of cookie in the world. Trader Joe's is aready pretty famous for their Joe-Joe's in all sorts of variations. Combine those Oreo clones with the cookie butter concept, and voila! Here it is: Trader Joe's Cookies & Creme Cookie Butter.

For those familiar with the concept (and if you're not, you're a better person than me), cookie butter is made from squished up cookies mixed with palm oil and all sorts of other bad stuff that tastes so darn good that most of us don't really care. The outcome is typically a spreadable, occasionally crispy butter, and this particular variation is much the same. It's only the chocolately parts that are like that as the white is a creamy, marshmallowy filling much like typical Oreo filling.

Pretty literally, imagine eating an Oreo in a spreadable form that didn't require much if any chewing, and that's almost exactly what we got here. What have you wrought, TJ's!?!?!

So, it tastes good...but what do you do with it? That's the big question for Sandy and I. We sampled the good ol' 'merican way by taking our spoons directly to the jar. With some thought, we came up with waffles (maybe), toast (occasionally), pretzels, mixing into a smoothie or some ice cream, or eating from the jar. When I looked at the jar for perhaps some ideas, the label said all of the same. So, as tasty as the cookie spread is, it might be of some limited use, which as much as I enjoy all the other cookie butters, I see that as their weak point. Particularly tasty, not particularly versatile. We're open for suggestions here, folks.

Also, and this just a small thing, really, but when I saw hazelnuts were an ingredient, I hoped the cocoa swirl would be at least a little Nutella-esque. It's not really. Oh well.

If this really takes off, I can only imagine where the next cookie butter frontier will be. Chocolate chip cookie butter? Sugar cookie butter? Peanut butter cup cookie butter (or as I would call it, "buckeye butter")? For the holidays, my mom makes awesome Andes Candies cookies and candy cane cookies, amongst others...can we have holiday variations? Is there any kind of cookie we can't make into a butter? Is this really a road we need to go down? Is this why we're all fat? Is the entire "cookie butter" mania really just a Belgian conspiracy for total world domination? So many questions...

Sandy and I will enjoy the jar we have, and while it's tasty, it's not tempting enough for me to bust loose on my diet for it (down 20 pounds in about 2 months!), and once we're out, that'll probably be that. For the $3.69, though, it's a pretty good little occasional mini-indulgence. Matching fours.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Cookies & Creme Cookie Butter: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons