Halloween Bread?
Pepperidge Farm may have peaked with their Goldfish crackers, but this comes close. Keep an eye out for a new pair of autumn “Swirl” breads, in the style of raisin bread, but with fruity bits that are far more appropriate for a season filled with death and monsters. Yes!
On the left, Caramel Apple. On the right, Pumpkin Spice. It’s amazing what simple words like “caramel” and “spice” can do. If these breads had plainer “Apple” and “Pumpkin” titles, I’d be less interested by a factor of forty zillion.
Maybe fifty zillion on the Pumpkin Spice bread, actually. I really need that “spice” in there. Pumpkin is something I’ve never been able to accept as food. The only way I can eat bread stuffed with chunks of pumpkin is with the knowledge that said chunks have been doused with enough edible incense to make my kitchen stink like a 1997 head shop.
This is truly fabulous bread. Big, thick slices, with enough swirls and dots to make each piece double as a Magic Eye puzzle.
Go on, try it. Stare at that Caramel Apple slice for a minute. Don’t tell me you can’t see the snake!
And the aroma? Good God, the loaves are as good as Yankee Candles.
You can see bits of apple and pumpkin in their corresponding slices, mixed with other ingredients that transform these bits into things that are technically no longer fruit. The consistency is akin to jelly bean meat, which is to say, jelly beans without the hard shell. I concede that there’s probably a better way to put that, but in my defense, it was crazy fun to type “jelly bean meat.”
Oh yeah, the flavor. It’s good! I usually don’t go for weirdly stylish breads, but these are cakelike in their breadishness. If the team at Starbucks is truly as evil as someone somewhere is saying right now, we’re like two days away from ‘em selling these out of their gourmet pastry cabinets for three bucks a slice.
Somewhere in the midst of prepping this review, it hit me that BREAD, even this bread, might lack the certain je ne sais quoi necessary to warrant a tribute on the Halloween Countdown. That’s why I broke out the spooky cookie cutters.
Heloise was right: They ain’t just for cookies.
The Caramel Apple slice was supposed to look like a ghost, but the end result is more like Fozzie Bear smoking a joint. I’m fine with that, for reasons numbering as high as four figures.
The Pumpkin Spice slice was supposed to look like a pumpkin. And I guess it does.
Are Pepperidge Farm’s Halloween breads worth trying? Not gonna dignify that with a response. I just showered 450 words’ worth of praise on them. Where were you?
