Day 296 - Mini Hold the Cone

Today’s product, Mini Hold the Cone, was recommended to me by Elizabeth, age 5 (AND A HALF, apparently the half is uber important!) and her mom.  Her mom said Elizabeth thought these were great and they thought we should try them.  So of course WE DID.  I mean, Elizabeth is so stinkin’ cute I think I would do anything she said, wouldn’t you?  (Side note – she is also really smart.  This girl is the whole package, friends.)

Elizabeth, the world's cutest reviewer, in action, carefully tasting a cone to prepare for her review....

Here is what our little friend, age 5 ½ had to say about these little ice cream cones:  “I give these a FIVE, because there is chocolate around the edge of the cone!!  And they’re TINY, so you can eat BUNCHES of them!!”.  Ahhh, I am sure this makes her mother so proud…  (Her mom tries to feed her healthy stuff, I wonder if Elizabeth snuck these in the shopping cart…)

David, our second adorable reviewer

Here is what David, age slightly older than 5 ½ had to say about these:  “The chocolate ice cream is good.  The chocolate around it is good, although somewhat thin as a coating.  The waffle cone is kind of chewy to get a bit of, but it does taste just like a very nice sugar cone.  The portion size is a little bit small – I recommend eating 4 or 5 of these for a portion…  And I guess I am usually – I like a cone once the ice cream has MELTED INTO IT a bit more to soften it up, but there isn’t really time for that with these.  I would give it a 3.75.”

The box of cones

Ours were chocolate

And here is what I think (again, I am coming in at a “more mature” age than Elizabeth):  The bottom of the cone has some chocolate dribbled in it to make it solid so that the ice cream can’t dribble through, I like that.  I think the ice cream is good.  The chocolate on the top is fine.  But to me the cone tastes like cardboard.  I love a good sugar cone and this one doesn’t cut it for me.  It is hard to bite and not all that tasty of a cone.  I agree with David that the portion size is small.  I think these would be good if you had little kids and you wanted to control their sugar intake.  I think you could give them one of these and they could eat it and not be bouncing off the walls.  The idea of these pre-made tiny cones is really good, I just wish there was a method to make them without turning the cones into cardboard.  I give them a 3.

David thinks you could serve these at a cocktail party, but I disagree on that one and would instead serve them at Elizabeth’s 6^th birthday party.

A shot of our guest reviewer hamming it up for the camera

Overall, I think if you have KIDS this is a good thing to pick up at Trader Joe’s.  They are pretty yummy, fast, and a cute petite size.

I almost forgot to mention what a SWELL NAME this product has.  Trader Joe’s is excellent at puns – Hold the Cone, adorable. 

Not a bad price - there are 8 cones in the package.  The recommended serving size is ONE, but I think both
David and Elizabeth would laugh at that as they each ate half a box of cones.

Sooooo, we have 3 reviewers with vastly different scores.  We have a 3, a 3.75, and a 5…  Since Elizabeth is a kid, and since this is her first review with us, I think HER SCORE should count more than the adult scores.  So I will “blend” the 3 together instead of doing the math and getting an actual average.

P.S. - NEWSFLASH!!  This just in from Elizabeth's mom, DeeLayne, "My PSA for the day:  Beware the mini or fun sized food!  I've recently discovered mini ice cream cones, but they work on the same premise as fun sized candy bars:  you eat about 40 of htem, because, hey, they're tiny!"
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED...

Price – $2.99 (works out to .37 cents per tiny cone)

Rating – 4.25 (thanks to Elizabeth :))

Day 132 - Fleur De Sel Caramel Sauce

This.  Sauce.  Is.  Amazing.

Seriously, this is good stuff.  You need to get a jar, and then you once you lick every bit of caramel out of THAT jar, you will get another, and another, and another…

This is the jar!!!  Get it!  At our Trader Joe's it is in the baking section.

I try to make sure we keep one of these in our fridge.  Cuz you never know when you are going to need to dip an apple slice in caramel…  Or have some vanilla ice cream that could use some sprucing up with a drizzle of warm caramel sauce.  Or some blueberries that want a topping.  Or a slice of apple pie that could use some pizzazz…  Or, oh, oh, oh, I just remembered this lusciousness I invented – a crumpet with oozing butter, thin banana slices, and warm caramel sauce…  OH MAN am I getting hungry!

Just look at it!!!  Isn't it lovely?  It is even more DELICIOUS than it is pretty

The only “bad” thing I can even think of to say about this product is that it is hard to get out of the jar.  We keep it in the fridge after we open it, and it seems weird to me to heat the whole jar up in the microwave if we are only going to use some of it, only to have to cool the rest of it down in the fridge again.  So I try and scoop the right amount out and put it in a little dish to heat up, but it is tough to scoop out.  It is a two spoon affair.

But I cannot hold that against this caramel sauce.  Dinging it for that little issue would be cruel. 

Get this.  Eat it.  Love it.

Price – $3.49 (a bargain for this much goodness packed into a jar)

Rating - 5