Autumnal Holiday Liminality

I'm back after a brief respite during which I celebrated Halloween properly, that is, not by writing but by reading ghost stories, drinking candy corn infused vodka, reprising Natalie Portman's role in Black Swan for various costume parties, and stuffing myself with "fun size" candy bars. 

As per The Rules, I will not begin posting on Christmas/holiday seasonal and limited edition foods until the day after Thanksgiving. In the meantime, there are plenty of products issued in celebration of this nebulous pre-Turkey Day festive period to keep me occupied.  Stay tuned.

Reese's Pumpkin

An oldie but goodie seasonal sweet I hope never goes away, the Reese's Pumpkin is larger than your standard Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, and, from my observations, employs richer peanut butter cream.

This to not to say, however, that you should restrict yourself to just one. Pumpkins are most fun in pairs, I think, so why not honor the consumption tradition of the peanut butter cup and eat two at once? Reese's, btw, should offer two in a package to facilitate this practice. Hope they get on that.

Pillsbury's Pumpkin-Faced Sugar Cookies

Not to be confused with Pillsbury pumpkin-flavored cookies.  It's only October 17th and my local Kroger was already very eager to get rid of this "shape and bake" treat and had discounted them to "10/$10." Okay, I'll take one package for one dollar. 

I'm not going to write "baking these cookies couldn't be simpler!" because obviously having someone else bake them for me would be easier. But I will tell you I probably could bake them blindfolded.  Actually, I could probably bake them without even trying, accidentally even, if I tripped, tore open the package, and hurled the cookies into an open oven. 

I put down wax paper on the pan just to feel like I was making some effort.

I remember when I was little thinking that Pillsbury sugar cookies were of a reasonable circumference. Now they are the size of checkers and lend themselves to be eaten by the handful. 

To slow down my rate of consumption I made them into sandwich cookies with store-bought frosting. (Please, like I'm going to waste homemade icing made from unpasteurized milk and Irish butter on these things.)

It worked and I only ate six. 

Snickers Pumpkin

Not to be confused with Peanut Butter Snickers Pumpkin.  Let's be precise, people.  I had moderate expectations for the Snickers Pumpkin based on my experiences with Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins (to be re-reviewed later).  I assumed the themed black wrapper would hold a plain flat nugget of Snickers candy shaped vaguely like a squash. I was wrong.

Yikes, that's a scary grin.  It matches the picture on the wrapper but certainly not the label, for that, my friends, is a jack-o-lantern, not a pumpkin.  Also, Jack's smile is sort of desperate.  Seems like he's trying a bit too hard to jocular and repressing some deep internal melancholia. And speaking of insides:

Things are a bit sticky. And nutty. Crazy delicious, indeed.

Pillsbury Pumpkin Cookies With Cream Cheese Chips

I don't expect much from Pillsbury in terms of baking products around Halloween (recipes--that's a different story altogether).  Their pumpkin print cookies are nothing more than sugar cookies imprinted with cheap dye and for similar reasons, their ghost cookies probably scare me in a way that isn't intended.  New this season, however, is a pumpkin with cream cheese chips style of separate-and-bake cookie. "All right, Doughboy," I thought to myself when I spotted it on sale at my local Randall's.  "I'll give you another chance."

The flavor is vastly superior to  that of any other non-chipa-fied type of cookie (e.g., oatmeal, sugar) I've tried from Pillsbury.   With strong squash notes with ample support from cinnamon and nutmeg, this product is essentially a mild pumpkin pie in cookie form.  If that was all that Pillsbury promised, well, then, it'd be an easy win. The supposed inclusion of cream cheese chips, however, created a reasonable expectation that there would be more than, like, two to a cookie.  Not the case.  Doughboy, I don't regret my purchase, but next time around amp up the chip-to-dough ratio.