Hot Chocolate Pop-Tarts Are Returning (Sort Of)

Pop-Tarts are one of those “the cool kids had these in their lunches and I never did, but don’t worry about me I’m fine and I got through it” kinds of snacks. Conversely, I was one of those “my lunch is a sandwich, yogurt, pretzels, fruit, and water” kinds of girlies. Was I very healthy? Yes. Was there a distinct lack of Pop-Tarts in that sharpie-doodle-ridden L.L. Bean lunch box of mine? Also yes. Am I torn up about it? You be the judge. The point is, I didn’t try Pop-Tarts until I was 18 and legally allowed to go to the store and get some, and you know what? They were fine. Alright, they were good. Okay, they were pretty darn great. And now a new Pop-Tarts flavor is sliding down the ol’ new products chimney this holiday season. I’m talking about Frosted Marshmallow Hot Cocoa Pop Tarts, and I am more than a skosh stoked to find out if these will live up to how delicious they sound.

Will Hot Cocoa Pop-Tarts be crazy good or just plain crazy? A sleigh or a no way? A Pop Star or a Pop Flop? A Toaster Strudel or a Toaster Brutal? A Breakfast Pastry or a “That’s not tasty”? (I’ve got like ten more of these, somebody please stop me.)

Aside from whether or not these taste good (which is sort of an impossible question to answer until we try them later this year), there are a couple questions we do have answers to. We know they will be coming to stores just in time for the holidays, they will be limited edition, and they will consist of a white filling (presumably marshmallowy crème) inside a chocolate pastry shell that is then topped with a white icing, which I assume will also taste like marshmallows. Why, you ask? Because Kellogg’s, maker of all things Pop-Tarts, is a cereal company, and they have to know by now that the people (that’s us) love breakfasts that taste like and/or contain marshmallows. That’s just science.

This is not the first time Kellogg’s has ‘shmallowed our Tarts. It turns out they’ve released a few similar Pop-Tarts flavors in the past. In 2007, they released Hot Chocolate Pop-Tarts, which had a chocolatey filling dotted with mini marshmallows and chocolate icing. According to people online, they tasted good but they didn’t taste all that much like hot chocolate. Kellogg’s then released a Frosted Marshmallow Hot Chocolate Flavor back in 2012 (note the one-word difference in flavor name from the new Pop-Tarts flavor), which was a chocolate pastry with a marshmallow filling and a “hot chocolate flavored” icing, and according to a review from Junk Food Betty, those Pop-Tarts lived up to the chocolatey, marshmallowy hype. There was also a Frosted Chocomallow Sundae flavor in 2014 that Instagram food news account @candyhunting says was the same as (or very similar to) the Frosted Marshmallow Hot Chocolate Flavor from 2012, and having seen images of them, I would agree. This new Frosted Marshmallow Hot Cocoa Pop-Tarts look more like the 2010s versions, with the exception of the icing on the outside, which is whiter than past iterations and whose exact flavor remains to be seen (or, er, tasted).

So. Will you be popping these tarts into your shopping bags this holiday season? Or will these be the equivalent of sweet, rectangular, very flat, frosted lumps of coal? Guess we’ll have to try them out once the holidays roll around.