Review & Release Histories of Trader Joe’s Foods, Snacks, Treats, Cookies, and Candies

I was worried this would taste like those dry and cheap-feeling store-bought danishes that often combine cream cheese with a fruit or other topping. Well… I was wrong.

This is premium. The dough itself is thick and especially moist and dense, as the filling seemed to have merged with the inside part of the pastry. Not to mention, this filling, along with the frosting glaze on top, also lends itself to giving it a wonderfully sweet and creamy cheesecake flavor that pleasantly counterbalances the savory buttery dough. Neither the flavor nor the composition feels artificial or low-cost like other competing cream cheese danishes.

I also can’t emphasize the thickness enough, either—this pastry is weighty—they really packed this thing! So, despite being a bit on the pricier side, you really feel like you’re getting your money’s worth both in quality and fulfillment.

Lastly, it’s really good both at room temperature and heated briefly in the microwave; I found them equally tasty.

While I can’t find an exact release date, it seems to date back a few years, according to some posts. Found June 2025.

Be careful with these! Anything above room temperature, they’ll start to melt and become way too soft! I ate these at around room temperature, though I’d recommend refrigerating them to harden them up.

Biting in, I’m met with a soft chocolate ganache and an equal part soft, moist chocolate cake slice. The shell, unfortunately, is too thin and is very soft, so it isn’t even perceptible. In summary, the entire thing is soft, nearly melting in your mouth (especially the ganache part), which is nice, although I’d really like some contrast—perhaps throwing them in the fridge would have hardened the shell a bit.

The taste is all regular chocolate with a normal amount of sweetness you’d expect from a chocolate treat. The ganache and cake taste very similar, so there isn’t much nuance to be found here.

Overall, while I didn’t hype this up, I do really love ganache and how the entire thing does offer the “melt-in-your-mouth experience.” This is additionally furthered by how much I like chocolate—yeah, if you like chocolate, you’ll definitely like this!

While I can’t find a release date for these, mentions of this date back to around 2022, with talk of it coming back in later years. Found June 2025.

I don’t vibe with many danishes, especially the almond ones, because I find them too plain and boring. But this is different—so different. It genuinely feels premium—let me explain!

It’s clearly a croissant. Not just that, it’s knotted and layered wonderfully, offering a very thick, dense, Danish experience. The inner part is moist, as if it’s partly uncooked—and it works so well for the mouthfeel experience. It’s not dry in any part either, which was one of my fears. The dough and texture, put more simply, are wonderful.

The taste is light almond surrounded by powdered sugar. While it falls on the more mildly sweet side, it’s still tasty enough for those who love sweets to appreciate it—like, I could absolutely see myself eating this with a sweet drink or even an unsweet one, for that matter; this pastry is versatile and enjoyable however you want!

Despite rating this lower than you might imagine, you have to realize that I’m normally not a fan of this stuff, so if you might be, I’ll bet you’ll easily rate this substantially higher!

I can’t find a release date for this, although it’s likely been around for some time. Found June 2025.

Oh… that’s good… oh, it’s already half gone, darn!

Dense, moist, and the taste? Wow, it’s so, so good! It’s very creamy with an authentic strawberry taste. The cake itself is mildly sweet, while the soft cream cheese frosting complements it by giving you the perfect amount of sugar to elevate the flavor. The strawberry isn’t at all punchy, artificial, or off-putting; it’s just right, offering a complexion of creaminess with a tasty fruity flavor.

Going back, this sheet cake, in my opinion, doesn’t look appetizing. It looks flat, and the cream cheese looks like bog-standard junk. I was definitely expecting something cheaper tasting and bland; however, this knocked it out of the park! The feel, taste, and everything about it feels premium and noteworthy.

Released for a limited time June 2025. Found June 2025.

I have so many thoughts about this, but basically, you need to warm this up. You have to. It just isn’t nearly as good at boring room temperature.

At room temperature, it behaves like an ordinary large-scale cinnamon roll pastry. There’s a reasonable amount of cinnamony sweetness throughout the dough, although it isn’t spread out much, causing large parts of it to feel dry and bland.

Heated up in the microwave (or baked), the cinnamon-sugar essence is able to seep into the dough, making it taste and feel much better. With the warmth, it’s able to feel like a freshly baked cinnamon roll, flavor and all, albeit much larger. Now, all that’s needed is a bit of frosting…

Update: After freezing a piece and reheating it in the microwave, it came out flimsy and seemed to have lost a lot of flavor! I suggest heating these up fresh or baking them!

Released around March 2024, coming back April 2025. Found June 2025.

Extremely complicated to make. This requires several ingredients, and it’s not clear how to make it. One side panel gives directions for waffles, while the other is for pancakes, but they’re nearly identical, and the labels for ‘pancake’ and ‘waffle’ are very small. It also doesn’t have directions for using the entire mix.

As for taste, it’s plain with only just a hint of cinnamon. No buttery flavor, just bland. There are cinnamon pieces inside the mix, but they don’t seem to do much for whatever reason. The texture is that of a typical pancake. Definitely just go buy yourself some cheap, buttery pancake mix; you can’t go wrong, and you’ll save yourself the hassle.

Released around November 2023. Found January 2024.

Wait… these are just plain, slightly chewy pancakes. It’s even almost a bit bitter. Aside from being purple, there’s nothing really good about these. Not much else to say!

This may have been released sometime in 2020, according to early reviews. It apparently was discontinued at some point and then brought back in 2022. Found October 2023.

A semi-sweet, unoffending donut. The cinnamon and sugar are extremely light, making the donut semi-sweet at best. The texture is soft, a little moist, thick, and easy to bite through. The coating on the outside is a thick little mixture of sugar and cinnamon that gives it a very light crunch but is hardly sweet or cinnamony. I don’t really taste any apple or cider, either.

Likely first released in September 2021 for a limited time. These have been rereleased every year around the same period. Found September 2023.

If you had syrup, it would be perfect. This is a lot like eating a thick piece of cake that tastes a lot like a buttery pancake. It’s slightly plain, so I added some syrup, and it tasted a lot like a fluffy pancake!

Released sometime in 2019. Found April 2023.