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

Review

Something about this texture makes it almost feel off-putting. It’s pretty hard and thin, and while it’s distinctly a cookie, it has an almost-stale mouthfeel–it still hasn’t reached that stage yet, but you can tell it’s close. It’s also pretty rough and has a hard bite.

The flavor is a typical, mildly sweet gingerbread. No bitterness or fake-ness here, just regular gingerbread. Yawn.

Unfortunately, it’s quite bland unless you add some topping to it because, as it is, that icing is just as hard and even more unflavorful than the cookie itself.

Cool looking, but a generic, hard cookie that feels like it’s about to go stale any day.

Release Date

Released mid-late November 2025. Found late November 2025.

Review

Long story short, most tastes very similar. Essentially, they all have a mild to moderately sweet caramel base with subtly different-tasting chocolate and an essence of their supposed flavors. After you bit into a few, many started to taste the same, and you really had to look for the surprise flavor! Notably, none tasted too sweet or artificial — they’re all between mildly and moderately sweet and come across as lighter overall compared to other caramel-based candies.

Compositionally, most had some layer of caramel tucked between a chocolate shell — a few had additional layers and mixins.

Overall, these were tasty and a unique, fun experience! If anything, I do wish the advertised flavors were more pronounced to help better distinguish themselves from one another.

These are our guesses and notes we took! Needless to say, we didn’t get many correct!

• No.1: Thick, chocolate-looking caramel substance. Thicker than the others, more or less, is a semi-dark caramel candy.
• No.2: Most unique looking here, it instead has an inside soft white cream, although this filling is just mildly sugary tasting, with the flavor coming from the chocolate shell. Notably, no caramel flavor!
• No.3: Semi-dark chocolate with a mild, more creamy caramel flavor. Maybe cream brulee? It tastes a lot like the others, but it’s more creamy overall.
• No.4: Multiple layers are occurring here, including a fig-seed-like bottom layer below a soft, caramel-tasting soft-ganache-like filling and the addition of a dark chocolate shell. There seems to be an essence of fruit or fig flavor.
• No.5: Thick semi-dark shell with a thinner gooey caramel compared to the others. It’s on the sweeter side and maybe has some pear and/or honey flavoring going on?
• No.6: Clearly espresso! It’s not super strong by any means, but you can taste the authetic coffee alongside the chocolate shell and super light caramel.
• No.7: Oh, a nice, lingering spice alongside a hit of sweetness! Definitely a sugary chili/peppery taste with a subtle background of chocolate and caramel.
• No.8: A nutty bottom, a small gooey top of caramel on top, and the chocolate shell. This has a slight citrus-y artificial flavor, but it’s too light to really figure out what it is.
• No.9: Light dark chocolate flavor, a sweeter caramel compared to the others, likely because we are also getting undertones of a maple or syrup flavor.
• No.10: Mostly a regular caramel candy. It has a semi-dark and semi-sweet shell with some mildly sweet caramel goop in the center.
• No.11: Semi-dark chocolate shell, caramel center with a hint of cinnamon, maybe.
• No.12: Typical, lightly sweet caramel candy. Taste reminds us of a mild Snickers as it has a background of nuttiness.

Release Date

While I can’t find a release date, the earliest mention I found dates back to December 2020. Found mid-November 2025.

Review

These absolutely are copycats of CakeBites, except, unfortunately, not nearly as premium-feeling or tasting. They’re a little less dense overall and more mildly sweet. That aside, their shells are similarly waxy, just like CakeBites and other snack cakes you can find in the snack aisle. The inside is two layers of soft cake with a thin cream filling. Overall, a good mouthfeel, albeit artificial–just, why buy these when you can get CakeBites?

Taste-wise, especially for a cake, mildly to moderately sweet. The flavors are also more subtle than other snack-based cakes.

The white one contains your traditional vanilla-tasting cake and cream with a reasonable amount of sweetness. Honestly, this could have been sweeter overall to really bring out the vanilla. The grey-ish brown one, to me, was hard to figure out. It’s a smidge sweeter than the other one, too, and seems to be a mix of milk and dark chocolate, and maybe, just maybe, a hint of… coffee? I have no idea. Lastly, the dark cake is a semi-dark, mildly sweet piece of cake. Both the shell, cake, and cream of this is darker, plain-tasting chocolate.

Overall, I expected more. Honestly, these were more boring and quite similar (except for the vanilla) than what should have been. Also, calling them “mousse cakes” also feels disingenuous, as mousse is quite a lot softer and creamier.

Release Date

While I can’t find a release date, the earliest mention I found dates back to late 2023. Found mid-November 2025.

Review

Compositionally, these are your typical packaged meringues. They feel like balled up, gritty pieces of sugar that could easily melt in your mouth and at the same time, provide a light, satisfying crunch.

What’s different is the taste. It’s absolute peppermint–candy cane, even. It’s not too punchy, with the treat as a whole providing its creaminess that ensures you won’t be hit with a peppermint that’s too hard-hitting. Overall, they’re pretty sweet, likely sweeter than a candy cane, though the peppermint flavor is around the same–it’s pleasant, and that creaminess really carries it through.

Release Date

While I can’t find an exact release date, mentions of it date back to around November 2020. Found early November 2025.

Review

Surprisingly, most of the texture and flavor are uniform for some reason. The differences are subtle, having mostly a moderately sweet overall taste that leans towards a darkish chocolate. None of it comes across as weird or artificial; its flavors are inoffensive, but again, mostly the same throughout. In addition, if you take a handful and throw it in your mouth, it’s mostly semi-crunchy from all of its pieces.

So yeah, no distinct peanut butter, yogurt, or other flavors it advertises here. Still, it’s decent enough, although I’d like its advertised flavors to be bolder and more standoutish.

Release Date

Released around April 2024 or prior, then rereleased in April 2025. Found July 2025.

Review

Okay, as someone who isn’t a fan of mixing sweets and salty foods, these are actually really good!

First, the texture is weird, but in a good way! It feels like everything was ground up with the chocolate intertwined, holding it all together. It’s both soft enough and has crunchy bits generously throughout. It almost kind of feels like a thick chocolate bar with a ton of rice pieces in it. Basically, I really liked the texture!

And like the texture, the flavor is uniform. They’re mildly salty and fairly sweet milk chocolate balls with essences of pretzel and chips. I would say it leans towards its sweet chocolate flavor over the saltiness, so if that’s your thing, you’ll like these.

Basically, these are a very good mix, both in terms of texture, mouthfeel, and flavor.

Release Date

Released around July 2023. Found July 2025.

Review

These remind me of a Snickers or, at the very least, a long-distant cousin! Also, the name is so darn cute!

They’re pretty dense from the nougat and thick, solid caramel, making them a smidge difficult to easily bite right through. If I had to compare them directly to Snickers, they lack the robust peanut butter flavor, as the peanuts here are less abundant and smaller, and the candy bar itself has a similar-ish texture to your typical Snickers. Aside from that, they are also less sweet, and the caramel isn’t as strong, either. Overall, they’re tasty; however, at the same time, they’re kind of unimpressive.

I feel like if you had a machine that made a generic candy bar, this would be an option. It’s decently sweet, the chocolate is regular chocolate, and the nougat, caramel, and peanuts aren’t too strong. Together, it’s a good combination, but if you want something sweeter or more standoutish, this isn’t the candy bar you should go for (or just go for a Snickers instead). In a way, it’s the long-distant cousin of a Snickers, and frankly, I’d rather just hang out with them instead.

The last thing I want to mention—yes, these are small and cute!

Release Date

Released January 2025. Found June 2025.

Review

First off, these are relatively small-sized and are annoyingly individually wrapped in thick, difficult-to-open packaging. That aside…

These are Rice Krispies Treats, but much, much more premium. For example, have you ever seen those fancy Rice Krispies bars in stores or bakeries that fetch a pretty penny? These are those!

They’re thick, chunky, and yet soft enough to appreciate as you chew through them. The flavors are there, with mild to moderate and equally balanced chocolate and peanut butter tastes. Comparing them again to a Rice Krispies treat, they’re less sweet and less artificial in terms of both taste and texture. They are inoffensive and a pleasant treat to eat, even if you aren’t the biggest fan of peanut butter.

Release Date

Released May 2023. Found June 2025.

Review

“Ooooh, I taste a pleasantly sweet, cool honey flavor… oh… there’s the kick! Wow, it’s quite spicy!”

That more or less describes my experience. The honey is mildly sweet, and then you’re hit with a more overpowering spiciness. It’s an interesting combination, and it actually almost works, albeit, even as someone who appreciates a nice punchy kick, it does overshadow the sweet side too much. It’s tolerable, but honestly, I’d either like them to dial down the spiciness or maybe get rid of it entirely because, after all, that honey flavor is wonderful!

In terms of its texture, it’s your average artificially put-together boxed fudge: soft, just a hint of chew, somewhat on the thinner side for fudge but still adequately dense, and definitely not homemade. The opposite is my criticism, too: it needs a little more chew and density, in my opinion, to bring it up a level.

In summary, I’m glad I tried it, but I wouldn’t buy it again, as I didn’t find them particularly enjoyable.

Release Date

Released in June 2025. Found June 2025.

Review

These taste and feel more or less like authentic s’mores. A small marshmallow sits on top of a mini graham cracker, and all of that is covered in a moderately sweet, regular milk-tasting chocolate shell.

You might think these should be sweeter than regular S’mores, but despite being in candy form, the sweetness and flavor fall directly in line with S’mores, well, because it is S’mores, literally. Nothing is added or taken away.

Overall, it’s a premade s’more that comes across slightly softer as the graham cracker isn’t as crunchy as one straight from the box. Nothing to write home about, honestly; you’d likely feel more fulfilled making your own s’more.

Release Date

First released in 2023, they’ve come back around since. Found June 2025.

Review

Yup, yup… not for me. The root beer is very bold and extremely prominent, and personally, I’m just not a fan. Yes, it’s because I’m not a big root beer fan, so if you are, I think you’ll absolutely love these.

This root beer-flavored chocolate(?) shell wraps a small, crunchy mini cookie, but who cares about the cookie because the root beer overpowers any flavor it might have? Really, it tastes like you’re eating a lightly crunchy root beer treat, nothing more, nothing less. The sweetness and flavor match root beer soda identically. At the very least, the small addition of the popping candy was okay.

Release Date

Released around May 2025. Found June 2025.

Review

Such an absolute, glorious mess. Dark chocolate, thick caramel, and cookie clusters all combine to form an interesting texture and multiple different flavors. The sweetness is tame and just enough, and the flavors from everything are perfectly in sync. Dark chocolate: perfect. Caramel: not too sweet or artificial. Cookie pieces: crunchy and chocolatey.

Release Date

Released around February 2024. Exclusive to Trader Joe’s. Found March 2024.

Review

Note: You can also find this review on my cookie house decorating kit page.

One of the cheaper gingerbread house kits I’ve found, and it even looks less fake and more premium! I especially love how it comes with little edible figures, too. HOWEVER! This requires an egg white and lemon juice or white vinegar for the piping icing.

Unlike other gingerbread house kits, these are actually chewy, semi-sweet, and have a subtle ginger flavor. The icing you make is too liquid a consistency to decorate or build with, and frankly, it tastes odd. It’s like powdered sugar and water mixed together; it just isn’t good. The candies that come with it look nice, but also lack any sweetness or flavor. Overall, this kit looks nice but is bland and impossible to construct.

Release Date

I’m not sure when this was released, but reviews date back many years. Found December 2023.

Review

Very sweet and noticeable but light maple flavor. The flavor itself is mostly super-sweet sugar, which kind of overrides the maple flavor. The texture is crumbly compared to regular fudge, and it isn’t as chewy either. It’s still relatively soft, though; it just falls apart a bit more.

Release Date

Released September 2023, likely for a limited time. Found September 2023.

Review

The three twists have different hardness, but each one is still fairly soft, thick, and easy to bite through. The mango is the softest, while the raspberry is the hardest, and the green apple is in the middle. The flavors are very light and semi-sweet. Each flavor, while slightly different, isn’t really discernible. If you gave me a mango one, for example, I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint its flavor. Compared to Twizzlers and other licorice, these taste much more premium, are softer, less chewy, and present a more pleasant experience both in terms of eating and taste.

Release Date

I’m not sure when this was released, although reviews date back to around mid-2023. Found August 2023.

Review

A semi-dark chocolate wraps a fairly sweet, soft peanut butter inside. It’s not as sweet as candies like Reese’s, although it’s still sweeter. Overall, it is a mostly standard-tasting peanut butter cup with chocolate on the darker side.

Release Date

Likely released sometime in 2021. Found August 2023.