For those of you who aren’t familiar with my reviews (aka: all of you), I previously took a look at Toast’Em’s Brown Sugar and Cinnamon variety, and, in doing so, discovered that Toast’Ems was actually the original toaster pastry. (It also owes its technology to dog food, which is kind of a disgusting fact).
All that being said, I’m honestly flabbergasted at how close in appearance these are to the name brand, even down to the “sprinkles” which also consist of the same color spectrum. It would be easy to see why someone would think Toast’Ems is an off-brand, because virtually everything is similar. Despite Toast’Ems being the original, I have no doubts that poor initial sales probably moved them to “rip-off” some of the features of their big-name competitors…it’s a shame Post sold the name, or else there might still be a battle for toaster pastry supremacy. As it stands, though, Shulze and Birch Biscuit Company clearly lacks the advertising budget to compete with Kellogg’s offering; besides, even if they suddenly could, people would just dismiss them as another cheap knockoff.
Anyway, as previously mentioned, these have the same appearance as the national brand, even down to the holes in the pastry (when they originally released, the holes were “x’s”). The “icing” looks exactly the same, consisting of a hard white layer covering the top. They also look like the same dry-ass pastries we’ve come to expect.
The taste is…similar to the name brand, although I can’t say with utter certainty just how much, since I haven’t had the name brand in a while. Schulze and Birch claim these have “more filling” compared to the competition, and just based on memory, I’m inclined to agree – these do seem to have quite a bit of strawberry “jam” wedged inside. The taste, though, is strongly reminiscent of their big-name competitors, with a strong, fakey, sweet artificial strawberry flavor that only seems stronger given the added filling (which might be a placebo effect, I don’t know).
Even though I like these (and they are much cheaper than the well known brand), it’s just a shame that the company – instead of embracing their place as the “original” – seems content with following in the footsteps of Kellogg’s. There are certainly a variety of areas where other toaster pastries could be improved upon – such as making them not so dry and boring on their own, but these just come off as carbon copies. It’s no wonder that people think these are just cheaper knockoffs of the name brand toaster pastry. Why not announce on the packaging that they’re the original (unless some type of lawsuit prevents that)? Why not change the recipe up a little bit to differentiate themselves from the pack?
Overall: 7/10. The original toaster pastry seems content with now following in the footsteps of the national brand, as these look almost exact to the “real thing”, right on down to the color of the sprinkles. Flavorwise, there’s a lot of strawberry filling, which is similar to the more familiar offerings of competitors, with a very sweet, somewhat fakey rendition of the seeded fruit. You really can’t go wrong with these at all, as they are a virtual carbon copy of the product that beat them to market.
