Mousse Temptations by JELL-O: Chocolate Mint Pudding...AND A JELL-O MOUSSE CONTEST!!

Is there anything better than pudding? OK, yes, there may be a few things better than pudding...but you'd really have to do some serious thinking to come up with them.

Last year when JELL-O launched the Mousse Temptations line, I was lucky enough to be among the first to get a sneak taste. This year, JELL-O has added a new flavor to the line-up: Chocolate Mint Sensation. And once again, they were awesome enough to send me some to try.



I love the texture of the Mousse Temptations puddings. As you've probably noticed, texture is where sugar-free/fat-free puddings often fail, even when the taste is acceptable. But that's not a problem here at at all. They're whipped and airy, and just all around smooth. Maybe this is what eating a chocolate flavored cloud would be like...

OK, we know the texture is good. But how does it taste?

Well, first the aroma: I like that the scent is mostly chocolate with just a hint of mint. I was worried it would be overwhelmingly minty...but I need not have been concerned.

As for the taste, it's terrific. JELL-O has also perfected the flavor of their sugar- and fat-free puddings to the point that it's hard to tell them by flavor alone from their sugar sweetened, full-fat counterparts.

Tastewise, it's a nice deep cocoa flavor. (I am pretty sure it uses the Dark Chocolate flavor as a base). The mint flavor is pleasantly mild. You certainly taste it -- it's brisk and clean and leaves your mouth feeling cool. But at the same time there's no sense that it's toothpastey or medicinal.



Overall, it was quite good. The Dark Chocolate Decadence is still my favorite, but this flavor is definitely comes in next!

AND NOW FOR THE REALLY EXCITING PART...THE CONTEST!!

Yep, YOU can win some yummy JELL-O Mousse...and not just a teeny little taste, but a whole happy lot of it! The good folks over at JELL-O are so nice that they want one of my lucky readers to try not only this new flavor...but also the Dark Chocolate Decadence, the Chocolate Indulgence, and the sugar free Chocolate and Chocolate-Vanilla puddings as well!

Yep, that is a whopping five packs of pudding! And with six individual cups per pack, that's a total of 30 servings of JELL-O Mousse Temptations joy! Really, what more could one want? I dunno about you...but personally if it's a choice between world peace and winning 30 servings of über-delicious JELL-O mousse, I'd be seriously torn.



So what do you have to do to enter and win? Good question!

All you have to do is leave a comment in this post telling about your favorite JELL-O pudding flavor. (It doesn't matter which variety, nor whether it's the kind you make yourself or one of the snack pack flavors). The contest will be open until midnight PST, October 9th, 2010, and the winner will be announced Monday October 11th 2010. See the rules below!

The winner will be asked to submit their email address via a comment (don't worry, it will NOT be published), so that I can contact them for mailing information. Your information will be shared ONLY with Hunter P.R., which will be shipping the winner their prize directly.

Rules and other important contest info:

* The contest is open to U.S. residents only. (My apologies to my Canadian and overseas friends.)

* Only one entry per person.

* The winner will be chosen by me at random by whatever means I find amusing at the moment -- quite likely by some method involving cats.

* The winner will have until October 19th to contact me, or a new winner will be picked.

* Again, the winner's shipping information will NOT be posted, and will be shared ONLY with Hunter P.R, which will be shipping the prize package directly to the winner.

Good luck!!



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample From Company

CALORIES:
60 calories per cup.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Sugar free.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
kraftfoods.com

Brach's Assorted Halloween Mellowcremes

Maybe I don't give my parents the credit I should.

As kids, they never deprived us of having candy around the house. They just never had good candy. Inevitably, whatever they bought and stuck in the candy dishes kept around the house was cheap bulk candy that even we as little kids understood might be pretty to look at...but was probably best to avoid actually eating. (The lone exception to this rule was Christmas, when -- unless we were really poor that year -- the Palmer candies came out. That was when we got the really good stuff in the festive holiday wrappers.)

Why do I think this may have been a genius move on their part? We could never complain that we didn't get candy because we always had candy. The candy was just so bad that we never wanted to eat it.



One such treat (?) that would often hang around the old candy bowl until Christmas would be the Brach's Halloween or Autumn Mellowcreme mixes. It has been so long since I actually ate a piece of either mix that I can't really remember what they tasted like. I just remember them being extremely sweet. And since Walgreen's had this smallish bag on sale for a dollar, I thought now was as good a time as any to revisit this mix.

There are four flavors to the bag, and eight different shapes. The shapes are all autumn themed: a bundle of wheat, an ear of corn, a cat, pumpkins (one is carved, one is not), a bat, a jug, and a crescent moon. The shapes have no relation to the flavor, but the colors do. So with that in mind we'll review the flavors by color.


Dark Brown: Chocolatey



This was the flavor I remember us fighting each other to get, simply because it was "chocolate." (OK, it's not, but what did we know?)

Taste-wise it reminds me of a super-sweet Tootsie Roll. It's got a vaguely cocoa-like taste. It's kind of a letdown, because your brain sees something that looks like it should be chocolate flavored, and when it's not it's just disappointing. This flavor also absorbs -- for lack of a better way to explain it -- the flavors of the other pieces, so it becomes sort of like the sloppy seconds of the bag. And that works out about as well as it sounds like it would. Basically, ewwww.





Orange: Candy Corn



Ever notice that there are almost no reviews for candy corn on this site? There is a reason for that. In the interest of full disclosure, I feel the need to admit that I don't especially like candy corn. Other than simply "sugar," candy corn doesn't seem to have any flavor to me. But as we all know, I am often willing to take one for the team, so here I am eating something that's candy corn flavored...



So how does it taste? Like sugar that has been flavored with a little bit of vanillin. If you've ever had a single piece of candy corn in your life, you have had this. And after a couple bites, I have had enough.


Tan: Maple



This one at least has the faintest possible smell of maple. Since it is supposed to be maple flavored, that has to be somewhat of a good sign. I seem to recall these being the least popular of the mix amongst us kids. I think that probably had more to do with maple not exactly being a huge flavor with children, rather than because of the candy itself. But as an adult, I am a huge fan of maple flavored anything. So how did these stand up?



Easily the best in the bag. The maple is not the strongest maple ever put in a candy -- in fact, it's definitely on the timid side -- but I give Brach's points for at least attempting to make it taste like real maple rather than like fake pancake syrup.


Yellow: Banana



This was my favorite as a kid. It is all classic fake banana flavor. Ever had a Circus Peanut? Then you have tasted this. I will give this one points for not having that nasty lingering aftertaste that some banana flavored items can have.



The texture of all the pieces is the same regardless of the flavor or color. Think of a really big, dense piece of candy corn. It's soft, yet a little crumbly. The sugar is a little grainy -- and much like candy corn, these candies seem impervious to the march of time. If these had existed in King Tut's time and he'd had a few bags interred with his mummy, I suspect they'd still be more or less edible.

Overall, I can't say that I will be getting another bag. I probably won't even finish this one. Fondant candy is just not my thing; but even with that said, it's not all that bad. It's just not all that good either.

Be sure to also check out Cybele's Candy Blog review of this mix here. She liked them more than I did.



PURCHASED FROM:
Walgreens

PRICE:
$1.00

CALORIES:
140 calories per 6 pieces of candy.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Packaged on equipment that may contain traces of milk, egg, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, and soy.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
brachs.com