Disclaimer: I am not, nor do I pretend to be, a baker or food expert of any kind. In fact I tend to be pretty dumb when it comes to all things cooking. So don’t judge this post as such!
Oh man. It has been a while since I was genuinely excited about posting something. This is totally it.
I am a big proponent of shopping “mom-and-pop”. I love “start-ups”. Be it internet or otherwise. So when I discovered through my good friend Jack that a small online cupcake bakery in New Jersey was offering…wait for it…
NINJA TURTLE PUDDING PIES!!?!??!!?!?
I was a little excited. Ok, a lot excited. So I ate two of the pies that Jack bought (Take that, Jack!), and then I went and ordered some. But before I get into the pies, lets take a tryst back through history to the original pies that these ones pay homage to.
The year was 1991. The TMNT were arguably at the height of their popularity. I was 10 years old.
There were a number of Ninja Turtle food products on the market, from breakfast cereal to corn puffed pizza flavored snack chips. One such entry in this catalog were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pies by Hostess. These were simply a variant of their standard fruit pies that they had been making for years, except they were filled with vanilla pudding (to simulate ooooooze) and were green instead of…you know…pie colored.
As memory serves, these things were pretty darn delicious (despite the questionable color scheme). Though really, the childhood memory is probably better than the actual pie was.
Fast forward 21 years (that makes me sad!). Enter Polkadot Cupcake Shop. An online-only cupcake company that (you guessed it!) specializes in all things cupcake. Recently, bless their little hearts, Polkadot has rolled out limited edition “Throwback” Ninja Turtle Pudding Pies! So how do these pies compare to the originals?
Well, Original 1991 Hostess Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pies obviously don’t still exist for comparison. That’s probably a good thing…cause that would be really gross. So, at 12:30 this morning, I ran out to 7-11 and got us the next best thing. A Hostess apple fruit pie! You see what I do for you? I spent a $1.79 for this review!
The Polkadot pies come 12 in a box, and are individually wrapped in small plastic baggies. The box of 12 will cost you $25 USD plus shipping. For me, it averaged out to about 3 bucks a pie. When buying from independent shops, you often find you pay a bit more than you would from a massive company like Hostess, simply because smaller companies can’t deal in the kind of volume of product that the big guys can. But, like I said, supporting the little guy is kinda my thing.
Size wise, they are a little bit smaller than the modern Hostess pie (Not sure how much smaller, since, by the time I wrote this post…I sorta…already ate both of them. I’M SORRY! I LOVE PIE OK!?!?!)
Yup, still filled with vanilla puddin’! So how do they compare taste wise? Well, I wouldn’t say that either is better. But they are different. The primary difference being firmness of the crust. The Hostess pies are machine made, and made…well…quite some time ago. This makes for a very firm outer crust.
Meanwhile, the Polkadot pie is hand made and made to order so , while delicious, it is definitely a softer pie. They don’t shatter when you break them in half like the Hostess pies do. Which affects presentation more than taste. Some of them got a little squished during shipping, while I’m pretty sure you could step on a Hostess pie and have it keep relative shape.
The bottom line? Since Polkadot is an online only store, it would be a little unrealistic (in both time and money) for you to keep you shelves stocked with these little darlings on a consistent basis. But, if you’re a Turtle fan (which…since you’re here…you probably are) and you want to be able to say “ZOMGS LOOK WHAT I HAVE! I’M EATING MY CHILDHOOD! NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!” then these are the pies for you.
Besides, it’s a WAY better idea then breaking open that sealed box of Ninja Turtles cereal I know you have lying around. Seriously dude…don’t eat that.
Check out Polkadot Cupcake Shop Here!
And like them on Facebook here!
*reads last sentence…*
How did you know I was reading this post? Freaky…
So when can the staff expect a taste of Turtle pie? 😛
Kind of reminds me of a few years back when my local Walmart put out some packs of the original trading cards. We DID buy them all, we DID open them shortly after and we DID eat some of the gum that was now glued to the back of the last card in the pack… Yeah… don’t do that.
–>> Stephan loves pies almost as much as my POP!!
I thought I was alone in that. Bought a box of the 2nd wave of FW cards at a Kay Bee outlet store and actually tried a stick of the gum…soooo bad.
What a great article! Thanks so much Stephan!
PS. We are now frying the pies so they’re super crispy like the originals 🙂