Redemption: Despite yesterday’s “pumpkin” donuts being kinda slimy and gross and anything but, their muffins on the other hand, were what I would call perfectly respectable. Not incredible or life-changing, mind you, but they:

1. actually tasted kinda like pumpkin
2. were moist and flavorful on the inside
3. weren’t covered in slime

They pretty much reminded me of the same thing found at our local supermarket, Sweetbay, back home. Not terrific, but not slimy, either – a perfectly acceptable breakfast on the road.

Slogan: “Is it just me, or do those donuts look slimy?”

Take a Hint: Maybe I should’ve let the 30% Off Clearance sticker give me a clue, but frankly these were pretty terrible. I couldn’t help but notice when walking around Meijer’s bakery that all of their stuff looked pretty darned similar to the shipped-in baked goods found at Walmart’s bakery … for all I know, they might even come from the same exact factory! Either way, the day I find one of these trucked in bakery numbers that is actually worth its weight in calories, I’ll eat my hat…

…and traditionally I don’t even wear hats…

Flavor Summary: Slimy on the outside, dry on the inside – maybe you could stretch and call these Spice Donuts or something, but the pumpkin is more a figment of the baker’s imagination.

Locale: This was another grab from a random travel plaza en route when we stopped to stretch our legs, but I’m sad to say that I was a little more excited about the find itself than its actual quality when I bit into it a while later…

Description: I don’t really know how old it was, but the piece that I got actually tasted kind of stale, and a little bit dry. It was certainly dense, and the crumbled pumpkin seeds on the top seemed like a nice touch, but I honestly couldn’t even find/enjoy any real flavor because it tasted like it should’ve been thrown out at the end of yesterday’s shift.

Pondering: Perhaps this is simply an issue of rest area Starbucks not keeping to the same standards of regular, stand-alone stores? Either way, for this particular attempt the nod goes to Seattle’s Best for making the better pumpkin bread…

Potential Slogans:

• “Dry and a little tasteless, just like Grandpa’s jokes…”
• “Cobbler?  Wait – aren’t cobblers are normally moist and delicious???  Can somebody look up the definition of cobbler before we print these damn labels?!”
• “It doesn’t taste very good, but at least it’s cheap.”

Bleh: Yeah, so as you might’ve guessed – I wasn’t really very impressed with this substitution for Walmart’s traditional crappy pumpkin baked goods.  I pretty much picked it up thinking that because it has somewhat of a unique name, that there was a small possibility that it might be different … but I was wrong!

Final Verdict: Unless that’s your own grandpa there on the packaging and you’re trying to avoid hurting his feelings or something, it’s probably best just to steer clear of this one altogether…

Admission: I’m gonna be completely honest – I don’t normally eat at Denny’s.  I guess I’m more of an IHOP-kind of guy myself, or perhaps even Bob Evans if we happen to pass one of the relatively few in the Tampa Bay Area, but nonetheless, after a recent tip-off that Denny’s had a limited time pumpkin menu option up for consideration and finding myself in the vicinity, I decided to drop in and sample their own pumpkin pancakes to see just how they stacked up…

See what I did there?

The Review: Though the presentation was nice, as you can see, the pancakes themselves were just ok.  Not completely devoid of pumpkin flavor, but not overwhelmingly delicious, either – and to drive home that point, I should add that my wife liked them and she doesn’t really like pumpkin!  The highlight was probably the cinnamon butter dolloped on top, but it still felt like they were lacking something.

Wow: I don’t want to get you too excited or anything, but this is probably the best pumpkin spread that I’ve ever had.  Sweet, but not too sweet – so far I’ve found it as a great way to add a bit of fall to just about any meal, including my ham and egg specialty like you see above!

The Experience: I eat a lot of bagels with cream cheese in the mornings for breakfast, so it was nice to find an alternative spread that brings something completely different to the table.  The aroma is great – full-flavor, without beating you over the head with it the moment you take the top off the container, and the taste itself was very sweet and smooth, and left me wishing that I had been a little more liberal when I had been spreading this stuff across my toast…

The Purchase: It kind of caught me off guard because this is the first year I’ve seen it, but so far I’ve found it exclusively at Walmart in their dairy case right alongside all of the other Country Crock varieties.  Whereas Target tends to put several of their pumpkin dairy products on display in one area (cream cheese, coffee creamers, etc…), I’ve really only ever seen Walmart do so with their baking items, so keep your eyes peeled and remain ever vigilant!  And for godsakes, if you happen across any, be sure to pick up a tub or three while you can – they’ve not really that big anyways, and mine says it will be good until June 2012 … despite already being almost half gone, so you do the math!

Referral: So I actually went back and found this one after a tip-off from a reader, and given the festive, fall packaging and Pepperidge Farm’s dedication to quality, I was pretty excited.  I mean, these folks use two bags to wrap their bread – they’re not messing around!

Breakfast Time Cometh: That said, I made special plans to substitute some gourmet pumpkin bread for my usual bagel this morning, sink my teeth in, and … nothing.  I mean, it’s good bread - don’t get me wrong!  But it just reminds me of the regular cinnamon swirl bread that they always make – the swirls are so thin in the actual slices, I really couldn’t taste anything special above a vague hint of cinnamon.  Still, I had four slices of the stuff, but to say that it really delivers on the pumpkin spice dictated by its colorful packaging would be, in a single word – misleading.

Excitement: Wow – I’ve always heard great things, but I’ve never actually seen any of the famous Entenmann’s pumpkin products around my local grocers’ snacking sections, so this one was sure to be a real treat!

Hindsight: You know, maybe it’s just a lot harder to make a decent loaf of prepackaged pumpkin bread than most people give companies credit for…

Exposé: Upon opening the box, its innards smelled somewhat “spicy,” and I couldn’t help but notice its sheen bore the consistency of angel food cake.  My first bite confirmed that Entenmann’s is most definitely getting its money’s worth out of the sugar that they pour into each loaf of this stuff, but alas yet again … it doesn’t actually taste like PUMPKIN!!!  The closest I’ll give you is applesauce that desperately wants to taste like pumpkin, with a few assorted spices to make it stand out, but nowhere near the bar that Bob Evans has set for us in the pumpkin bread arena.

A New Hope: I do see on their website where they also offer something by the name of an Iced Pumpkin Cake, and honest to goodness, I was actually hoping that this was it when I first discovered it on the shelf, so nonetheless I’m still curious to hold out and see what that alternate creation has in comparison to bring to the table.  Unfortunately, it took me four years to even find this lackluster loaf of pumpkin, so while I certainly won’t be holding my breath or anything, I suppose you’ve got to hold onto something.

Why Do I Keep Buying Stuff From The Walmart Bakery???: At this point, that’s a perfectly valid question…

The Justifications: Not only is this version sugar free, but it also boasts on its label that it just so happens to be “New & Improved!” so, I mean, you never know, right?!

Sometimes You DO Know…: So no surprises here – just like its predecessors, while having a faint whiff of pumpkin upon opening its container, inside you’ll find nothing more than a loaf of orange bread masquerading itself as a pumpkin product.  On the upside, it was still technically edible even despite being sugar-free … which I mention in vague redemption simply because my previous experience with sugar-free baked goods tends to teeter between horrible and “Bleecchh – you’re not actually going to feed this to people, are you?!”

Verdict: If you’re looking for a miscellaneous bread/cake product, and you happen to be diabetic or just hates the sugars, then this prepackaged loaf from Walmart might very well be right up your alley.  You just might want to scratch the word pumpkin off of that label on the container before you serve it, though – you know, just so you don’t confuse anybody…

Reviewed By: Lori

Holy Thoughts: “There was a good amount of sweet, and some amount of spice. Tasted similar to the pumpkin donut.”

Miscellaneous Funny Donut Hole Photo: