Tag: <span>desserts</span>


Picture of homemade pie.

You would think that with a title of (take deep breath) Trader Joe’s Chocolate Pumpkin Pecan Praline Tart, how could they miss, right? Nice cheerful orange label with chocolate dots, attractive looking pie. But I won’t make you wait until the end of the review: thumbs down.

What is the difference between tart and pie? [Pause while I go over to Google.]? Okay, here:

A tart is made with a crust formed in a tart pan or a low, straight-walled pan with a removable bottom. A pie, similar to a tart, is baked in a pie pan that has sloping sides. Both a tart and a pie can have the crust prebaked and filled or baked with fruits, custards or chocolate.

Everything 2 agrees with that. Already, things are not quite right with this TJ dessert. This is definitely a pie, not a tart.

Anyway, it has a sweet crumbly crust. I love soft crusts! But it’s not real chocolate, and it doesn’t taste like chocolate, unless it’s the cheap drugstore kind. The filling has a slightly crunchy filling, of substance, but not chewy.

Donna Does Desserts

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Severe no for Trader Joe‘s Chocolate Chunk Cookies. The cookies are dry and the chocolate is not satisfying and tastes cheap. I’m Yankee thrifty, but I’m tempted to throw the rest out! Ingredients look fine (ie, no corn syrup, which I won’t eat anymore), and there’s a bit of honey, which will usually raise the rating, but not this time.

Kim and Scotts Pretzels
Perhaps not the most appetizing photo. From here.

Part of my bitterness is because they used to make a chocolate chunk cookie that was totally great, maybe 8 years ago. It was dense, hard, but not too hard, somewhat grainy, with good quality chocolate. (may have been Guittard’s.) All you needed was a couple to make the starving (or sad) feeling in your gut go away. ( I met a guy standing in line behind me once, buying only these cookies, and he told me he would eat the whole bag in one sitting. Ah, men, and their lucky, lucky metabolism.) A bag in the cupboard always made me feel happy. Grrr at TJ for always always dropping good food. I wrote a lyrical poem about Trader Joe’s in my other blog, here. It’s not very nice.

Donna Does Desserts

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