The original Pop-Tart knows it has challengers. It always has. Young hot-shots who think they have what it takes.
But this veteran has come to win, and it brings with it all the bravado of a long-time champ eager to defend its title.
It's true. Others may have attempted the art of the toaster pastry, but only one perfected it.
So come for the throne if you want. But with close to 100 unexpected flavors under our flaky crust and over five decades in the game, we'll continue to change the world one blue box at a time.
The challengers have only grown over time, but perhaps the biggest threat is the advent of the overpriced gourmet pop-tart. These are high-end bakery products intent on bringing a new sophistication to the childhood favorite.
I've seen these, ahem, pop up, more frequently as bakeries seek to tap into nostalgia. I was intrigued. While I try not to make a habit of eating Pop-Tarts because, well, they're Pop-Tarts, I am a big fan, and you will find them lurking in the back of my cupboards which is fine since their shelf life approximates that of silverware.
I decided to go with the most expensive pop-tart imitator I could find on the assumption that if any toaster pastry can topple the reigning champion, it's going to be this one.
Permit me to introduce you to the ridiculously priced, $6 pop-tart.
You might note these are actually being billed as "Pop-Tarts" which I am pretty sure is a trademark violation, so for purposes of this piece I will use lower case for the imitator and also should anyone ask where I found these: "I don't remember."
While I personally prefer the unfrosted kind, to keep the contest apples-to-apples, I chose the classic frosted brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart to go head-to-head with the gourmet challenger. (While the gourmet pop-tart does not mention cinnamon in its name, I'm pretty sure it's in there.)
Let's begin.
Visual appearance is typically your first introduction to a food. It forms early expectations and sets the stage for what comes next. This will be the first match in our contest.
No question, the original Pop-Tart is one beige toaster pastry.
However, it stands unashamed. It embraces its beigeness, challenging you to reject it. Beige is its true authentic self.
The gourmet pop-tart acts almost ashamed, doing everything it can to introduce some color into the contest, even if it's just brown, which, let's be real, is just dark beige.
Ability to look like Primer.
WINNER: Pop-Tart
Next up, the "frosted" part of these frosted pop-tarts.
Sure, the gourmet pop-tart obviously makes a go of it but the original Pop-tart did not come here to lose. This is fresh out of the toaster.
Look at that. It's like a fine lacquer. You could leave this pastry out in the rain and easily buff it up to a nice shine the next morning. Our gourmet's sugar-cinnamon coating would likely wash away in a heavy fog. Look closely at how it fares in the toaster.
While our original Pop-Tart brushes off the heat with little effort, even as the pastry it sits upon browns up, our contender starts to bubble, melt, and cowardly slide away, abandoning the rest of the pastry to its fate. Imagine the mess these would make in a stand-up toaster.
It's no contest.
Weather Resistance:
WINNER: Pop-Tart
Let's move on to the actual pastry part.
Okay, fine, the gourmet pop-tart is light and flaky and all, but this ain't a brown sugar cinnamon turnover contest, it's a Pop-Tart contest and different rules apply.
In other words, don't bring a knife to a bazooka fight.
So, what does our Pop-Tart have to offer if it isn't flakiness?
Ballistic protection.
Look at that density. This is the Kevlar chest plate of toaster pastries. Dense, with interwoven microscopic layers of… whatever it's made of. Flour, probably.
You find yourself in a firefight, this is the pastry you want in your breast pocket.
Capacity to repel Small Arms Fire:
WINNER: Pop-Tart
Next up is texture.
Yes, our gourmet entry has that flakiness going for it, but the Pop-Tart has something special, a secret ingredient you probably won't find in your grandma's pantry:
Sodium acid pyrophosphate.
Or maybe monocalcium phosphate. I don't know. It's kind of a chemistry set in there, but there's a crumbly mouth feel to Pop-Tarts I've found nowhere else.
Ca(H2PO4)2 Content
WINNER: Pop-Tart
How about the real biggie, taste?
While the gourmet pop-tart admittedly had much to offer in this category, it failed on one legitimately surprising point:
It was way too sweet.
I often complain about how sweet certain things are, but it's not because I don't like sweet things. It's actually because I do like sweet things, so much so, that, like Icarus, I occasionally fly too close to the sun and find my wings engulfed in a sickly sweet paste.
That "frosting" on top is a thick shell of granular sugar. The insides are paste. The flavor is serviceable, but the sugar overwhelms everything else.
It's just trying too hard to appeal to kids, or perhaps the presumed expectations of the adults wanting to relive their childhoods without being seen purchasing actual Pop-Tarts and the social condemnation that routinely follows.
Pop-Tarts are sweet, but they know where to draw the line.
Tooth Decay Avoidance:
WINNER: Pop-Tart
Speaking of social condemnation…
I would be remiss were I not to include what may be even more important than taste here in "the DMV" which is what particularly insufferable people call the DC-Maryland-Virginia metropolitan area:
Status.
It's hard to argue that spending an absurd amount of money for a faux pop-tart wannabe signals an abundance of expendable income. (Hey, I was just doing research. Okay? As far as my wife is concerned.) You could get a decent apple turnover for less than four bucks if that's what you want. But that's not what you want. You want to be seen purchasing ridiculously overpriced pop-tart-like objects as a way to signal to others that you have more money than you know what to do with.
Pastry Prestige:
WINNER: Gourmet pop-tart.
Before we finish with value, I'd like to take a look at one more entry, a $4 gourmet pop-tart I found at another vendor. What can I say, I like to be thorough. And eat pastries.
Smaller than the original, and less expensive, it suffers from the same insecurities and shortfalls as our $6 entry.
Yes, it's more comfortable with its beigeness, but felt the need to add sprinkles on top. I mean, fine, if you want to throw a little gay pride pastry parade in your toaster, that's your business, but otherwise what's the point? And while it's not as sweet, it's still a bit over the top.
As for value, leaving aside my personal preferences, can a pop-tart be worth $6? Can it be worth $4?
As a change of pace, maybe. A splurge. The kind of stupid thing you do on vacation. But otherwise, think of all the other things you can do with $6, like.... okay, $6 dollars doesn't go as far as it used to, but you still probably have better uses for it.
If you're just looking at calories, I'd estimate the $6 pop-tart at maybe 400 and the $4 Pop Tart at 300.
A single Pop-Tart is 200 calories. You get eight, two in a sleeve, for $3.29 and that's when they're not on sale. That's 1600 calories.
In my book, the grand prize winner and still the reigning champ, is the original Pop-Tart.
