Limited Edition Foods

Marie Callender’s has a limited edition pie available in its restaurants in January called the Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Pie. As you can see from the photo above, the pie is a decadent combination of cheese cake and apple pie seasoned with cinnamon.

The restaurants regularly have an extensive pie menu, featuring traditional fruit pies, cream pies, and cheese cakes. The Caramel Apple Cream Cheese Pie is one of the seasonal offerings that are added throughout the year.

On Wednesday, January 23, 2008, the United States will celebrate National Pie Day. Well, maybe not everyone in the United States will celebrate, but the folks at The American Pie Counsel certainly will be happy about it. These are the tips from The American Pie Counsel for celebrating this day of “warm comfort foods.”

1) Share pie. Whether you make or buy pie, share it. By its very nature, pie is meant to be eaten with others.

2) Pay it forward. Hand out pie slices to strangers and encourage them to do the same for others. It could spread the peace on earth and goodwill to mankind that we all hope for.

3) Be a good Samaritan. Buy an extra pie at your local grocery store and give it to the person behind you in line. You may just change their life!

4) Reach out to new neighbors you haven’t met and bring them some pecan pie – it says your thoughtful. Stay awhile to get to know each other over pie and fill them in on the neighborhood.

5) Indulge your co-workers. Bring some pie to work – you’ll create a lot of good rapport and maybe even get a raise.

6) Surprise your significant other at work and bring him or her a pie to share with their coworkers.

7) Say thank you. Know a special someone who deserves some thanks? Maybe it’s a friend who did you a favor, your child’s teacher or your postal worker. What better way to say thanks than with a warm hug wrapped in a delicious crust?

9) Delight your family. Share the love and share your favorite memories together over a warm, fresh pie. Have older family members talk about the history behind the family favorites. Start a new tradition and publish pie memories and recipes, then send them to family members.

10) Spend time with your kids and make a pie together. Let them pick their favorite pie and show them how it’s done. They’ll be proud of their creation and have fond memories of you as the best parent ever for years to come!

11) Get caught up with friends and invite them over for some afternoon pumpkin pie. You can dish on all their latest news.

12) Throw a pie potluck get-together. Have everyone bring their favorite pie and exchange recipes. We’ve heard of events where more than 100 folks come with 100 pies. Have a contest to see who can come up with the most pie songs. The winning prize? A pie!

13) Hold a charity pie-throwing or pie-eating contest or a pie auction. You can donate the proceeds to your local community food bank.

14) Hold a pie-making contest. Invite the best pie makers in town to compete for prizes in various categories. Ask cooking teachers, pastry chefs and pie lovers to be judges. Be sure the kids are involved – you can include pie poetry and pie art contests for them.

15) Eat pie. Whether you make it yourself, buy it at a supermarket or bakery or order it at a restaurant, perform a random act of pieness on yourself and enjoy some pie on National Pie Day – it’s great with lunch, dinner or as a late-night snack.

Each winter Pepperidge Farms brings out a chocolate covered version of their Milano cookies, which are extremely popular with both chocoholics and cookie fans.

The regular Milano cookies feature two crispy, oval-shaped sugar cookies sandwiching a thin layer of dark chocolate. As the photo above indicates, the luxurious Chocolate Drenched version features even more chocolate and is apparently quite the treat.

The Chocolate Drenched Milanos typically hit stores around the December holidays, and in spite of the high price per package (as high as $4 for seven cookies) they don’t last long.

The Chocolate Drenched Milano is not the only variation that Pepperidge Farm puts on the market at various times throughout the year. The company also makes a Mint Milano, a Mint Chocolate Milano, a Double Chocolate Milano, an Orange Milano, a Raspberry Milano, a French Vanilla Milano, an Amaretto Milano, a Black & White Milano, a Milk Chocolate Milano, and a Raspberry Chocolate Milano.

It’s never too late to look back at where you have been, especially when you are trying to map out where you are going.  Before we delve into the hot new limited edition trends that are on the way in 2008, let’s take a look back at some of the limited edition snacks that intrigued our taste buds in 2007.

Snacks always seem to come in a variety of limited edition shapes, sizes, flavors and textures.  The Oreo Dunker debuted in Canada as a limited edition, for example, and M&Ms created a limited edition that had nothing to do with the chocolate the classic candies are typically known for and instead tasted like "razzberries."  We saw limited edition Strawberry Jelly Krimpets, bagels shaped like candy canes, and a plethora of other tasty treats.

Doritos offered one of the most interesting limited editions of the year, an unidentified limited edition chip that consumers got to taste and name themselves.  Ruth’s Hemp Bar also had an intriguing idea, with a Red, White & Blueberry bar that was focused on raising political awareness among the brand’s followers.

There were also plenty of movie tie ins this year, as always, including the Krusty-Os cereal that helped promote The Simpsons movie.

While not technically a snack, California Pizza Kitchen’s limited edition Cajun Pizza was one of the most popular foods of the year if the traffic it brought to this blog is any indication at all.  The post about this unique food was one of the most popular on the site for months after it went up, and the food itself was pretty popular as well.  If you did not have a chance to try it when it was in the frozen food section you will have to head to a CPK restaurant, where the Cajun Pizza is a menu staple.

Whether salty or sweet, I am looking forward to covering more limited edition snacks for you in 2008.

For those of you who can’t get enough candy cane treats this time of year, FunkyChunky Popcorn has introduced limited edition candy cane popcorn for the holiday season.

The snack consists of clusters of buttery caramel popcorn with glazed Macadamia nuts, white peppermint chocolate and candy cane pieces fused together. FunkyChunky sells its candy cane popcorn on its website, where customers can buy it in small “grab and go” packs, gift arrangements, or in eight ounce and twenty ounce gift cylinders like the one that is shown here.

If you want to go all out you can buy a cylinder three pack featuring the candy cane popcorn and FunkyChunky’s two signature flavors, the classic FunkyChunky popcorn and the company’s pretzel popcorn. The company’s classic flavor consists of caramel popcorn, whole glazed almonds, cashews and pecans drizzled with white, milk and dark chocolate. The pretzel flavor is even more complicated, featuring thick pretzels with milk, dark and white chocolates, caramel corn, and roasted pecans. Last but not least the company also sells a chocolate popcorn, which is made with Oreo cookies, graham crackers, pecans, crispy rice and dried berries. Perfect for the popcorn lover on your holiday gift list.

Each year the Mozzarella Company of Dallas makes these festive rounds of spicy spreadable cheese for the holiday season.  Seasoned with chilis and topped with jalapenos, the cheeses are called Christmas Cheese and have become immensely popular for parties and holiday gatherings.  The cheese can also be used for appetizers, so for a recipe suggestion from the Mozzarella Company click below.

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Are you looking for something cute and unique to take to the office holiday party or your neighbor’s annual Christmas buffet? Check out these adorable candy cane bagels which are available for the holidays from Noah’s and Einstein Bagel Company. If your party is later in the day, check out the similarly-shaped iced sugar cookies. Both companies also offer bagels in holiday wreath themes as well; those items feature cranberry bits in either red, green, or traditional beige dough.

“We’re pleased to join our guests in spreading holiday cheer with these fresh, new and classic products,” says Jim Hood, Chief Marketing Officer for Einstein Noah Restaurant Group. “Our candy cane bagels add a festive touch to the season and I believe our guests will want to try these delicious additions to the menu.”

While the idea of a candy cane bagel sounds a bit jarring at first, the candy cane concept ends with the design as the bagels themselves are a traditional bagel flavor, although the chain does add a twist of cranberry flavored bagel in its Northeast markets. Both companies offer a seasonal coffee sprinkled with real peppermint candies for those who need a peppermint fix. According to Retail Wire, the candy cane bagel is Einstein Bros.’ best seller during the holiday season and is one the top selling seasonal items in that retail niche.

All of this is good news for Einstein which has gone public and now has to face the oppressive pressure of reporting its quarterly earnings. The company has posted their financial history here, and careful readers will note their passion is for growth and not for food which may or may not change their expectations for the tastiness of the candy cane bagel.

bagels, Christmas, candy cane

A few months ago Shrek the Third invaded movie theaters, bringing a stampede of limited edition food products to stores along the way. Everything, even Snickers “nougat” turned green for a few weeks last summer it seemed. Check out this funny You Tube video from product developer Mike Mozart who reviews many of the Shrek limited edition foods, and is actually brave enough to try the limited edition Cheetos that claimed to turn consumers’ tongues green. The Shrek the Third DVD hits stores November 13.

Shrek, DVD, limited edition, Cheetos, Snickers, You Tube

We talk a lot about obesity these days, so it is odd to think that it was only a few decades ago that a MoonPie and a Coke was an acceptable lunch. The thick and filling MoonPie is a Southern classic that was actually considered to be a meal way back when.

Check out the MoonPie website for the sweet and silly stories that won the “My Favorite MoonPie Memory” contest. The various stories feature a MoonPie proposal and a ninety-five year old memory of buying a MoonPie and a Coke for a nickel.

My favorite MoonPie memory took place on a beach in Southern Mississippi many years ago, at a conference that was sponsored by MoonPie. In the wee small hours of the morning after the awards banquet everybody there ended on the beach looking at the water and somehow that turned into a MoonPie fight. Lots of laughter followed, but a word to the wise for anyone thinking about trying it … those things are thick and they hurt. It was a hell of a lot of fun though.

MoonPie, Coke, obesity, South, lunch

Today we continue to highlight the many limited edition pink products that are being released during the month of October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. October is usually a banner month for pink foods thanks to the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s amazing marketing machine.

This month General Mills partnered with comedienne Ellen DeGeneres to create PinkTogether.com, a breast cancer support community centered around My Space. General Mills also launched several pink packaging initiatives to highlight the company’s $2 million donation to breast cancer causes. The campaign concept is being called Pink for the Cure, and participating brands include Cheerios, Nature Valley Granola Bars, Progresso Soup, Hamburger Helper dinners, Green Giant vegetables, Pillsbury, and Total among others. General Mills also reached out to the NASCAR audience and painted its car pink, just like the folks behind the pink M&Ms.

Hershey’s has brought back the pink York Peppermint Pattie, the pink Nuggets, and the pink Hershey’s Kisses to show support for the cure in October. Hershey’s promises to make a $300,000 donation to The Young Survivor Coalition, an international organization.

Kim & Scott’s Gourmet Prezels have reshaped the classic snack into a ribbon for the month of October. Each of these limited edition pretzels will be shaped like an awareness ribbon, have a cinnamon flavor, and be covered with a white chocolate drizzle that has been made pink for the occasion. The pretzels are available locally for folks in Chicago, or in specialty “Twist for the Cause” packs that can be ordered online.

These are just a few of the plethora of pink products that are available this October. Did I miss your favorite? Leave a comment below and let me know.

Komen, October, breast cancer, TastyKake, General Mills, Ellen DeGeneres, Cheerios, Green Giant, Progresso, soup, Cheerios, Nature Valley, Pillsbury, Total, pretzel, For the Cure

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which always brings a landslide of pink themed products. Tasty Baking Company has joined the flurry, creating a limited edition TastyKake Strawberry Jelly Krimpet which is on the market for as long as supplies last.

The company will be donating ten percent of the profits from this limited edition version of the legendary Pennsylvania sponge cakes to breastcancer.org. Breastcancer.org is an online resource for women with breast cancer and their families, and as part of the partnership the boxes for the limited edition cakes will have information about breast cancer and breastcancer.org.

“Despite the widespread consumer awareness of breast cancer as an issue, the disease itself remains quite a confusing and scary experience for the people going through it,” according to Dr. Marisa Weiss. “The fundraising opportunity that Tastykake has created will have a significant, lasting impact on breastcancer.org and the millions of people who visit our site each year.”

The partnership with breastcancer.org is not the company’s only philanthropic endeavor, earlier this year the company introduced a limited edition lemon spongecake called Alex’s Lemon Krimpets. Fifty cents of the proceeds from the sale of each box of those lemon-jelly filled cakes went to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, an organization that raises money for pediatric oncology research.

TastyKake Strawberry Jelly Krimpets can be purchased in regional grocery stores or by the case from Tastykake.com. The Tasty Baking Company has over one hundred varieties of baked products, and sells them in larger quantities for corporate gifts or special events as well.

October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Pink, Krimpet, limited edition, strawberry, pediatrics, oncology, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, TastyKake, Tasty Baking Company