Review: JELL-O Mix-Ins Strawberry Shortcake Pudding

It's been quite a while since I've done a JELL-O review here on the blog.  I raced out and did a whole bunch of them when the blog was first starting since I'm obsessed with pudding and then only did a sporadic one or two since then as they introduced new flavors.  Within the past few months or so, JELL-O introduced a new product line called "Mix-Ins" where the whole premise of the cup is as the name implies.  It's pudding and then you mix in some other ingredients.  I had always stayed away because the flavors seemed boring to me, but armed with the great equalizer (coupons), I decided to pick up a bunch of these on a recent trip to my local Meijer to try out.  It's that trip that led me to pick up this JELL-O Mix-Ins Strawberry Shortcake Pudding two-pack on sale for $1.25.  Each pudding cup is 3.4 ounces, which is smaller than a typical JELL-O pudding cup, and has 140 calories per cup.

As you can see from the headline picture and as you also read in my description above, the whole premise of these is for you to do all the work by mixing in the add-in of choice, so they package the pudding and the add-ins separately.  The add-ins in this case are a bunch of red and white pellets that I would consider to be the strawberry and whipped cream flavoring of the product's namesake Strawberry Shortcake.  The pudding itself seemed to be a typical vanilla pudding, so there wasn't a lot to it.   I will say that the mix-ins did have a nice strawberry smell, so at least I knew going in that this product wouldn't be a total failure.

While it wasn't a total failure, it wasn't a total success either.  If anything, it was just boring.  Sure, the strawberry flavor was there and it mixed well with the pudding and what I assumed to be whipped cream add-ins, but nothing about this whole mixture was particularly memorable or outstanding in my mind.  The pellets did add an interesting crunchy texture as I made my way through each spoonful, so I guess that there was something memorable here as that is different than all previous JELL-O products that I've had.  One other thing of note was that the mix-ins and pudding barely fit into the one cup and when I tried to stir them in, I kept spilling.  DOH!  I guess you could say that the pudding cup runeth over.  Ha!

Buy It or Fly By It?  Because of sheer boredom caused by this cup, I give it a FLY BY IT rating.  It's not good, bad or offensive, it's just there.  I guess it's a semi-reasonable approximation of strawberry shortcake in pudding form, but not good enough for me to recommend it for purchase.  It's probably something best left on the shelf unless you are exceptionally curious.  Although, you know what they said about curiosity and the cat, right?

FLY BY IT!!