Thursday, August 8, 2013

Review: Fiber One 90 Calorie Cinnamon Coffee Cake Brownies


I've mentioned in review of other products how much I enjoy coffee cake and how much it reminds me of my childhood as we would often see it at fellowship and networking events.  Seeing that General Mills has decided to jump on the coffee cake train with their newest bar out of the Fiber One 90 Calorie line of products both very much intrigued and excited me and that leads me to today's review of these Fiber One 90 Calorie Cinnamon Coffee Cake Brownies.  I picked up a box of six of these on sale at Meijer for $3.00 and each bar within the box is of course 90 calories and has less than a gram of protein, so this is obviously a snack bar and that's about it.



The thing that I immediately noticed when taking this out of the wrapper was the immediate hit of delightful cinnamon smell.  Frankly, it smelled just like a cinnamon roll and since those are delicious themselves, that fact that these brownies reminded me of those rolls just heightened my expectation level even more.  The bar is the standard baked brownie look mixed with cinnamon, but what makes this interesting is that the cinnamon is not only in the baked portion of the brownie, but after I broke this soft bar in half, I noticed that this also included as little pellet-sized cinnamon bits throughout the bar, so there was even more cinnamon in here.  Not sure I've ever seen a cinnamon bit before, so that was definitely interesting.  The bar was then topped with a vanilla swirl, so it definitely was a pretty one.  One thing I found particularly interesting about this was that there was no mention smell of coffee in this at all and since that is a named part of the bar, I found that odd.

As I would have expected when I noticed how soft this was when I broke it apart, it was quite soft when I was chewing through it as well.  Again, just like a misshaped cinnamon roll.  The cinnamon flavor in this brownie was definitely prevalent, but it wasn't overly "hot" or powerful in anyway.  It was exceptionally pleasing.  What was also pleasing was each time I encountered one of those cinnamon bits as they provided not only an occasional burst of cinnamon flavor, but also a textural breakup to the soft brownie.  The vanilla icing also added a bit of sweetness to the mix and the fact that it melted over the baked brownie portion made for a fun chew through this.  What was odd was that there was no coffee taste that I could detect whatsoever.  That's fine because this somewhat resembled a cinnamon roll, but if coffee is not going to be a flavor component, perhaps General Mills/Fiber One should consider a different name for this?  Oh well, that's an argument for a different day.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Not quite a cinnamon roll, not quite a coffee cake, but still a tasty product that I very much enjoyed.  The fact that it's only 90 calories makes me enjoy it all that much more, so this gets a BUY IT rating from me.  It's an enjoyable treat (or snack) and certainly one that is to be enjoyed if you enjoy cinnamon rolls, because this is a somewhat reasonable (and healthier) approximation of that greatly unhealthy treat.

BUY IT!!

5 comments:

  1. These look interesting as I've not seen any alternatives over here in England. Although I'm not too keen on soft stuff anyway i like my cakes crispy.

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  2. 'Coffee cake' has never had coffee flavor in it. It is named that way because you are supposed to eat it while drinking coffee.

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    Replies
    1. Not necessarily true in this case since chicory root extract is one of the listed ingredients. Chicory root is commonly used as a coffee substitute and additive.

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  3. Chicory root is used for the added fiber. Coffee cake has no coffee in it...

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  4. Coffee cake is indeed a cake that one has with coffee, not necessarily a cake that is coffee flavored. I believe that's what this bar was named after. I almost bought these at Costco today but I was torn between the Lemon bars, which I originally wanted, and these. 30 bars is too much to buy without knowing if I'd like them. I'll try to find smaller boxes of each to try them out first. Your reviews are helpful, however. Thank you.

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