Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Review: Kashi Apple Cobbler Soft n' Chewy Bar


As if having a previously reviewed soft-baked square wasn't enough, Kashi has decided to go the extra step and release another line of similar bars with the added bonus that these bars are not only soft, but they are also chewy.  Lucky us!  I had a coupon for one of these new bars, so I picked up a box of five Kashi Apple Cobbler Soft n' Chewy Bars on sale at Marsh for $2.99 (that was the sale price; my coupon deducted more).  Each bar in the box is 1.4 ounces and has 130 calories with three grams of protein.  It's all natural and is made with real fruits and veggies.  Veggies?!  Ummm...based on the name of this, the fact that it advertises the presence of veggies is sort of frightening to me.



Since this seemed to be an obvious extension of the soft-baked squares, I expected this bar to look strikingly similar to that (seeing a representation on the box certainly helped too) and that was definitely the case.  Instead of being a square, it was a very soft rectangle topped with an ample amount of shavings of various nuts, which in this case were almonds, peanuts and walnuts.  The bar smelled strongly of cinnamon and something that seemed kind of weird and off.  After reading the box for a bit, I saw that Kashi really pushes that they use pumpkin to make these bars, along with their traditional seven whole grain mix, so that smell that seemed off to me had to be from the pumpkin in the mix.  As for any representation of apples, well, I guess that was going to have to be left to my imagination because while there were itsy bitsy pieces of what could have been dried apples, but I wasn't sure because there was no apple smell.  Upon reviewing the wrapper, I saw that the apple in here was apple puree, which while not only being odd, meant that the only representation of the namesake flavor was somehow baked into the bar after originally being a ground up form of apples that may have left some little apple pieces, if indeed that's what those bits were.

After taking my first bite, that off smell played straight into the taste of the bar as it just tasted off too and tasted pretty much nothing like apples.  The strong cinnamon smell disappeared on the taste and essentially what I got was something that tasted sort of like pumpkin, but mostly like something that had no flavor.  If I do have to give Kashi one compliment though, it was that they did make this bar chewy as it was no longer just soft.  There was some crunch in the bar due to some minimal add-ins and also the nuts in the bar.  Outside of that though, this was just a chewy bar of essentially nothingness.  I doubt that is what Kashi intended as this bar is basically just bread, nuts and something that might have been a dried apple from a puree when you look at it in its basic form.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I supposed you could get used to this if you were hungry and needed something to eat and didn't mind the strange flavors emanating from this, but honestly, why would you want to?  For that, I give this a FLY BY IT rating.  It's just too weird and definitely not something that I would encourage anyone to seek out.  The only compliment I can give this is that if you are looking for a pumpkin bread-like product to consume, then this is your answer.  Like I mentioned in the last paragraph though, I doubt that was Kashi's intention when they manufactured this bar.  I can definitely say one thing though...this was not apple cobbler.

FLY BY IT!!

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