junk food junkie is back! it's pumpkin time again!

It's that time of year again! The leaves are changing (somewhere), there is a nip in the air (possibly somewhere) and that must mean it is fall! And with fall comes November and with it, comes pumpkins! And I don't mean the large orange thing soon to be in the White House! I'm talking the endless parade of pumpkin themed and 'flavored' items which seem to flood grocery store shelves.

Honestly, when I was growing up, I really don't remember having so many pumpkin tasting food products coming down the pike. Seems like all we ever saw was pumpkin pie. Or, more specifically, the canned filling to make your own pie. These days, it is more like a bandwagon every food producer is jumping on, no matter how far out of the box it seems. Last year, thanks to Trader Joe's, even I went a little pumpkin crazy which you can relive here, here, here, here and finally here. Whew! I'm exhausted!

I went a little pumpkin cra-cra! But this year I'm scaling back. I decided to limit myself to a few select items that seemed like they had promise of tasting good. Something I can't say for everything I had last year. I will say, new choices did seem a little more sparse. There were a fair number of repeats including this one, which I did love up with butter! Being selective as I was, I figured what better way to kick things off than with donuts!

That's right, who better to pick donuts from than Entenmann's. They do an ever burgeoning array of baked goods we've all seen in our local grocery stores. This year they are bringing out the pumpkin.

An old-fashioned like glazed pumpkin donut with, as the box says, real pumpkin in the mix. I checked the ingredients list also, and yep, there it was, pumpkin. Not puree, not essence of, not other natural flavors, just pumpkin. They do have the pumpkin pie smell of cinnamon, which is also on the ingredients. I think there may be some nutmeg or allspice or something else in here too, though glancing back at ingredients, all it says is spice--whatever that may be. The first ingredient on the list is sugar. It's in the donut and in the glaze on the outside, so yes, this baby is sweeeetttt. Almost tooth achingly sweet. You do get small notes of cinnamon pumpkin, though I wish it was kicked up a bit more. Warming them up, they give off a comforting fall aroma and they taste better. Overall though, a little too processed and sweet with not enough pumpkin flavor for my tastebuds.

Of course Keebler (Kellogg's) couldn't miss out on this game. Thus comes a pumpkin spice version of their ever popular fudge stripe cookies.

**pumpkin spice white fudge stripe cookies**

Though you can see, they don't have the fudge stripes. I guess you could say they are white fudge, but that would be a misnomer as there is nothing chocolate about or in this cookie. In fact, there isn't even anything pumpkin in this cookie. If it is, it was left off the ingredient list. What you will see is cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger--your standard pie spices in this cookie. Does it taste like pumpkin? No. Those spices make it taste more like a Christmas cookie, kind of like something I'm totally addicted to. Yes, I'm looking at you Trader Joe's fudge iced gingerbread men! While they don't have those great bits of actual candied ginger mixed in, they taste pretty darn close. I did like the cookie, but this ain't a pumpkin thing. Unless they decide to add some actual pumpkin in here, I think they should up the ginger a touch and just repackage it as a Christmas cookie.

And speaking of Trader Joe's, I couldn't pass them up without venturing down their unending rabbit hole of pumpkinalia. I went in wanting to limit myself to just one item of theirs this year. It is why I ended up with these chocolate mousse pumpkins. I spotted them right off and was like. Of course, when I got them home, I think you can see what my mistake was. I just saw the words pumpkin and mousse and was like, "I gotta try them!" Had I read the packaging without orange colored glasses, it would have connected these were chocolate mousse cakes in the 'shape' of pumpkins, not pumpkin flavored. Oh well.

I still ate it anyway. They were cute and exactly what the package said they were. A layer of chocolate cake, a layer of chocolate mousse, covered in an orange colored 'iced fudge frosting' like thing. They were tasty little bites that reminded me of eating a mini moonpie. Just with a mousse instead of a marshmallow filling. Not pumpkin, but interesting enough in a junk food quick bite way.

Okay, one with actual pumpkin and two with no pumpkin whatsoever. Not exactly what I was looking for, but there they are anyway. This means I'm gonna need to make up the lack of pumpkin somehow so I can hit my pumpkin quota for the fall season. Though I think next time I'm just gonna upgrade for something heavy on the pumpkin and decadence. I guess this means I'm gonna have to troll through some of the bakeries in town to see what they've got going on. It's a tough job but someone has to do it. And that is why I'm here, to eat the pumpkin sweets so you don't have to. Your welcome.