Does the Pop-Tarts/Girl Scouts Cookies combo earn a Best Teamwork Merit Badge?

When I’m buying Girl Scout Cookies, I’m buying two flavors: Thin Mints and Samoas. (Or are they Caramel deLites? I can never keep track of which version we get based on the geographic Girl Scout bakery lines.)

Those are the obvious picks, right?

Sure, you can get Peanut Butter Patties/Tagalongs or maybe a Trefoil if you’re feeling traditional, but it’s hard to beat the combo of Thin Mints and Samoas when you’re sitting down on the couch to eat a few sleeves of Girl Scout Cookies.

The food scientists over at the Pop-Tarts laboratory clearly agree with me, as those were the two flavors they selected for the first ever Pop-Tarts flavors inspired by Girl Scouts Cookies, giving the world Girl Scouts Frosted Thin Mints Pop-Tarts and Girl Scouts Frosted Coconut Caramel Pop-Tarts.

The Internet has eagerly been waiting for these two flavors to arrive in stores, so I wasted little time tossing them in our cart when I found them while grocery shopping last week. So are these Pop-Tarts flavors worthy of a merit badge?

Where I found it

Harris Teeter came through for me with the Girl Scouts Pop-Tarts.

What I paid

The standard box of four two-packs was on sale for $2.50, down from $3.49 each.

My thoughts

Let’s kick things off with the Thin Mints flavor. The Pop-Tarts website describes this combo as a “delicious chocolately pastry crust, mint chocolatey filling and smooth frosting.” (I’m pretty sure the frosting is chocolate, and I don’t really enjoy the flavor being described as just “smooth.”)

It’s been a big year for Thin Mints. Wendy’s rolled out the two flavors of its Thin Mints Frosty in February, and based on the success of the chocolate version of that innovation, the Thin Mints Pop-Tart was the version of the limited edition breakfast pastry.

Do you get that classic Thin Mints taste in the “mint chocolatey filling”? Absolutely. But — and here’s the issue with pretty much every Pop-Tart flavor I’ve reviewed for Popculturology — it’s not strong enough.

Someone at Kellogg’s needs to find a way to fix this issue for these limited edition flavors. They can capture a flavor, whether it’s Thin Mints or Hot Chocolate or Eggo Waffles, but they can’t amp it up enough to fight back against the pastry itself. There really needs to be the Pop-Tart version of a Double Stuf Oreo.

OK, on to the Coconut Caramel flavor. I’m not sure why they went with the generic name for this one. Maybe Kellogg’s and the Girl Scouts couldn’t settle on whether to call them Samoas or Caramel deLites?

The Pop-Tarts website’s description of the Coconut Caramel flavor hews pretty close to how they broke down its Thin Mints counterpart: “delicious pastry crust, coconut caramel flavored filling and smooth frosting.” There’s that “smooth” frosting again.

This one was going to be a trickier one to pull off. While you can pretty easily mimic a Thin Mint with a simple chocolate/mint combo, the Samoa is a much more specific flavor — one that the Pop-Tart version fails to capture.

You can give a Pop-Tart filling that’s coconut-and-caramel flavored, but that’s not the same as having actual coconut shreds nestled on top of a cookie and drizzled with caramel and chocolate. And once again, the Coconut Caramel Pop-Tarts come off as dry since there isn’t enough filling to balance out the pastry itself.

Final verdict: PASS

The more I write about Pop-Tarts, the more I’m convinced that Kellogg’s should just stick with the classics. Strawberry Frosted. S’mores. Brown Sugar Cinnamon. Even a more modern flavor like Hot Fudge Sundae won’t let you down. (If you want a chocolate Pop-Tart, you can never go wrong with the Hot Fudge Sundae flavor.) I do have my eyes on the newish Cinnamon Roll flavor, though. I’m probably setting myself up for heartbreak there, aren’t I?