Pizza Hut Cinnamon Sticks

Pizza Hut is one of those places that pretty much everyone in America has been to.  Does anyone think it is very good?  Nah.  But, inevitably, you wound up eating the pizza at some point in life.

For me, it was when I was in elementary school, and they sponsored the BookIt program.  I don't remember the details exactly, but you read books, collected stars in the form of stickers that went on a pin, and somehow that turned into a free personalized pan pizza.  I remember never liking pizza hut very much.  Even as a child, I thought the crust was just oily and nasty, and that there was too much cheese.  I also recall particularly hating their cheese.  But, I loved excelling at school, so I collected those stars, and sported my BookIt pin proudly.

Anyway.  So I hated the pizza, but ... I have a weakness for buffets.  I did as a kid, and I do now still.  My fondest dining memories as a child were of the Ponderosa buffet ... that thing was epic!  I loved it.

While it didn't compare with Ponderosa, Pizza Hut in my town also offered a buffet, with different types of pizza, salad, and pasta.  Sure, I didn't like their pizza, but I couldn't resist a buffet.  I got to try so many things in one sitting!  But, the real draw however was the dessert pizza.  It came in several fruit flavors (apple and cherry?), with a crumble and icing on top.  I'd suffer through the crappy pizza just to get that dessert pizza!

So this year, while on my little quest to redeem my free birthday goodies, I saw Pizza Hut.  I thought nothing of it, until I saw there was a dessert option.  It wasn't the dessert pizza, but instead, cinnamon sticks with icing (I could also pick breadsticks with marinara, but who does that?)  I figured that even if I didn't like it, Ojan loves cinnamon sticks/rolls/bread, so he might appreciate it.

So, I headed to the nearest Pizza Hut to see what it was all about.  Ordering was easy, all online, even for my freebie.  The staff was really quite friendly, even though the location had only 2 stars on Yelp!  I was even wished a happy birthday.

Baked Cinnamon Sticks with Icing.  $5.

The cinnamon sticks come in two sizes, a "single order" or a "double order".  I had no idea how many to expect with either size, but went for the small "single order".  I was a little surprised when the box that was handed to me was the size as that of a personal pan pizza.  It turns out, a single order is 10 sticks!

The cinnamon sticks were piping hot, fresh out of the oven.  They were slightly crispy on the outside.  They seemed to be just be regular pizza dough, topped with tons of butter, cinnamon, and sugar, about what you'd expect.  The middle sticks had the most generous coating, but they were all pretty decently coated.  They did not skimp on the cinnamon and sugar!

There was so much cinnamon and sugar that you didn't actually need the dipping sauce, which was icing.  It was just super sweet.  But, it melted onto the hot cinnamon sticks soooo well.  Dipping them in was a bit annoying, but spreading it on top instead worked very well.

Overall, these actually looked, and smelt, really good.  Well cooked, nicely coated, tons of topping.  But ... meh.  The pizza dough just didn't do it for me, and they were too heavy feeling.  Ojan, who loves cinnamon rolls, cinnamon bread, etc really enjoyed them.  But I wouldn't get them again, besides just to bring back for him.

$5 for 10 sticks seems like a fine price, but it seems like offering a smaller serving would make more sense.  I can't imagine anyone getting through a box of these after having pizza too.  If you are a heavy icing user, extra icing is available for $0.35.