Cosmos Creations

Update Review, October 2017

Several years ago, I tried several varieties of Cosmo's Creations, sorta like puffier popcorn (one of my favorite snack foods), and I enjoyed the unique, very munchable, form factor.  I intended to try more flavors, but, uh, seem to have forgotten about them.  Until now.

Peanut Butter.

"If there’s a hall of fame for flavors, crowd-pleasing peanut butter surely holds a place of honor. This irresistibly good recipe is a blend of sweet and savory, all-natural peanut butter atop a crunchy, corn puff. It’s a simple snack to satisfy your craving on the go. Packed with dreamy peanut butter flavor, we’ve baked up another bite-sized snack that is deliciously addictive."

This was an impulse buy.  Not a standard move for me, as I'm usually quite calculated in my purchases.  But I was at the grocery store with my mom, and saw that her local grocery store carried Cosmos Creations, and remembered really liking the fascinating form factor.  And then I saw they had a peanut butter flavor, and, well, into the shopping cart it went.  (They also had maple pecan, and I also almost grabbed that one ...)

I'm glad I went out on a limb and got these.  The form factor was the same as the other flavors I've tried, a bit strange, hard to wrap your head around, somewhere between popcorn and popped corn cereal, very light, very snackable.

And the peanut butter coating?  Yup, exactly what I was hoping for.  Nicely coated, good peanut butter flavor.  And shockingly?  I didn't feel the need to freeze these, which is saying something.

Original Review, April 2014

In my world, there are certainly not only three meals in a day, and snack foods are a particular weakness of mine.  I love to munch on things.  Even better if they are sweet things.  Even better if they are some form of popcorn.

I was delighted to discover Cosmos Creations, aka, "Heavenly Morsels of Baked Corn Creations".  Not popcorn exactly, because there are no kernels or hulls involved.  Instead they are made from cornmeal that is extruded and then baked, more like a corn puff.  Like any good snack food these days, they are also gluten-free, non GMO.  I'm still not sure why I should be happy to avoid kernels and hulls though, but their marketing certainly drives this point home.

Cosmos Creations come in both sweet and savory varieties.  I did not try the savory flavors, but I could imagine them being like cheese puffs.  I also wasn't able to try their original sweet flavor, caramel, but instead got to try the rest of the sweet product line.

The satisfied my munchy cravings, and I'd happily try out more varieties.

Salted Caramel.

I know they said that it wasn't popcorn, but I somehow still expected something more popcorn-like.  As you can see in the photo, the pieces were about the size of popcorn, and at a first glance almost look like popcorn, but ... they aren't.

Since they are a puff, they are lighter and not as crispy as popcorn.  I like the crunch of popcorn more.  I do see some appeal of not ever having unpopped kernels though.  But overall, the form factor wasn't great.

But my real problem was the flavor.  Caramel can often have a bitter taste, in a good way, but this was a bit bitter in a bad way.  I didn't really taste salt, which should be a distinguishing feature of a salted caramel flavor.

Other samplers said, "these are like cereal, but better!"  Others said they couldn't quite decide if they liked them, but they had to keep eating them because they were so "intriguing".  We were interested enough to try another flavor, but wouldn't purchase this flavor again.

Cinnamon Crunch.

Next, I tried the cinnamon crunch.  I expected the pieces to just be coated in cinnamon, perhaps cinnamon and sugar, but instead they were covered in cinnamon caramel.  Much better.  The pieces were very, very, well coated, resulting in an incredibly crunchy exterior.  They seriously met my munchy desires.

The cinnamon caramel was sweet, but the cinnamon flavor was quite intense, so they were more spicy than sweet.  Really quite good.

I gladly shared the Salted Caramel flavor with others, but these I kept all for myself.  I intended to save a few to try with coffee, which I think would have been fabulous.  Black coffee paired with cinnamon and sweets?  Yes!  But ... alas, the bag was gone before I knew it.  I also intended to save a few to heat up in the toaster oven, because they actually recommend this on their web site.  But ... alas, I devoured my bag in record time.  Whoops.

I'd certainly eat these again.

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