You might be wondering why it has taken me so long to post a review of these new Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts. As someone who collects Pop-Tarts like they’re sugary pastry trading cards (picture me sliding a Frosted Strawberry into a Yu-Gi-Oh duel disk), I agree that I should have had this review up eons ago.

But I’ve been staring at this box of Pop-Tarts for a solid month now, because I just can’t decide whether I like them.

“Oh, these are terrible!” I’ll mumble to myself, as I slide another Tart in my mouth, chasing it with a glass of milk to form a flowing Maple Bacon Log Flume down through my esophagus.

To quote Kylo Ren: “I’m being torn apart!” I wonder if it was a Maple Bacon Pop-Tart that turned him to the Dark Side.

I’m not sure if these Tarts are in the thralls of puberty or if they just have chicken pox, but either way, I bet all the other mean Pop-Tarts called red-speckled Maple Bacon “pizza face” on the playground. It also probably didn’t help his schoolyard reputation that he has a meaty body odor wafting out of every pore.

While other reviewers claim to taste little bacon flavor in these Pop-Tarts, it hit me quickly. As I bit into one straight out of the packaging, the light, flaky crust was tinged with a cooked charcoal porky-ness. It was definitely more artificial than genuine, but in a game of “Guess that Mystery Meat” (everyone’s cocktail party favorite), I easily could have pegged it as bacon.

The deeper I got into the Pop-Tart, the more the bizarre bacon flavor was balanced by sweetness. The vanilla frosting provides a very sugary base, while the sweet maple filling is closer to an oily, milky maple butter than it is to straight maple syrup. I guess they’re saving the syrup flavor for “Canadian Bacon Pop-Tarts.”

By the time I reach the pastry’s core, there’s just enough of that smoked meat finish to spoil my experience; to get an idea of what I mean, imagine it’s your birthday and Mom bakes you a big ol’ vanilla Funfetti sheet cake (with maple buttercream frosting—your favorite!). But right as you’re about to bite in, your bumbling Uncle Ernie spills a packet of Bac~Os on it. Damn it, Uncle Ernie! Not again!

I had hopes that toasting them could blend the flavors better, and to a degree, it did. The crust takes on a pleasant, browned French toast flavor. The ooey, gooey middle ends up like the half-cooked innards of a bacon pancake: a seamless blend of sticky, maple dough and salty, artificial pork. The problem? I may like singing about bacon pancakes, but I don’t like the taste of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrcT7sseLZI

This flavor may very well appeal to you, but I am a breakfast brumotactillophobe (believe it or not, this is the actual word for people who fear having their food touch). In most cases, I don’t mind when food touches. But at breakfast time, the savory bits better not even graze the sweet stuff, let alone fornicate intimately inside of a golden pastry.

Anyone who has read a Cerealously Pop-Tart review knows what’s coming next, and even though every part of me screams “no!” to the idea of cold bacon, I stuck a package of Maple Bacon Tarts in the freezer for awhile (this is usually my favorite way to eat Pop-Tarts).

Let’s just say there’s a good reason that not even Ben & Jerry’s will touch the idea of bacon ice cream with a ten foot spoon. Put simply: the idea of chilled, creamy meat doesn’t work for these Tarts, and it probably wouldn’t work anywhere else, either. Except for maybe a horror movie.

Alongside Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, green ketchup, and cappuccino-flavored potato chips, Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts are destined to go down in history as “things we ate just to say that we did.” If you have a few bucks to spare, they’re worth the novelty and the chance to write “Maple Bacon Pop-Tart Survivor” on your resume. But if not, just be happy you only had to read the words “chilled, creamy meat.”

I had to taste them.

The Bowl: Frosted Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts

The Breakdown: Gimmicky and weird, only those who love mixing fake smokiness and sugariness will be able to stomach more than one box. But don’t be surprised if the charming novelty makes you scarf down eight of them anyway.

The Bottom Line: 5.5 kick-ass “Bacon Pancakes” remixes out of 10

Our friends over at Junk Banter tried these, too. Read what they had to say about Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts here!