Welcome to day 21 of Tag Sale Tastes’ Pumpkinpalooza 2020!

Today we’re baking with Nestle Filled Pumpkin Spice Flavored Baking Truffles:

A cute little pumpkin, cinnamon sticks, star anise, and colorful leaves adorn the package.  Wait — star anise?  That’s not a good sign.

The bar code sitting inside a pumpkin is a clever graphic design:

These pumpkin spice flavored truffles “have a creamy shell with a delicately spiced center” that purportedly make for “delicious cookies, pancakes, muffins, and more.”

The ingredients do not suggest anything pumpkin spice-y:

And here they are:

They look more like they’d be creamsicle flavored than pumpkin spice flavored, don’t they?

I was not originally planning to write about these.  I had ordered a bag online and it arrived melted into a solid waxy mass that I promptly trashed.  But then I saw a bag at the grocery store, and I’m aware that there are at least a few fans of these out there, so I decided to give them a try.

I would not advise eating these out of hand — they’re odd (which is, I think, why they call them “baking truffles” and not “eating truffles”).  Very sweet, not pumpkin spice-y, kinda like a little blob of Wilton Candy Melts, which I find revolting.  Instead, I used the cookie recipe on the back of the package for Pumpkin Spice Truffle Cookies:

Halfway into mixing the batter, I thought these might not be half bad, but I wasn’t willing to bet that the truffles would be good in them, so I substituted mini chocolate chips in half the batter.  And here are my cookies, pumpkin spice truffles on the left, chocolate chips on the right:

We hated these cookies.  Let’s face it — they are ugly little Turd Fergusons, aren’t they? They were cakey and rubbery, and not very spicy.  Contrary to what I assumed, the cookies with the truffles were actually better than the ones with the chocolate chips, but that isn’t saying much.  My husband told me they weren’t even good enough to bring to the office (he’s always telling me to bring my failures to the office, which I do not — I have some pride, after all).  The dogs thought they were fabulous, but then again, they’ve been known to eat their own vomit, so I wouldn’t trust their opinion.  I would like the hour or so I spent baking them back.

Rating:  1 pumpkin (out of 5)