Birthday Cake Milk Chocolate M&Ms are out on shelves even though Mars announced that they would be released in May 2014. The new cake flavor comes right on the heels of the Walmart-exclusive Red Velvet M&Ms that also came out this year.
The description is rather vague: Delicious milk chocolate infused with birthday cake flavor creates an exciting new treat worth celebrating. Part of my confusion comes from an actual non-standardization of birthday cake as a singular flavor. Is it yellow cake with vanilla icing? Is it devil’s food with chocolate frosting? Is it an ice cream cake with candle wax? I’m going to go with chocolate cake and white (vanilla) icing, since that’s what the red M is holding on the package.
It’s unclear if this is a new permanent addition to the M&Ms varieties, which currently include: Milk Chocolate, Peanut, Dark Chocolate, Dark Peanut, Peanut Butter, Almond, Dark Mint, Raspberry, and Pretzel plus other seasonal varieties. They currently come in two package sizes, the stand up bag holding 8 ounces shown here and the single serve version.
The candy coated chocolates are quite big and very bright in primary red, yellow and blue. I noticed that they had the same cracking and dusting problem I experienced with my Red Velvet M&Ms earlier this year. I don’t know if it’s because they’re bigger or that the specialty versions just get treated more roughly than regular versions. I polished them individually for their photo shoot. (Really.)
They do smell sweeter, with a little more of a vanilla note than regular M&Ms. They’re not that different from regular Milk Chocolate M&Ms, except that they’re bigger. They’re not that good though, the novelty of the flavor wears off after about five of them. They just seemed sweeter ... the chocolate certainly isn’t great. I’ve noticed that the quality of the chocolate is one item that Mars has not been focusing on over the years, instead it’s been the added flavors, colors or special printing you can get on the shell.
I did try them compared to the Red Velvet M&Ms, since they’re both based on cakes. What I noticed is that the Red Velvet tasted more like buttered popcorn but also had a bit more of a tangy note. The Birthday Cake, on the other hand, has an Angel Food Cake note of baked sugar and vanilla.
I’ll stick to the Almond M&Ms, just in case anyone was wondering which M&Ms to have at my birthday party.
Related Candies
- M&Ms Milk Chocolate Red Velvet
- Godiva Cake Truffles
- Dove Cookies and Creme + Ghirardelli Cookies Jubilee
- M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn
- Cupcake Bites
- Crispy M&Ms
- Recipe: Peppermint Stick Layer Cake
They should had gone a white chocolate routine like a chocolate shell with a white chocolate filling. Adding confetti pieces to it and cake flavor.
Ugh….should have never got my hopes up….was thinking you would say something like this. I agree….they should focus on the chocolate….like a 72% dark orange….in my dreams!
Disappointing yet as you mentioned not surprising. I too thought the Red Velvet left a lot to be desired. I have not yet tasted these…
Aha! I was hoping you’d review these and answer the question of what “birthday cake flavor” is in this context.
Alek’s suggestion is more what I would have expected, since “birthday cake flavor” in baking things other than cakes (birthday-cake pancakes, birthday-cake cookies, etc.) means yellow/vanilla cake, white frosting, and sprinkles.
I agree with Alek, I was expecting white chocolate with sprinkles, kind of like the “funfetti” cake mixes. I still can’t wait to try these though!
I’m still waiting for the return of the dulce de Leche m&m’s.
I would have preferred the white chocolate with sprinkles route that others have mentioned, but I did enjoy these. They don’t really taste like birthday cake, but I like the sweeter, more vanilla note of the chocolate. These remind me a lot of an oversized version of Hersheyettes (which I always thought were superior to M&Ms;). Since I can only find Hersheyettes at Christmastime, I hope these stick around. If I’m craving M&Ms;, these will be my go-to flavor.
The M&M’s Brithday Cake taste barely any different than the regular ones. I have strong taste buds that can notice subtle difference in taste and even then I did not notice much difference.
They taste like the excess food coloring in icing on purchased birthday cakes.
I think they just taste sweet - nothing else.
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