Pumpkin Joe-Joe's

I love trying the seasonal varieties of the Joe-Joe's cookies at Trader Joe's, even though after trying them, I usually still prefer the standard vanilla-vanilla Joe-Joe's. Last year, we tried the Halloween ones which I thought were so cute (they had little jack-o'-lantern faces on chocolate cookies with orange cream filling), but then we absolutely hated them. I don't know if we just got a bad batch or what, but they had absolutely no flavor and tasted kind of stale. They're still one of the only things we've ever returned to Trader Joe's. After that experience, I had pretty low expectations for the pumpkin Joe-Joe's ($2.99) but was hoping for the best since I do love Joe-Joe's.

I should not have worried, because these pumpkin Joe-Joe's were fantastic. Trader Joe's is overrun by pumpkin stuff right now, but to us, this is one of the best products in the lot. The filling tasted like cream mixed with pumpkin pie spices, but it wasn't overpowering like some of the other pumpkin products. It had just the right amount of spice mixed in with the cream. The cookie itself also had a nice flavor. They reminded me a bit of graham crackers. The whole thing just tasted very much like fall, which was great, but what we really liked was that the balance of the flavors was there and not just hitting you over the head with pumpkin spice. Probably helped that the cookies have actual pumpkin puree in them and not just the spices.

Buy Again? Absolutely, although they either sell out really quickly or have a limited supply (we've only seen them at the store once although we've looked on multiple trips, and on that one trip, they were a single column in the cookie section), so I'm not sure we'll get them again this season before they're gone.