Curious Cuisine #1: Ah Caramel's Limited Edition Maple Flavour

I recently learned that Vachon's 'Ah Caramel' cakes, my personal favorite of every grocery store snack food aisle, are Canadian. I then subsequently realized that they are, apparently, not found outside of Canada.

So, having recently seen a limited edition maple flavour, I did the only thing I possibly could do: I went to the dollar store where I had initially seen them for sale, to find that they were (as Dollaramas often are) sold out of the thing I came to get that they had less than a week ago.

(For the uninitiated, Dollarama is a fairly standard dollar store, in that basically nothing in it has been a dollar for over a decade. I still remember coming home from school one day to see them changing out the original $1 sign to one that had a 'Plus' over it.)

So, thinking it was perhaps a fluke, because I had initially seen it at a different location, I went to that different location. No maple caramels.

I tried a third, and received the same result.

Finally, I caved and went to the other place I knew would have them, but where they would be about a dollar more expensive: a nearby Food Basics.

As it turned out, not only did Food Basics have them, but they were on sale this week, for the same price they would have been at the dollar store if I'd bought them when I first saw them!

So I picked up the limited edition maple version, as well as a box of the original (ostensibly for comparison but, well, they're my favorite and they were on sale; how could I possibly refuse?), and then I made my way home with my prize. However, it wasn't until a few days later that I was actually able to enjoy them.

Confession time: I am an absolute fiend for half the things in the grocery store snack food aisle. The kind of stuff that gets packed into a third grader's lunch. Your fruit roll-ups, your Ah Caramels, your Scooby-Doo gummies. I can decimate a pack of Fruit Gushers in record time.

So, I am biased. As I mentioned at the start, Ah Caramel is my favorite among them. My mother was always more fond of Jos Louis, another Vachon pastry that I am beginning to suspect doesn't exist beyond the Canadian border.

That is to say, I'm not coming into this with anything beyond my own subjective point of view, at least for the basic one.

Like most things that exist mostly to be packed into lunch boxes, original Ah Caramels, as well as their various limited editions (of which there have apparently been multiple without my knowledge, which feels like something that should not be true but apparently is; among them the excellent concept of strawberry, which seems like it would create an even sweeter version of Viva Puffs, and the questionable concept of salted caramel, which feels like an odd choice for a thing where caramel is already the default flavour), come in six plastic wrappers that each contain two chocolate-coated caramel sponge cakes that are about 5 centimeters square (or 2 inches, if you use the Imperial system).

Once you free those cakes from their plastic prison, they're usually slightly damaged. Their chocolate shell is pretty thin and is usually broken in some places before you've ever opened the box. Thankfully, this doesn't affect the flavour.

The flavour of an Ah Caramel is very... I guess the word for it would be light? There isn't a lot of flavour to it. Not in a bad way, either. It's just... Super light and fluffy, like if a cloud somehow became a grocery store chocolate-coated caramel sponge cake with some sweet cream filling.

It's something that's almost nostalgic to me, despite the fact that I still eat them pretty regularly. A nice, familiar baseline.

So now, on to its limited edition maple counterpart!

I am, sadly, a sucker for a good limited edition. And sometimes a bad one.

(Perhaps a story for another day.)

For now, the maple Ah Caramel! I sort of expected them to change the name, but I guess I don't know what they'd call it. Ah Maple? It just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Being that Canada has two main culinary claims to fame in poutine and maple syrup, it should be unsurprising that both are commonly used for random limited edition or experimental food items.

(We also have several less well-known culinary inventions. That includes these sponge cakes, but what I mean is mostly things like Nanaimo!)

Here, you can really see what I mean about the cakes getting beat up. The maple ones are on the left, the regular on the right. They don't look especially different from the outside, other than what reads to me as a slightly warmer brown on the maple ones.

At last, answers to my most pressing questions are within reach. What does it taste like? How maple-y is it? Is it good?

The answer to the first question is it tastes like maple. The answer to the second question is very. And the answer to that third question is... It's not bad, but even if these weren't a limited edition, I probably wouldn't get them again.

I like Ah Caramels for their light, fluffy flavour. This maple flavoured one is not especially light and fluffy, because everything is drowned out by the intensity of the maple syrup. After I had finished both of the maple cakes, I could still taste maple syrup in my mouth for a good while.

The next time I want a lightly-flavoured maple snack, I think I'll just get some Dare maple cookies and call it a day. And if I want a lightly-flavoured sponge cake, my original Ah Caramels will remain my go-to.