Curious Cuisine #2: Mario Galaxy Blue Raspberry Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

A few weeks ago, I was out running errands when something caught my eye: Mario-themed mini cupcakes. At the time, the Mario Galaxy movie had just come out, so it wasn't like there being Mario snacks was surprising.

What was surprising was the flavor selection: there was peach, of course; an easy and obvious choice, though not for me since I'm not a fan of peaches or peach-flavored treats. 

The other flavor, though, was blue raspberry.

I picked up the box. I turned it around. I read up on the free movie offer if you bought three boxes of Mario Galaxy-branded food (which I would later learn includes hamburger and hot dog buns, which are probably fine but just the same thing as the brand's usual offerings in new packaging, so not really relevant to something like this).

I am, often, a victim of my own curiosity. So I accepted my fate and put the box in my cart.

Because what do you mean blue raspberry chocolate cupcake?

It was a few days later that I set some time aside to try them, and I shared this experience with some of my friends. On Discord call, but also by recording my initial thoughts on each aspect.

Like most grocery store snacks, these come two to a wrapper and four to a box. Unlike most grocery store snacks, they are supposed to be blue raspberry flavored.

I love blue raspberry. If blue raspberries were real and they actually tasted like that, I'd have a new favorite fruit.

But blue raspberries are primarily a sour candy flavor. So how do you translate a flavor people expect to be sour to the frosting of a mini cupcake?

In short, you don't. At least not well.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I bit into this cupcake, other than that I was pretty sure it would be bad.

I was immediately proven right. The frosting was true blue raspberry, meaning it was in fact sour, and the chocolate cupcake had basically no flavor. It was pretty much just texture.

I like blue raspberry. I like chocolate cake. I like grocery store snacks. This is three things I like in one thing, executed as poorly as I could possibly consider without being a genuine hazard.

Afterward, I ate a snack size bag of stale hickory sticks that was also not good but was nowhere near this bad, and that finally got the sour taste out of my mouth.

Maybe I should've just got the Luigi hot dog buns.

Then again, if I was ever going to learn my lesson, it would've happened long before this. As the saying goes, 'Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back'; though I don't know if I can call myself satisfied with this experience.

I haven't finished the other packs. I thought about trying another one while I was writing this, since it's been a bit and they're coming up on their best before date.