Menu

Food:

• Art the Clown Crispy Cereal Treat – $7.50
• Terrifier Macaron – $4 each or 6 for $20
• Clown Cafe Cherry Brownie – $9

The unsettling (but thematically appropriate) Art Crispies design is printed on fondant, which is flavorless and chewy. We wish it were edible paper. Alas, Universal used fondant heavily on the HHN treats this year, so this was the first of many. The retro-style art (and Art) is cute and fun, which is where the good ends.

The crispy treat is not much better than the fondant. It has a vague hint of a taste, but it honestly might just be food coloring. The marshmallow was used hesitantly, as if just enough was added to work as glue rather than contribute anything to the treat itself. It’s like eating stale rice cereal that they stuck to a kneaded eraser.

Rating out of 7: 2

We were divided on the flavor. Some tasted just a hint of caramel, while others tasted Snickers. The cookie is well done with a nice crunch. It’s a decent macaron, though definitely not the best of the bunch.

Rating out of 7: 4

The fondant is back, this time with black food coloring. Don’t worry, though. It’s the frosting that’ll stain you.

The brownie itself was thick and moist, with a texture more akin to fudge. Like the rice crispy, the flavor is barely there. It looks like chocolate and smells like chocolate, but it’s like if they made burnt chocolate La Croix. It’s the concept of chocolate. It had maraschino cherries baked into it, but they didn’t really add anything either.

The frosting, however, is packed full of flavor. Unfortunately, that flavor is cherry Chloraseptic. There’s another cherry treat in the HHN lineup this year that is fantastic, so we recommend skipping this.

Rating out of 7: 2

Menu

Food:

• Fallout Macaron – $4 each or 6 for $20
• Salted Caramel Pumpkin Trifle Cake – $13

This is the best macaron this year. The salted caramel is front and center. Our only critique is that we wish there were more filling. Otherwise, the cookie is just as good as the others. If you’re going to choose one macaron from the lineup, this is a solid choice.

Rating out of 7: 6

While not the most convenient to eat, this is probably the most complex flavor profile of the treats we tried. One in our group does not like pumpkin/pumpkin spice things, but still gave this a four.

If you do like pumpkin? Get this. It’s delicious. The cake was more akin to a muffin in texture but it was moist and flavorful. We’re not sure why they decided salted caramel equals Fallout, but we’re not complaining. The filling rounds out the flavors nicely. The Junior Reporter (age six) gave it 1000 out of 10. It’s also a decent serving size for the price. We split it between three people easily.

The pumpkin hater in our group is also not a fan of dark chocolate, but the rest of us liked the bone. It wasn’t cheap or waxy and paired nicely with the other flavors. The whole thing was so good, we could ignore that we were eating “dog food.” (For the second time. Universal, why?)

Rating out of 7: 7

Menu

Food:

• Macaron – $4 each or 6 for $20

Last year’s s’mores Ghostbusters macaron was one of our favorites, and while this was still good, it wasn’t as good as the previous version. There wasn’t enough of the chocolate ganache, leaving the marshmallow to do the heavy lifting. It needs a better balance, but that may also vary with each batch. Regardless, it’s a good choice.

Rating out of 7: 5

Menu

Food:

• Macaron – $4 each or 6 for $20

The adults in our group thought this was just fine. The cookie itself is as good as the others, but we’re just not nuts for Nutella. The kid, however, loved it. He gave it a 100 out of 10 (well, technically he gave it a 5 + 5 + 5… until he reached 100, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t type all that out).

Rating out of 7: 4

Menu

Food:

• Lil’ Boo Sugar Cookie – $6.50
• Mel’s Die-in Tart – $8
• Mel’s Die-in Cake – $8

Lil’ Boo returns for another year, but we’d had yet to try this. We weren’t missing anything. The cookie is very dry, which the chewy fondant does nothing to fix. It’s also flavorless. Between this and the terrible Chica cookie, we think we’ll steer clear of cookies at Universal for a while.

(I feel required to say that this was the 6 year-old’s favorite thing. He gave it 10,000,000 out of 10. So if you have a kiddo who loves all things Lil’ Boo, it may be worth your $6.50 for their joy.)

Rating out of 7: 2

We loved this. The crust is a little soft, but that’s a personal preference. Otherwise, it’s flaky and buttery. The cherry filling is probably just canned, but it’s the right mix of tart and sweet. The fondant logo went in the trash, since it was as dull as all the others. But it makes for a cute photo (and thinking about it with the Die-in neon? We may need to get another. Oh, who are we kidding? We’ll be back for this again).

Rating out of 7: 7

Same fondant logo, same garbage can. However, we think it’s so cute that this looks like Mel’s Strawberry Shake, complete with chocolate straw. And when you cut it open, it bleeds. The cake is a round dessert shell which is filled with frosting, and both are flavored with artificial strawberry. It tastes just like a Twizzler. It was a little overly sweet, especially with the syrup drizzled on top.

Rating out of 7: 5