In case you missed the news, Wisconsin State Fair kicked off today and will run through Sunday, August 16. In honor of the Fair’s 175th anniversary, a new flavor of the iconic (and yes, quite polarizing) Cream Puff was created.
Beginning today, the “Fair-aschino Cherry Cream Puff” is available for purchase—in limited quantities each day of the Wisconsin State Fair—in the Dairy Building. After eating this year’s Sporkies and Drinkies (more on that tomorrow!), we managed to save enough room to hop in the long, winding line to grab one. Before we get into our review, we’re going to lob a few questions your way to potentially save you a little time.
Do you like Cream Puffs? If you said no, you probably won’t like this. Are you willing to pay $2 more for this new flavor than you would for a standard Cream Puff? If $7 for a pink Puff is a cause for concern, we encourage you to just stick with the $5 original. Okay, now that we have all that out of the way, let’s get into it.
Having an appreciation of—if not a slight affinity for—Wisconsin State Fair’s most famous food item, we’ll indulge in an O.G. Cream Puff maybe every other year. We don’t love them, but we’re far from disliking them as well. As we pivoted to the new offering today, we were left wishing we had either just opted for the original or simply skipped the Cream Puff outright.
On account of Fair-aschino Cherry’s name, went in expecting an artificial cherry-forward cream flavor. Maybe that’s on us for not reading the description ahead of time. Instead of paying homage to its fruity namesake, Fair-aschino Cherry leaned into the ginger ale and grenadine flavors, giving the new treat an almost citrusy character. Did they try and ultimately not succeed in nodding in the general direction of an Old Fashioned without directly acknowledging it? We’re honestly not sure, but it seemed like it was either a botched cherry confectionery recreation or a dessert riff on a brandy old fashioned that just missed the mark.
Beyond its unexpected taste, the cream piping was more clumpy and watered-down than its standard cream contemporary, which made an already sloppy eating endeavor somehow even more difficult and unpleasant. We applaud the attempt to try something new and we think the addition of two Maraschino cherries was a nice touch, but that’s about all we can say in terms of positives.
If a Cream Puff is an important part of your Wisconsin State Fair experience, we suggest you save yourself a little money and spare yourself the likely letdown of the Fair-aschino and simply stick to the Original Cream Puff or the Chocolate Cream Puff varietals instead.
Fair-aschino Cherry Cream Puff: The Milwaukee Record Review — 1.5 out of 5 WonderFair Wheels (or 3 out of a possible 10 Giant Slides).
