Dove’s New White Chocolate Carrot Cake Flavor Is Polarizing

If I had to describe 2019 snacks in one word, it’d be “daring.” For some reason, companies are all about putting out wacky flavors they know will sell based solely on sheer curiosity. Dove chocolate has jumped on board, but they chose one of the worst times of the year to do so.

There’s a lot of candy competing for top basket placement on Easter. This year is no different. Of course, you have your standard Easter classics, like Cadbury eggs and the Reese’s Peanut Butter eggs. Then, there are the new arrivals. M&M’s announced a white chocolate marshmallow flavor, which sounds daring but edible. Kit Kats will now resemble bunny ears, because ’tis the season. And Dove…. well, they also did something new.

Perhaps they felt inspired by other snacks, or maybe this was some unknown, secretly-coveted flavor, but Dove just released their white chocolate carrot cake squares. Try saying that sentence out loud while imagining how they taste. Now, I’ve never tried one before, so I can’t judge. But it sounds like it’ll fail in comparison to the multitude of Easter candies this year. (I mean, Dove actually has a version with peanut butter, so isn’t that good enough?)

The flavor is available at Target for $3.99.

I will admit that the individual wrappings are very cute. They’ll probably look fabulous inside an Easter basket.

Plus, Dove fans do seem genuinely excited about them. Which is funny, since most carrot cake-flavored candies and snacks face a little more ridicule.

It may be because once upon a time, M&Ms released a very similar flavor. And by “very similar,” I mean identical.

The M&M’s were only a limited edition, but diehard fans still can’t stop thinking about them.

Seriously. Years later, people can’t stop tweeting about them.

Back then, the flavor was even more unheard of. But something about the combination just worked.

So it’s possible that Dove wanted to see if they could collect some of those fans. But let’s be real here — Dove and M&M’s are a completely different experience. For one, Dove chocolates aren’t candy-coated.

And M&Ms don’t have an uplifting message inside, like Dove chocolates do. They’re the most inspirational of all the chocolates.

For their new variety, they’re using graham-flavored crisps to really drive the point home that it’s carrot cake. The Target website also wants to sell you on the fact that they’re perfect for an office candy dish, or even a baby shower.

A baby shower might be a stretch. But if you have a spring event in mind, these white chocolate carrot cake Dove candies want to be there.

The flavor is also a little unsettling because Dove often doesn’t do flavor changes for holidays. For example, their 2018 Halloween candy just had cute festive wrappers.

And same goes for their 2019 Valentine’s Day candy. It was just milk chocolate in a pink wrapper.

This New Year’s Eve, it looks like they went through another wrapper change — which we could all cheers to, since they’re highly Instagrammable.

Thus, you can see why the flavor change-up is even more unsettling. Dove should stick to what they do best — optimistic packaging and delicious milk chocolate. Wacky flavors can very well be left to companies like M&M’s and Oreo, which also has a carrot cake product currently on sale.

So, go ahead and try Dove’s latest offering if you dare. Just remember, nothing will ever dethrone milk chocolate and peanut butter as Easter’s signature flavors.