[This photo: Cinnabon; all others: Todd Brock]

C'mon, admit it. Your first reaction to the news that Cinnabon was testing a pizza-like thingy was one of shock and horror and revolted disgust and utter despair at the hopelessly sad state of humanity... but deep down, you were curious. It's easy to tsk-tsk-tsk away at first glance and lump it in with the Luther Burger and the KFC Double Down as just another Thing That Should Not Be. But since it already exists... don't you kind of want to know how it tastes? Lucky for you, I live just 15 minutes away from the only food court in the world where you can currently get a Pizzabon.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan likens the famously-oversized standard-issue Cinnabon to a bean-bag chair. The Pizzabon is considerably smaller, about two and a half inches in diameter, or the size of the chain's "Minibon." That alone lessened the fright factor for me. Even if it's bad, I thought, three ounces of bad won't ruin my whole day. Given the snack-size portion, though, the $2.99 price tag seemed high.

Visually speaking, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought my Pizzabon looked way better than the PR shot. It's hard to tell what that even is in the topmost pic; is it a solid disc of dough with pizza stuff on top? Is it a mini-boule with pizza sauce and fixings ready to gush out at first bite? There's really nothing Cinnabonesque about that photo prop. What I had before me was clearly a cinnamon-bunlike spiral of dough with a sprinkling of cheese in various stages of meltitude, and a slice of pepperoni cut into bits. This was feeling less like some new fast-food monstrosity and more like a subtle twist on a bagel bite.

Like most of you, I was worried that a Cinnabon-made pizza snack would somehow join traditional pizza toppings and flavors (yay!) with the chain's famously ooey-gooey-drippingly-sweet rolls (hell, yes!) to produce a pizza infused with cinnamon-sugar goo (ewwww). Thankfully, saner heads prevailed at the Cinnabon test kitchen. Break that roll apart and you'll find whole slices of pepperoni, more cheese, and maybe a smattering of tomato-based sauce... all rolled up jellyroll-style in the same basic dough as the cinnamon treats.

(This is quite possibly the strangest upskirt shot I've ever taken.)

While I certainly didn't expect to find any char or leopard spotting, I was surprised at how much cheese and grease was soaking the bottoms of these buns. Cooked Pizzabons wait under the sneeze guard in a tray that holds a dozen at a time. As they sit, that cheese is melting... that pepperoni is oozing grease... and it's got nowhere to go but straight down the sides of the dough until it all pools around the bottom.

This made the Pizzabon pretty greasy, but overall, it actually wasn't terrible. It's very doughy‐exponentially doughier than even your deepest deep-dish pie. It reminded me of those homemade pizza treats that Mom cobbled together with a tube of refrigerated dough and a jar of sauce when you had a sleepover. All of the ingredients were there, but with a disproportionate amount of dough. It's a pizza-flavored wad of dough. Soft, tasty, familiar, dense dough... just a whole lot of it.

Dough, and sauce, and cheese, and pepperoni: it satisfies the basic requirements for pizza. (I can hear the pizza nerds rising up as one to rip me a new one in the comments section...) I think the uproar comes because it's Cinnabon—a food court chain (strike one) that's known for something other than pizza (strike two). For me, the real problem with the Pizzabon is, for all of the company rhetoric about wanting "to innovate to satisfy the demands of old customers and to create some new ones," and wanting customers "to find everything they want in one place," I never DIDN'T go to Cinnabon because they didn't offer a savory snack version that tasted like a pizza. I'd never get a Pizzabon AND a Cinnabon together (just typing that made me bloated and sleepy)... and I certainly wouldn't do the walk of shame up to a Cinnabon without getting the syrupy-sweet version (because I'm a weak, weak man)... so I'm not sure when or why I would seek out a Pizzabon again.

Still curious? Only Cumberland Mall on Atlanta's northwest side serves the Pizzabon for now. And this Saturday, (August 18, 2012), they're free from 11am to 2pm.

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. Besides being paid to eat cheeseburgers for AHT and pizzas for Slice, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and penned Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. When he grows up, he wants to be either the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or the drummer for Hootie & the Blowfish. Or both.

[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

How old is too old for a frozen pizza roll? Adam may love them, but the jury's still out in the general population. And while it's deciding, I'll opt for a slightly less juvenile solution to my artificial pizza cravings—Miaow Miaow Pizza Snacks. It's a strangely addicting pizza chip that's lighter and airier than most American snacks.

Like the flavor engineered Nacho Cheese Doritos, this Asian salty snack nails its seasoning mix perfectly. Dusted on top of puffed corn-potato squares that somewhat resemble shrimp chips in texture, the seasoning, featuring a healthy dose of onion powder and MSG, approximates the flavor of a Totino's Pizza Roll quite well. This is particularly good news for children of the nineties who may be embarrassed by nuking up a dozen rolls during work hours.

Those who have enjoyed Pizza Pringles will also recognize the hints of tomato and pepperoni in the seasoning mix, which graces the ingredient list with a gloriously ambiguous "pizza seasoning powder as permitted flavouring substance." The chip's texture, however, is more pleasant than that of a Pringle, resembling a sort of soft pizza pork rind.

Be warned, I found myself snacking on these crisps almost subconsciously throughout the day and will almost certainly be picking up more at an Asian grocery before the day's out (we found these at Hong Kong Supermarket in NYC). Pizza and salty snack lovers alike would be missing out if they did not give these Miaow Miaow Pizza crisps a try.

[Photograph via theimpulsivebuy on Flickr]

The Impulsive Buy is always good for some, er, "convenience food" reviews. Since we kicked off the day on Slice with the kid-friendliest pizza chain in the country (RIP Showbiz), why slow down this cheap thrills pizza locomotive now?!

The best thing about The Impulsive Buy review is the what-other-foods-you-might-recognize-to-help-you-comprehend-the-pizza-pocket list. Here's what I mean: The new Totino's Pizza Stuffers look like Totino's took their Party Pizza, folded one end over the other, and then used a mad scientist's shrink ray to get it down to a size slightly bigger than two or three of their Pizza Rolls.

Or if you eat a lot of Pizza Hut, they look like mini P'Zones.

Or if you eat a lot dim sum, they look like pizza potstickers.

Seems like the obvious comparison is just a mini calzone. Is the Pizza Hut novelty menu actually more widely recognized than a calzone? (I have a friend who admitted to having her first calzone just last week, but it wasn't like she didn't know what it was.) Has P.F. Chang's succeeded in universalizing the potsticker so that it is more familiar than a sub shop standard? For the part of the country missing sub shops (believe me, I know those parts exist because I'm from one), it's just a crescent shaped Hot Pocket with a crimped edge.

And why did they decide to call them "Pizza Stuffers"? It kind of makes me smell the dirty gym socks and teenage boy sweat just reading it.

[Photo: Robyn Lee]

Over on Serious Eats, Chris Crowley reports on the new Hearty Snacks at Dunkin Donuts:

The company says the breadstick bread is "pizza-style," but we thought it tasted more like old sourdough starter—sour and musty. The pepperoni and cheese was the better of the two, though it was still a long way from even approaching good. It has a vague pepperoni flavor and tanginess from the cheese, but the sauce, which tasted more like tomato powder, was not really there. It satisfied on a mediocre frozen pizza snacks level.

Get his full report here »

[Photo: Donna Currie]

Over in Recipes, our dough expert dbcurrie works out a method for delicious homemade pizza rolls. They're a serious step up from Totino's. Guess what we'll be munching on game day?

Get the Recipe »

[Photographs: Jessica Leibowitz]

Watch out—the pirates have their eyes on our pizza! Well, sort of.

New York Pizza–Flavored Pirate's Booty is the standard puffed rice and corn snack, dusted with a mix of tomato powder, assorted dehydrated cheeses, and typical pizza spices. These curlicues look a bit like Cheetos but end up tasting like a sour tomato, with a hint of oregano-pizza-sauce flavor that doesn't last nearly as long as the textural journey of the puff. What starts out with a light crunch ends as a thin paste mortaring your molars, and while this may work with the original flavor, we had trouble eating these.

We'll stick with Pizza-Flavored Pringles...or, um, actual pizza.

[Photographs: Maggie Hoffman]

The image on this Pizza-Flavored Pringles can cracks me up. See these chips? Scooped up straight from a pizza! Using a spatula!

(Though the back of the can does clarify that these chips are artificially flavored; so don't worry, no pizzas were harmed in the making of these snacks.)

Each chip is dusted with a red flavoring powder, but if you bite into the whole chip, the hints of tomato and pepperoni are overpowered by the inherent potato flavor. Nothing wrong with that if you're a Pringles fan (and I am). We happily munched away on them but generally agreed that they only faintly reminded us of a pepperoni slice.

But if you're looking for more pizza flavor from these chips, there's one solution. Lick each one. (See illustration, after the jump.) Then you'll get more salty, pizza-y goodness, with hints of oregano and meat.

Of course, that's a little weird.

[Illustration: Robyn Lee]

[Photographs: Robyn Lee]

I have a bad habit of not reading labels carefully enough. The word "Munchees" on this box called out my name so loudly I missed the small(er) print: these suckers are filled with classic Italian flavors and soy cheese.

I have to say, cheese of any sort is pretty much undetectable in these little pockets, which are basically just a dry, wheaty shell filled with tomato-flavored-oregano-soy-paste. They're inoffensive tasting, I suppose, but really don't have much to do with pizza, given the lack of oozing cheese and the uniform texture of the filling. The innards looked nothing like the photo on the box.

We toasted them up in our toaster oven, so the edges got a little crisp (though two of the 12 Munchees leaked tomato sludge). I don't think I'll be serving these at my next cocktail party.

Hey, pizza fans: Are they any pizza poppers that actually satisfy your pizza cravings?

[Photographs: Adam Kuban]

Stick the word pizza on your snack-food item, and Slice is sure to buy it. The latest pizza-but-not-pizza thing I saw at the supermarket was Doritos Collisions Pizza Cravers/Ranch flavor.

The Collisions line features two flavors in one bag. The four combinations are Hot Wings/Blue Cheese, Zesty Taco/Chipotle Ranch, Habañero/Guacamole, and Cheesy Enchilada/Sour Cream.

Hey, they look like Doritos! Fancy that. The darker chips are the pizza-flavored ones.

Flavorwise, they're marginally pizzalike. There's a hint of tomato, a barely discernible hint of pizza seasonings, and a cheese profile that's more Parmesan than mozzarella.

We've discussed the phenomenon of ranch dressing on pizza before, so I hardly think it's a coincidence that the Doritos folk put these two flavors on a crash course with each other. And there was only one logical thing to do:

Totally not the same as this:

[Photograph: snowpea&bokchoi on Flickr]

And maybe that's a good thing.

If you haven't seen it already...

• Totino's Pizza Rolls: Gotta Love 'Em! »
• SuperPretzel Pizza Pretzelfils »
• Poll: Do You Eat Pizza-Flavored Snacks »
• Pizza Balls. Yes, We Said Balls »
• How to Make a Pizza-Themed Cake »
• Recipe: Pizza Cups »
• Video: Surreal Pizza Rolls Commercial »
• How to Make a Pizzarito »
• Pretz Japanese Pizza Snacks »

Pete Schweddy's favorite pizza-flavored snack? [Photographs: Adam Kuban]

You've probably seen them in the snack aisle at your grocery store: pepperoni pizza Combos, pizza-flavored Pringles. You may have even seen Japan's Pretz pizza stick if you've been reading Slice long enough. But ... do you actually eat pizza-flavored snacks? »

Pete Schweddy's favorite pizza-flavored snack. [Photographs: Adam Kuban]

There comes a time in the course of pizza-blogging when going into detail about crispness, flavor profiles, and preparation methodology is beside the point and when it is merely enough to announce to the world that Yes! This thing exists. Here it is!.

This is one of those times, so ...

Pizza Balls. They exist. Commence snickering. From Brim's Snacks.

And, if you look closely, you'll see that Brim's follows a certain American tradition of including a tiny Bible verse on the packaging, in this case Isiah 40:8: "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."

I got them for a dollar at a Rite Aid pharmacy that's going out of business.

See also: Pizza Pretz, Big in Japan? »

[Photograph: Pizza Making]

I kinda love pizzamaking.com. The folks there get extra nerdy about dough and crusts and ovens and baking but then turn around and post something fun like this technique for pizza muffins:

I've been thinking about these for awhile and finally gave it a try. Easy to do. Make your pizza, roll it up, slice and place in a muffin pan.

I used a dough that's about 55% hydration. Overnight retard. It's easy to roll and shape. After rolling into a rectangle I sauced it and added pepperoni and mozzarella. You have to kind of figure the size of the roll or it may exceed the diameter of you muffin pan. Mine is 2.75" across and about 1.25" deep so I sliced the roll every 1.25". The slices are a little hard to handle. Lay the slices in the pans and bake at 425 for about 25 minutes. The slices were in the pan about 30 minutes before baking. Have to play with this to see how it effects things. Slight sticking problem. I used PAM. I may invest in a non stick muffin pan.

Funny enough, this isn't the first time that the idea of a Jeno's Pizza Roll commercial has been mined for humor. In the 1960s Stan Freberg made a parody of a Lark cigarette commercial that subbed Jeno's for smokes.

Not exactly pizza, but this recipe for Pizza Buns sounds kinda good. I love buns, and I love pizza. Maybe these would come in handy for Thanksgiving.

Taken out of context, one which I'm too young to have lived through originally, the commercial is completely insane and makes almost no sense. Until you find out that it's the work of Stan Freberg and is a parody of a commercial for Lark cigarettes. Who knew they were doing meta back then?

Here's the Lark commercial (after the jump):

Jeno's Pizza Rolls Commercial [YouTube, via Happiness is ...]
Comparing Pizza Roll Commercials [Happiness is ...]