The winter brings with it some characteristic food items. From hints of fall with pumpkin donuts to classic winter foods like peppermint bark, we sampled the flavors of the seasons.

Pumpkin donuts
The fall pumpkin donuts came from one of the most iconic donut shops, Dunkin’ Donuts. It smells of pumpkin and cinnamon, and it’s topped with glaze above the autumn brown colored donut. While it is a little dry, and slightly bland, it still tastes amazing and represents the season. For the overall rating, we give it a 4.5/5.

Peppermint chocolate
Moving along our list, we tried Ghirardelli peppermint bark dark chocolate. As soon as taken out of the packaging the smell of peppermint and dark chocolate came spilling out and was very overpowering. The presentation is stunning – it’s neatly packaged and inside lies a layer of dark chocolate and then a gorgeous pattern of peppermint bark with small crunchy parts of peppermint scattered throughout. However, the taste is extremely minty in the beginning and then moves on to an overwhelming taste of dark chocolate. We felt the dark chocolate overpowered the peppermint, which is why we give it a 4/5.

Pumpkin loaf
While the Trader Joe’s vegan gingerbread loaf is beautifully packaged, and smells amazing, the taste was nothing like the looks. It smelt very sweet but also savory at the same time but was overall very bitter. The ginger itself is very strong. Normally, gingerbread should be sweet and tasty, and the loaf was spicy and bitter. The loaf itself also crumbled immediately as it came out of the loaf tin and was falling apart while we were eating it. Overall, we give this a 1/5.