Reviews of New Food: Kit Kat Ghost Toast

As a New York transplant originally from the South, my body is hard-wired to welcome the fall season once the temperature hits 70. I’m not proud of it, but I have been known to dust off my sweaters and light a cider-scented candle during the final week of August. This year, as my neighborhood Target started to swap sunscreen for pumpkin carving kits, a new seasonal item caught my eye: a cinnamon-creme chocolate bar called the Kit Kat Ghost Toast.

Once September began, I figured it was socially acceptable to give this Kit Kat a taste test. Store after store, however, the Ghost Toast was sold out. My interest was doubly piqued: why is this spooky-themed treat taking the city by storm in early September? Are shoppers in New York buying autumnal goods to seek a reprieve from the dog days of summer, or is the candy just that delicious? As a chocolate connoisseur and a Halloween hobbyist, I knew what I had to do. I made a trip to the motherland (Hershey’s Chocolate World in Times Square) to answer my question: Will I be able to boast that the Kit Kat Ghost Toast is the candy I love the most, or will I be forced to pen a roast because the flavor is gross?

After returning home with my Hershey’s shopping bag in tow, I was ready to appease my curiosity. When I opened the wrapper, I was struck with a neon color that was more akin to a creamsicle than any cinnamon toast I’d ever seen. This otherworldly appearance immediately raised an orange flag: I worried that I had wasted my hard-earned $3.18 on a petite treat that was too sweet to eat. Not to be dissuaded, I kept an open mind. After all, what could I, a living, breathing human being, know about the attributes of Ghost Toast?

On the first bite, I understood this phantasm’s fanaticism. The Kit Kat wafer texture had a mouthfeel reminiscent of a slightly crispy slice of bread, and the cinnamon taste itself echoed childhood memories of enjoying a weekend breakfast while wearing footie pajamas. If I closed my eyes and envisioned the dining room table in my parents’ house, I could almost forget the traffic-cone-colored confection melting quickly on my fingers. The familiar flavor transported me back in time, as though I were an apparition haunting my past self.

Later that evening, I hosted a watch party for the season finale of my favorite dating competition show, and I broke apart the rest of the chocolate to share with my friends. As the candy bar became crumbs, my carefully curated group of twenty-somethings became similarly overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia. The Kit Kat Ghost Toast catapulted my companions back to distant days of comforting Sunday brunches and quick bowls of cereal before catching the school bus.

Trapped in my tiny Manhattan studio, we mourned the time spent trapped in our tiny hometowns. We reminisced about trick-or-treating and those annual meetings with nameless neighbors. My mind wandered to the three or four children who will be visiting my apartment on Halloween this year. I’ll reward them with a bowl full of Kit Kats as they make their own holiday memories, and I’ll wonder if their nostalgia will pull in the opposite direction as they grow up and move out of the city. The proverbial Ghost Toast is always oranger on the other side: a bittersweet treat that tricks me into longing for an imperfect past.

My roommate taps my shoulder as The Bachelorette reveals who will receive the final rose. I blink back to reality, welcomed in by my motley crew of no-longer-kids. Engrossed, it seems I almost overdosed on the Kit Kat Ghost Toast.