We Candy Girls do love us a good gummy candy, so the Starburst GummiBursts seemed like a promising choice. Starburst as a brand has proven to have a strong-enough flavor that it transfers itself with some success to other types of candy; the Starburst jellybeans, for example, are favorites for their bright tanginess. And while we were a bit weirded out by the promise of a "liquid center" in the GummiBursts, we also grew up in the age of Dr. Pepper gum, so our discerning palates had already been initiated in the ways of incongruous texture mixing.
First Impressions You might guess that these little chews would be square like their ancestors, but you'd be wrong: They come as plump little discs, approximately the diameter of a nickel. All four of the original flavors (cherry, strawberry, orange and lemon) are represented, though the cherry and strawberry are both red, fairly indistinguishable from one another. No handy light pink to signal your favorite here.
Taste The texture of the gummy is surprisingly dense and, well, gummy. More gummy bear than Gushers (though they do contain apple juice as their third ingredient). The "liquid" is hibernating deep within and takes a few chews to find. It's not so much liquid as a flavored corn syrup (first ingredient), which is not as unpleasant as it should be. The two textures never really marry, though, so your mouth is left to make sense of chewed up bits of rubbery gumminess and a sweet goo. And though it wasn't quite as tangy as we would have liked, overall the Starburst flavor came through pretty well.
Conclusions As far as adding a bit of a tang to a chewy treat, these might rank above your average gummy bear if the odd center didn't throw you off. Overall, we'd rather eat plain Starburst candies or the delicious jellybeans. Not a failure, but not particularly endearing, either.
Would we finish them? Yes; It's a small package, so our threshold for the weird outlasts the ten or so gummies within. Would we buy again? Probably not, though we've eaten worse. Rating: 2.5 out of 5
