Break me off a piece of that birthday cake.

As you may know, I've become something of an expert on things that taste like birthday cake that are not actually birthday cake. A few of my investigations can be found here, here, here, and here.

This week brings a new one, in the guise of Kit Kat -- and I mean the candy bar, not the cabaret:

The cashier had not seen the display for this product in the store, and was very excited about it when she saw it in my order.

The Kit Kat bar has an interesting history, especially in the United States, as summed up nicely by the History of Candy site at Penn State. It was invented in 1935 by the British chocolatier Rowntree’s. Says the History site, "The name of this delicious candy comes from the Kit Kat club, which is named after  Christopher Catling. Catling would hold a famous political and literary club in his London pie shop in the 17th century." But the weird thing is that while Kit Kat is sold everywhere else as a Nestlé product, in the United States it is a Hershey product. Rowntree's licensed the trademarks for the U.S. market to Hershey beginning in 1970, a license that did not lapse when Nestlé bought Rowntree's in 1988, per our old pal Wikipedia. It's one reason that the primary Kit Kat bar is different in the United States than in other countries. Then again, Nestlé isn't even Nestlé anymore in the U.S., since the Swiss company sold its American candy business to Italian candy king Ferraro in 2018.

Also, Hershey gotta Hershey; anyone familiar with the history of the company and its founder, Milton Snavely Hershey, knows how he was so sore when the Swiss wouldn't show him how to make milk chocolate that he went and invented it all over again himself -- in a distinctive type and flavor. That said, the chocolate in a regular American Kit Kat has never tasted like Hershey's typical chocolate to me. But I do believe that the company fooled around with the Kit Kat formula to try to make it more appealing to the American palette.

Enough of this schlep down memory lane; how does the new limited edition Birthday Cake Kit Kat taste?

Pretty darn good!

Despite white chocolate replacing the milk chocolate, it is not insanely sweet. The cake-flavored wafers seem to keep it in check. It has more birthday-cake flavor (meaning yellow cake with vanilla frosting) than any of the other birthday products I've tried. And yet it has that nice, light Kit Kat candy mouthfeel and crunch. Really good job on this one, Hershey.

I see online that other countries have a ridiculous variety of Kit Kats; Japan has ten unique flavors ranging from must-try (Strawberry Cheesecake, Grape, Choco Banana) to crazy-rich-Asian (Apple Vinegar, Sweet Potato, Wasabi). I don't think Hershey is willing to push the brand that far, but you never know. We live in wacky times. Why not an American version of Japan's Sweet Corn Kit Kat?