wtf does "birthday cake" flavor mean? Like sometimes things (cookies, gum, candles, soap) will be "birthday cake" flavored/scented and??? there's no such thing as cake flavor, it depends on the kind of cake?? as far as I can tell it means "vanilla flavor, but worse and in pastel colors"
Same for "cotton candy" flavor. That's just sugar????
to me it means vanilla-adjacent with the ghost of a lemon once imagined. but mostly it means lots of sugar. i think it's gross, but lots of people, especially from the midwest, seem to love it
you're spot on about it being very popular in the midwest
to me its like... vanilla but sweeter?
"lots of people from the midwest United States seem to love it" is the most backhanded compliment you can give food.
I would agree about birthday cake flavor being about sugar, vanilla, and slight citrus flavor, but the big component that it has is cream. Nauseatingly buttercreamy frosting completes the Birthday Cake Vibe.
as an aside, a Mexican-American friend of mine once told me that she wouldn't go to birthday parties as a kid if there wasn't tres leches cake. If they were offering "birthday cake" (i.e. sheet cake with vanilla buttercream/chocolate/whatever flavor) and not tres leches, she would demand to go home immediately.
a lot of our flavors I think are little more than placebo effect laid on top of the actual flavor of "made with twice your recommended daily intake of sugar"
the flavor is Marketing. also cotton candy is sweetness with a faint hint of caramelization and vanilla (pink cotton candy dye has vanilla flavoring; blue cotton candy dye has "blue raspberry" flavoring which is a whole nother can of worms)
Blue raspberry is an honest flavor tho. "Raspberry, but blue", exactly what it says on the tin
