Chocolate Pringles Log Takes Over Kitchens — Dentists Call It 'the Gift That Keeps on Giving'

DES MOINES, IOWA — The summer’s hottest snack is not really a food. It is a science experiment. It is the Frozen Chocolate Pringles Log: a tube of potato chips, stuffed with melted chocolate, frozen solid, and sliced into glossy coins like a very crunchy, very regrettable sausage.

The recipe, which has taken over kitchen counters and social media feeds across the country, is simple. Melt a bag of chocolate. Pour it into a full can of Pringles. Freeze overnight. Peel off the cardboard. Slice the resulting log into disks. The result looks like a beautiful chocolate coin. The result tastes like a beautiful chocolate coin. The result digests like a beautiful chocolate coin made of regret.

The inventor of the trend is not a chef, a food scientist, or a man with a plan. He is a 16-year-old with a full bag of chocolate chips and both hands full.

“I just wanted chips and chocolate, and my hands were full,” said Mason Pickett, 16, of Columbus, Ohio, whose video of the first log has been viewed more times than anyone in Columbus has ever been viewed. “I had a can in one hand and a bag of chocolate in the other, and I thought: what would happen? And now the internet wants to know what happens after what happens.”

What happens after what happens, according to the medical community, is a boom.

Dentists are not the only professionals celebrating. “It’s the most important culinary innovation since putting cheese on things,” said Blake Tanner, who runs a food account and has made 14 logs in the last three weeks. “It’s also the most important dental innovation since the toothbrush — for dentists.”

At one high school cafeteria in Akron, the log has become a lunchtime institution. “It’s like a cookie that’s lying to you,” said Jada Whitmore, 15, who was seen eating a disk at 11:47 a.m. and looking confident about it. “My mom says it’s not a real lunch. My mom has never seen the inside of a Pringles can the way I have. My mom doesn’t know what a log can do.”

Gastroenterologists, asked for comment, were reportedly drafting a statement. One spoke on condition of anonymity. “Statistically speaking,” he said, “one log is a snack. Two logs is a medical event. Three logs is a patient. I’m not telling anyone not to do it. I’m telling everyone to know their numbers.”

The trend has also created a new kind of kitchen diplomacy. Families that once fought over the last chip now negotiate over the first slice. Couples who once shared everything now maintain separate logs. “I told my husband he could have the sour cream and onion can,” one Des Moines mother said. “He’s a grown man. He can make his own mistakes. I’m keeping the barbecue for the good chocolate.”

At press time, Pringles had reportedly dispatched a team of lawyers to determine whether they can sue the trend or should simply begin selling pre-made chocolate logs, and a dentist in Ohio had already named a boat.