Strawberry season is nigh!

So while we wait for me to track down those new Strawberry Cheerios, while we wait a little longer for this summer’s Strawberry Tiny Toast, and while we wait even longer for Franken Berry to awaken from his 11 month hibernation, let’s start with a classic strawberry appetizer!

Kellogg’s Strawberry Frosted Mini-Wheats has been around for a long time. In fact, some historians claim this cereal predates the strawberry fruit itself.

We don’t take those historians very seriously.

But since Strawberry Mini-Wheats have long graced the breakfast aisle alongside compatriots like Blueberry, Maple Brown Sugar, and Original, they must be pretty darn good, right? Let’s revisit them and find out.

After all, I can’t resist any opportunity to lick hot pink frosting off of things. Somewhere out there is a veritable zoo of naked Keebler Frosted Animal Cookies.

And speaking of pink, each of these biscuits is pinker than P!nk singing the Pretty in Pink soundtrack while a Barbie-loving kindergartener gives her a makeover with a Crayola “Tickle Me Pink” crayon.

The frosting on every piece certainly provides the bulk of the flavor. It’s a super sweet, yet pleasantly artificial strawberry. It tastes like someone liquefied a Strawberry Laffy Taffy, blended it with some Smucker’s Strawberry Syrup, and then used a pastry brush to elegantly paint the resulting cocktail onto every Mini-Wheat’s grainy canvas.

There’s more pinkish red to be found deep within each biscuit’s thatched wheat reservoir, too. These delightful nuggets have a fainter, but more genuinely tangy dried strawberry “bite.” The fake and real strawberry combo really livens up the otherwise mild wheat base, which provides a dense, wholesome grain taste.

Milk, being the magical moisturizer it is, naturally works wonders on the otherwise super dry strawberry biscuits. Though soaking up milk makes their vibrant rose makeup run, the biscuits take on a delightful strawberry smoothie flavor. I can’t decide whether they taste more like berries ‘n’ cream yogurt, strawberry ice cream, or a whip cream-drenched strawberry shortcake, but either way, this cereal will make strawberry fans pleased as punch.*

*Fruit punch, that is. I do not condone physically punching Frosted Mini-Wheats. You ever had a wheat blister?

These Minis aren’t perfect. Their berry taste has trouble lasting beyond the first couple bites; they certainly don’t have the flavor permeability of Mini-Wheats Maple Brown Sugar or Chocolate Little Bites. At the same time, the endmilk has a tendency to become too syrupy and strawberry cotton candy-esque.

But despite these minor, strawberry seed-sized gripes, Strawberry Frosted Mini-Wheats make for a plump, filling, and satisfying early summer cereal. If all else fails, you can always just scrape the powdered frosting off each piece, mix it with some of that PB2 powdered peanut butter, and make the dustiest PB&J the world has ever seen.

Now that’s what I’d call a sandy sandwich. I’ll be here all week, folks!

The Bowl: Strawberry Frosted Mini-Wheats

The Breakdown: Like a harvest cut short by bad weather, the Mini-Wheats start with a pleasant kiss of mixed real/fake strawberry, but it all quickly fades away. Strawberry dust, in the wind.

The Bottom Line: 8 Laffy Taffy Da Vincis out of 10

(Quick Nutrition Facts: 190 calories, 6 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein per 25 biscuit serving)