Category Archives: News

News: Cinnamon Corn Flakes

New Cinnamon Corn Flakes

Oh, alright. : )

Was that your reaction to new Cinnamon Corn Flakes? It was certainly mine. What can I say: there’s a reason Corn Flakes doesn’t get new flavors very often. Two reasons, honestly. For one thing, if you’re like me, you’re way more likely to use Corn Flakes to bread something than to eat it as an actual cereal. Secondly, why eat Corn Flakes when Frosted Flakes kinda knock Corn Flakes out of the chicken coop in both quantity and quality of flavor?

But sure, there are plenty of people who like less-sweet cereals, so you reading this may very well be cluckin’ pumped about Cinnamon Corn Flakes. Positively cocka-doodle-doodling little maize-gold hearts in the margins of your diary.

Since Cinnamon Frosted Flakes likewise exist and are good, I’m interested to see how Cinnamon Corn Flakes directly compare. Such a dichotomy reminds me of how Cinnamon Cheerios debuted as a dimmed-down Cinnamon Cheerios Oat Crunch, yet still managed to have a unique cinna-charm all its own.

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see, but not long: Cinnamon Corn Flakes should be hitting stores this month.

News: Mystery Flavor Pop-Tarts

Mystery Flavor Pop-Tarts Box

Hmm, moustache flavor?

Ooh: sunglasses flavor?

Well, I’m all out of ideas. I guess it’s hard to guess when I haven’t tasted new Mystery Flavor Pop-Tarts, or Mister E. Pop-Tarts, as they’re calling them. At least we won’t have to wait long, as Mister E. Pop-Tarts are hitting shelves this month. Here’s the origin story from Kellogg’s:

“How did this flavor come to be? Rumor has it, a masked culprit broke into the Pop-Tarts factory and created a mysterious and delicious new flavor. Pop-Tarts loved it so much, they hired Mister E, a world-class flavor investigator and title character on the new Pop-Tarts box, to solve the case. 

But Mister E needs help from Pop-Tarts lovers everywhere! Fans are invited to share their best flavor guesses for a chance to win epic prizes. After taking a bite, just scan the QR code on the box to visit the entry website and submit your guess. The sweepstakes opens May 27, 2021.”

Honestly, I’m more interested in whether there’ll be a canonical answer as to who the “masked culprit” was. Maybe that’s just a copyright neutral way of explaining why the mystery flavor is like, Crunch Berries or something.

Ultimately, this isn’t the first time a toaster pastry brand has tested our taste buds with an edible enigma: Walmart’s Great Value Toaster Pastries had a mystery flavor back in 2018. I don’t think the truth was ever fully revealed—and the taste was super generic, so I said “Fruit Punch.” Hopefully Mister E. Pop-Tarts—whatever the heck they are—are distinctive enough to tantalize the tip of my tongue.

News: Team Cheerios & General Mills Oatmeal (x4!)

New General Mills Cereals 2021

CEREAL 2021: RISE OF THE MEALLY OAT

Honestly, I’m starting to think a weird game of telephone went on at General Mills HQ. They heard our continued cries to restore oat flour to their Monster Cereals (which didn’t work), and interpreted it as “people want more cereal-flavored oatmeals!”

But hey, I’m not complaining—because it finally gives me a chance to talk about hot cereal on this site, which I coldly and rarely do, despite claiming to be a blog for all cereal. As you can see in the above image, posted this week by General Mills, there are a number of releases we already knew about, plus some surprises. Namely, Lucky Charms Oatmeal and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeal (both of which have previously released as Canadian exclusives), plus new Cocoa Puffs Oatmeal and Trix Oatmeal. If I had to guess, I’d predict Cocoa Puffs will be the standout star, as chocolate tends to infuse beautifully into oatmeal—especially when you toss in some chocolate chips that melt into lovely little landmines.

Team Cheerios Returns for 2021

Also of note here is the return of Team Cheerios. This stuff first debuted way back in 1996 to support the U.S. Olympian team, but it stuck around for a few years after as a Wheaties-esque celebration of all things athletic. Interestingly enough, despite the cereals discontinuation, you’ve always technically been able to enjoy the stuff, provided you’re willing to invest in a 96-count box of Team Cheerios Strawberry Cereal Bars.

However, while the original Team Cheerios combined regular, Multigrain, and Frosted Cheerios with an added brown sugar booster, 2021’s reunion is “Frosted Berry” flavored, which I would guess means these are a sweeter version of Very Berry Cheerios. Either way, I’m skipping the milk and eating these with Gatorade for peak performance.

News: Cap’n Crunch’s Chocolate Caramel Crunch + Churro Bites!

New Cap'n Crunch Chocolate Caramel Crunch Cereal Box

Cap’n Horatio Magellan Crunch is a weird guy. In fact, I once wrote an op-ed about how the Cap’n is one of the last remaining bastions of cereal’s ’80s & ’90s golden era, back when off-the-wall breakfast gimmicks were a dime a chocolate-coated dozen. While other cereal brands were trying to remove artificial ingredients and promote active, on-the-go mealtimes, Cap’n Crunch was still wack-adaisically dropping Creamsicle and Cotton Candy cereals—not to mention atomically colored Slurpees and pancake syrup.

And don’t even get me started on Canuck Crunch.

As a result, I’m always eager to see what else this kooky Cap’n and his detached eyebrows has up his nonsensically nautical sleeves.

That said, I’ll admit Quaker’s latest Chocolate Caramel Crunch isn’t quite as inspired as the Cap’n’s other seafaring fare—the combo of chest pieces and flavored Crunch Berries reminds me of the lackluster Chocolatey Berry Crunch. But I am interested to see if there’s better caramel flavor here than in the likewise *meh* Cap’n Crunch’s Caramel Popcorn Crunch. Continue reading

News: Trix Yogurt Returns

Trix Yogurt Returns!

Ever seen a grown man lean back, squeeze and gulp a whole yogurt cup like he’s a lactobacillic Popeye? Well, for the sake of my area’s grocery store security guards, I sure hope they have, because if there’s no precedent or protocol in place, they might have a tough time stopping my toot-tooting Trix Yogurt-powered form from bench-pressing the dairy cooler.

I’m just that excited about Trix Yogurt returning to conventional stores. I say “conventional” because, though Trix Yogurt has been hard for mainstream consumers to track down for years now, this sweet pastel nostalgia slop has been available in bulk to General Mills’ foodservice partners for some time. But while the foodservice includes fun, familiar flavors like Strawberry Banana and Raspberry Rainbow, Trix Yogurt’s brick-and-mortar revival is stripping back the silliness to just two straightforward tastes: Strawberry and, uh, straw-less Berry.

This is a bit sad, since I’ll miss Cotton Candy and Wildberry Trix Yogurts most of all, but I understand how it’s hard to make the same “healthy low-fat snack” pitch to lunch-packing parents when the stuff is flavored with abstract or otherwise fictional ingredients.

But hey, if these newly returned Trix Yogurt cups are as good as the smoothie version from last year, I’m willing to bury the hatchetfruit and start making some umbrella’d summer yogurt cocktails. Let’s get silly!

UPDATE: Monster Mash Cereal

New Monster Mash Cereal 2021

(UPDATE: Read my review of Monster Mash Cereal!)

And on this day, Mother’s Day 2021, General Mills delivered something beautiful into this world.

Well, sort of. It’s complicated.

First off, we’ve known about the above Monster Mash Cereal—which brings all five iconic Halloween cereal mascots together—for some time now, but it was always shown with placeholder box art featuring Monster renders taken from collectible pins. This raised alarm bells among skeptics, but now thanks to Cerealously reader Mikey H. (seriously: thank you!), we can put all doubts about Monster Mash cereal to a peaceful rest.

See, the stuff is now listed on Instacart, and in addition to featuring this clearly more-finalized box art, this listing gives us a few more hints about the broader Monster Cereal 50th anniversary that prompted this gift of a quintuple feature.

“…the world’s most monster group is back together for a limited-edition cereal, and to record their own version of the greatest monster anthem of all time.”

There’s also a mention of MonsterMashCereal.com, where you can listen to the Monsters cover the actual Monster Mash classic, but the site isn’t live just yet, so you’d better develop some werewolf’s paw-thick finger callouses and start pressing CTRL+R between now and late summer, which is when each year’s Monster Cereals typically get formal announcements.

However, I think the most fun thing to speculate for now is just what this cereal will look like in a bowl. Besides the claim that marshmallow shapes and colors may vary, the lineup at the box’s top suggests a very marbit-heavy cereal with just two ghost pieces. These two appear to be Boo Berry and Franken Berry pieces, with the other Monsters represented by respective marbits.

I’m torn on this: on one hand, it’s smart to leave Chocula ghosts out of the mix, since every other Monster Cereal is fruit forward. But at the same time, I really hope the marbits have unique flavors, otherwise this is just another generic berry cereal with Brute and Mummy painted on for nostalgia value.

Guess there’s nothing left to do but wait and find out. If you need me, I’ll be in a sensory deprivation mausoleum to prime my autumnal appetite.

News: Cap’n Crunch Treats (Crunch Berries & Peanut Butter Crunch)

New Cap'n Crunch Treats

When I saw reports of these “New” Cap’n Crunch Treats, I got some serious déjà chew, and suddenly I was transported back to the strange, alien world of 2013. Back then, I was but an innocent student with an X-treme nacho cheese chip on my shoulder—classic college prank, real funny, guys—and this blog was still a twinkle in my cereal-scarfing eye.

The Crunch Berry and Peanut Butter Crunch Cap’n Crunch Treats of that era were just about identical looking to the above ones, which hit stores this month—albeit with box art featuring the Cap’n making the two halves of his Treat kiss, instead of the intimidating “here comes the plane” drizzle he’s doing today.

But the fact of the matter is that these Treats, while no doubt delicious, are not new. In fact, the idea of Cap’n Crunch Bars has existed since the late ’90s. I can’t blame Quaker for treat-ing these like they’re new, though. I mean, who among us, besides the anal-retentive breakfast bloggers, can keep track of which cereals have passed the BAR exam? At this point, the mutualistic amalgamation of cereal pieces into a single, stronger organism just feels like a natural stage in any cereal’s evolutionary lifecycle. Though I will note, interestingly, that these Cap’n Crunch Treats appear to use pieces of various sizes—giving them the exotic geologic appearance of riverbed minerals.

How might such a sedimentary strategy affect their taste? I’ll have to find out, assuming I can find these tempting Cap’n Crunch Treats.

News: Special K Dipped Chocolatey Almond Cereal

New Chocolatey Almond Special K with Chocolate-Dipped Flakes Box

Tired: Dippin’ Dots Cereal is coming back

Wired: Special K is dippin’ lots of toasted flakes in sweet, sweet chocolate!

Hitting shelves this month, Special K Dipped Chocolatey Almond is Kellogg’s first cereal to feature chocolate-dipped—rather than cocoa-baked or dusted—flakes. I can’t really recall if I’ve ever had a cereal with choco-dipped flakes, but every time I’ve encountered yogurt-coated flakes, it’s been a great time, so I’m betting these will be tasty.

In fact, the hype Kellogg’s is building around these flakes reminds me of the big deal Lay’s made about chocolate-dipped potato chips nearly a decade ago. Those were pretty good, but the problem was you didn’t get many for the price. So here’s hoping Special K Dipped Chocolatey Almond Cereal doesn’t skimp on the headlining star. Though the almonds and cocoa-coated flakes flanking the dipped ones seem like decent consolation prizes.

Speaking of which, where’s the free prize inside? I want a chocolate-coated matchbox car!