Category Archives: Specials

Spooned & Spotted: Blueberry Toast Crunch & Strawberry Toast Crunch Cereals

Blueberry Toast Crunch & Strawberry Toast Crunch Cereals

Is Tiny Toast…toast? At first glance, that’s what the “debut” of “new” “Strawberry Toast Crunch” and “Blueberry Toast Crunch” would seem to “indicate.”

Whoops, I don’t think I needed those last snarky quotation marks.

Reader Sydney N. kindly sent us the above snapshot from Walmart, which shows the adorably fruit-speckled bread slices we’ve known as Tiny Toast for nearly a year now re-branded under the Toast Crunch family of cereals. Led by the patriarchal Cinnamon Toast Crunch, this crunchy clan also consists of wild child Chocolate Toast Crunch, Canadian uncle French Toast Crunch, deadbeat son who only comes back to mooch on Christmas Cinnamon Star Crunch, (and his long-lost twin brother Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch), as well as a plethora of dead ancestors, from Peanut Butter Toast Crunch to Frosted Toast Crunch, who the family nonchalantly buried in the backyard after they failed to live up to Daddy’s legacy.

♫ Our house, is a very very very morbid house. ♫

Tiny Toast’s relationship to the Toast Crunch kinfolk has always been dubious: the cereals look so much like French Toast Crunch that we never knew if they were related, or if Tiny Toast was just French’s obsessive best friend who weirdly emulates his hero. But now that it’s been established in cereal canon that TT is FTC’s cousin who moved south to warmer, berry-friendly weather and changed his name, I can rest easy at night—and start editing my fan fictions.

That was all a very long-winded segue into my main point about Strawberry and Blueberry Toast Crunches: that it may not mean Tiny Toast’s demise at all. The fresh-faced pair has only been seen at Walmart so far, so it could be a store-exclusive rebrand demo, like Post did with Waffle Crisp and Good Morenings Waffle Crunch. I refuse to make a definite coroner’s call on Tiny Toast until General Mills itself gives the sweet slices a eulogy.

Which is perfectly fine with me, because like my great-granny definitely might have said, “you can have too many cooks in the kitchen, but you can never have too many cute crunchy loaves in the cereal aisle.”

Thanks again for the photo, Sydney! If you’ve got a cool cereal photo of your own to share, spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.

5 Cereal Oreo Cookies I Want to See from #MyOreoCreation

Cereal Oreo Banner

While the respective Golden Ages of Hollywood, video games, and breakfast cereal are (arguably) over, there are still plenty of things we’re still in the Golden Age of: memes, on-demand Full House re-runs, and yes, Oreo cookies.

Whereas the 20th century closed with only the most basic of Oreo flavors, and the early 2000s dawdled about with simple novelties like the Uh-Oh Oreo and Oreo Cakesters—which are, to be fair, still my favorite ever Oreo. I will forever lay psychic flowers on their imagined grave—the last couple years have seen a Doubled Stuffed explosion of more wacky Oreo varieties than my non-mathematics degree permits me to count. And now, with the recent, literally explosive release of cracklin’ Fireworks Oreo (and Waffles and Syrup Oreo, which I’ve wanted since I first met Hungry Jack), Oreo is letting fans brainstorm the newest flavor. Sandwich cookie savants can then enter ideas online for a chance to win $500,000, a trip to NYC, and their cookie concept brought to life.

And since we’re also in the Golden Age of me not being able to find enough new products to review—especially not those elusive Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts that I’ve skulked through enough Walgreens to find that I deserve some kind of disturbed customer loyalty coupon for half off king-sized Peanut M&M’s at any participating Walgreens (or something like that)—I thought it would be fun to think up some cereal-themed Oreo varieties to enter in this #MyOreoCreation sweepstakes.

Cereal’s made it into Oreo cookies before, and Oreo has joined cereal to make the single greatest breakfast of all time, so this mutualistic relationship is proof that there’s enough cereal–Oreo potential to fill a new grocery aisle. We’ll call it the OreO’s aisle. And put it right by checkout so I can make a quick and shameless exit with an armful of crinkling cookie packages at roughly 2am each night.

Anyway, here are 5 Oreo ideas that’ll make Nabisco want to revoke my internet access. Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted (Canada): Limited Edition Maple Cheerios Cereal

maple-cheerios-box

Ever wonder what would happen if a French Toast Crunch bread slice decided it wanted to be a doughnut instead?

Well wonder no longer: assuming you have a passport or Canadian citizenship. Because Maple Cheerios—baffling stylized as Cheerios Maple—has quietly dripped onto Canadian shelves as smoothly as syrup through a spigot. It’s a Special Edition flavor released to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, so stuff the waffle iron back in the pantry and enjoy a cake pan’s worth of this pancake-flavored stuff while you can. I know I’m going to do whatever it takes to get my sticky, Waffle Crisp-stained mitts on a box, whether that means negotiating, migrating, or mutating into a man-moose hybrid.

And speaking of Waffle Crisp, I have high hopes that these Cheerios will taste more authentically maple-y, since they are flavored with real maple syrup. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be stuffing flapjacks with these crunchy syrup circles in no time.

Massive thanks to our friends at Junk Food Canada for sharing the photo above. Maple Cheerios may not be as interesting as Birthday Cake Froot Loops, which are also hitting Canadian breakfast aisles as we speak, but hey: most of my birthday cakes involve maple syrup anyway.

(Most of my birthday cakes are pancakes.)

Got a cool cereal photo of your own to share? Spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.

Why Is Honey Nut Cheerios America’s Best-Selling Cereal? | Infographic


For an impressive 8 (picture two Cheerios stacked on top of each other) years now, Honey Nut Cheerios has been named the best-selling cereal in America.

I would call this unbelievable, but after growing up with a father who exported enough empty Honey Nut Cheerios boxes from our household to build a cardboard replica of the entire Bee Movie set, I’ve experienced first-hand the zealous loyalty this hive-minded cereal can inspire.

But just why does this cereal keep breakfast lovers buzzing nearly 40 years after its introduction? After all, there are other cereals that are sweeter, healthier, or more chocolate chip cookie-shaped. I’ve always wanted to mix some investigative journalism into this blog’s normal stew of reviews and news, so I did some research, flexed my puny graphical muscles, and made an infographic. Click to see it in its full glory:

Why Honey Nut Cheerios is America's Best-Selling Cereal

Are you a true Honey Nut Cheerios bee-liever too? Let me know below just what attracts you to these irresistibly golden-glazed rings. Maybe you and my dad can start a fan club.

Chex Quest HD: New Gameplay Teaser and an Interview with Art Director Charles Jacobi

 

If you’re a regular reader—or if you’ve ever just encountered me at a party after one too many Yoo-hoos or Crystal Pepsis—you know I love Chex Quest. I’ve written a tribute to it before, an original CD copy is among my prized possessions, and I’ve often half-jokingly considered getting Lord Snotfolus tattooed across my shoulder blades.

And now the game is being given new life with Chex Quest HD—an Unreal Engine 4 remake currently in development—and I’m giddier than an 8-year old with 50 free hours of America Online and a whole Saturday afternoon to spend them on. Pour yourself a bowl of Chex (or just some Muddy Buddies and milk: we won’t tell) and check out the world premiere of the game in motion above. Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted (Israel): Nestlé CRUNCH Cereal

https://www.instagram.com/p/BR_rmSjFQ8F/?taken-by=munchiebunchie

When Aaron Carter covered “I Want Candy” back in 2000, I wonder how serious he really was about craving Milky Ways, Snickers, and Three Musketeers for three meals a day. Serious enough to book an intercontinental flight just to crunch CRUNCH bars for breakfast?

If so, Mr. Carter better renew that passport, because believe it or not, a breakfast cereal based on Nestlé’s famous chocolate-coated crisp rice bar does exist—but not in America. This cereal does justice to its namesake candy bar by clustering puffed cocoa rice into clusters and flavoring it with cocoa liquor (a.k.a. cocoa mass, which sounds like the best religious ceremony ever), but it only does so in Europe and the Middle East—including Israel, where our Instagram friend Munchiebunchie got the above box.

My apologies to any non-American readers who are shaking their heads at me six time zones away who see CRUNCH Cereal as a commonplace breakfast option; here in the U.S., we’re starving for a fresh candy cereal, between the Lion Cereal we’ll never get and the Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts we’re not sure we even want.

Maybe Krackel will throw us a bone on this one.

So if you have eaten Nestlé CRUNCH Cereal, please tell me how it is below so I can live vicariously through your taste buds. I hope it tastes as much chocolate corn-off-the-cob as it looks. And if you have a cool foreign or domestic cereal photo of your own (big thanks to Munchiebunchie!), spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.

Spooned & Spotted: Double Chocolate Krave with More Chocolate

Kellogg's Now More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave Cereal

I usually hate the Internet’s tendency to call any thing within a thing “thing-ception.” I love DiCaprio as much as the next guy, but this is pretty much my generation’s equivalent of unnecessarily affixing “-gate” to even the mildest snafu or ill-timed social media post from a pizza company.

That said, I think I’m perfectly justified in calling Kellogg’s new More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave “Chocolate-ception.” After all, Double Chocolate Krave was initially released as a more chocolaty version of original Krave. So a more chocolaty version of an already more chocolaty cereal seems so deliciously redundant that Xzibit is probably out there somewhere crying a single tear of joy without even knowing why.

Of course, that’s not going to stop me from plowing through boxes of this stuff—with added chocolate milk and Hershey’s syrup and sprinkles and a crumbled up cookie because why not? Even though I made fun of original More Chocolate Krave’s concept in my review, that stuff has completely ruined “regular chocolate” Krave for me. It just tastes so bland now without a plumper biscuit shell and roughly 20% more creamy chocolate filling.

So even though I look forward to losing myself in More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave’s deepest limbo level, my heart still goes out to Krave S’Mores. See, Krave S’Mores isn’t mentioned on any of the new “More Chocolate” packaging, leading me to assume that it’s either being discontinued, or it’s just never getting this Doritos-esque x-treme chocolate infusion.

Or who knows, maybe Kellogg’s is still perfecting the technology for a “More Marshmallowy Krave S’Mores” cereal that stuffs a full Jet-Puffed mini ‘mallow into each piece.

Do you have a cool cereal photo to share (I spotted these at Meijer)? Feel free to pass it along on our submissions page, or just email us at cerealously.net@gmail.com. There’s a good chance your picture could be featured on the site.

Happy National Cereal Day 2017: Dan’s Top 5 Obscure Cereal Mascots

National Cereal Day Shirt

Finally: now that all those Hallo-Thanks-‘mas-New-Valen-hog things are over, we can celebrate the real most wonderful time of the year.

That’s right, it’s March 7th: National Cereal Day! Today’s our day, breakfast lovers. A day when we can run a shoe buffer over our favorite shiny spoon, eat Cocoa Puffs for every meal plus dessert (which we were going to do anyway), and make fun of health-conscious cereal haters—because you don’t see kale smoothies getting their own national holiday, do you?

As usual, the Lucky Charming, Cinnamon Toasting folks at General Mills gifted me an awesome, retro-themed National Cereal Day care package. With a sturdy cereal bowl and t-shirt celebrating this holiday’s “OGs,” a suite of cereal boxes, an actual Rubik’s Cube, and more holographic plastic squiggles than their are permutations of a Rubik’s Cube, this care package is as wholesome as it is bowl-some.

Last year I celebrated National Cereal Day by counting down my favorite cereals of all time. As March 7th approached and my calendar’s ink started running under the worried grip of my sweaty mitts, I wasn’t sure how to follow this for Cerealously’s second year on the world wide web. But after looking at General Mills’s included “fun fact” sheet, it dawned on me: Continue reading