“CRUNCH, YEAH!” insists the slightly unnerving face of Carvel’s cone-headed mascot.
But what I hear echoing is, “LAWS? NAH!”
Put simply, Carvel Crunchies feels like an illegal cereal. A controlled substance. The type of stuff I’d take to have a shamanic desert odyssey.
Starting today through April 18th, the first 150 people to place an in-person or digital order at their local Carvel location will get a complimentary box of Crunchies Cereal. Just be sure to bring a holster or attache case so you can secure the box to your person without putting bystanders at risk.
See, because Carvel Crunchies is a freebie cereal that’ll never be sold at stores—though it might find a niche at Cabela’s—it doesn’t have to hold itself to the same logical balanced-breakfast standards as every mainstream cereal. After all, Carvel Crunchies are based on the brand’s beloved fudge-covered cookie crumbles… Continue reading →
You can’t convince me otherwise: Superman ice cream, like its namesake hero, is an anomalous alien life form that’s managed to assimilate into Midwestern American life. From taste to aesthetics, the stuff is just so weird, yet so good, and its flavor defies conventional description like any number of SCPs or extraterrestrial pocket dimensions.
Superman ice cream is a tantalizing tryst between ice cream flavors cherry, lemon, and blue moon—itself an oddity whose implacable taste has been described as everything from marshmallows and vanilla almonds to Lucky Charms and Froot Loops. Quintessentially a “Michigan thing” by origin, Superman ice cream’s popularity has spread across the midwest, including Cincinnati, OH: birthplace of Kroger grocery stores.
Of all the infinite flavor forms a store-brand Oreo could take, Superman ice cream has gotta be one of the most obscure—but even before tasting these, I’m so glad Kroger went there. And I’m also glad they went with a name as palatable as “Kaleidos,” rather than following the dark path of, *shudder*, “Creme Betweens.” Continue reading →
Why? Because with this, Lucky the Leprechaun has become the first Irelander in space. And, for some reason, he leaves his hat on while wearing a space helmet. C’mon General Mills, show us those luscious ginger locks!
Galactic Lucky Charms are pretty straightforward: they don’t change the cult-classic Lucky Charms formula, instead just adding three in inter-(and entirely)-stellar marshmallows shaped like planets and a rocket ship. I think these marbits look great and very appetizing, as they remind me of the kind of impossibly immaculate model ideas they put on Play-Doh packaging. I also like the strange amorphous shadow lurking behind Lucky on the packaging, suggesting some sort of calamitous, Giygas-esque antagonist whom Lucky will soon slay with the reality-altering power contained within these three arcane marbits.
Well, hopefully, at least. Sorry, I get pretty headcanon-y when I’m hungry.
Picture this: a new Smash Bros. game drops by total surprise. The catch? Now each and every beloved fighter, from Egg Dinosaur to Hungry Pink Ball and Singing Pink Ball, has been replaced by a generic Mii Fighter costume.
That’s kind of what Kellogg’s upcoming Together with Pride Cereal is like. See, it’s a spiritual successor to Kellogg’s All Together Cereal, which Kellogg’s has sold online for limited times during the past two years, to celebrate Pride month and raise money for GLAAD, an LGTBQ+ rights non-profit. And while All Together Cereal was a preposterously cool amalgamation of several Kellogg’s cereals, Together with Pride Cereal is a heart-shaped cereal whose “delicious new recipe features berry-flavored, rainbow hearts dusted with edible glitter.”
Unfortunately, this is a foreboding flavor descriptor, as it all but guarantees Together with Pride Cereal will taste like Kellogg’s similarly glittered Caticorn Cereal, which had adorable box art but was about as bland and uniform as a real cereal for cats might be.
Not to mention, Kellogg’s Pride Month efforts always end up coming off pretty rainbow capitalism-y. Not saying it’s a bad thing that GLAAD is raising funds through this cereal, but it seems like it’d be way more earnest for Kellogg’s to just donate a bunch of money outright instead of asking people to buy the cereal from stores, and then validate the purchase on Kellogg’s Family Rewards site before the company will donate $3.
My ever-present uneasiness with big corporations signaling solidarity aside, I’d love nothing more than to reanimate John Harvey Kellogg and show him this art of a Mini-Wheat holding a progress pride flag.
Kellogg’s Together with Pride Cereal will debut in select major retailers this May.
Back by unpopular demand, now in a perennially putrid flavor! Seriously, I’m not trying to be rude, but if you asked me to guess which discontinued cereal would be getting a 2021 reboot, I’d probably die of natural causes before even remembering Dippin’ Dots Cereal ever existed. First released in June 2018, DD Cereal came in Banana Split and Cookies ‘N Cream. They were both extremely boring, and since they only debuted in family-sized boxes, I was left with enough uneaten cereal to stuff an ark’s worth of Beanie Babies.
This new variety, Birthday Cake Dippin’ Dots Cereal, has me the opposite of optimistic—well, maybe “pessimistic” is harsh. How about, “floptimistic”? As I’ve reiterated throughout countless one-note saccharine reviews, birthday cake is borderline impossible to translate into an interesting cereal, and unless this new Dippin’ Dots Cereal is actually sold in the freezer aisle, I have little hope this stuff will break its namesake flavor’s streak of blandly frosted failures.
Cookies ‘N Cream Dippin’ Dots Cereal is also returning, with a “NEW! IMPROVED FLAVOR.” However, based on the box art so far, it looks like this iteration of DD Cereal has removed the crispy coated clusters, which were the only freakin’ good part about Dippin’ Dots Cereal in the first place!
That said, it’s too soon to pass definitive judgement, because these are clearly still concept boxes—you can tell because Birthday Cake is described as a multigrain cereal, while CnC is described as corn with real cocoa. I think I scream for everyone when I say it better be the former.
Regardless, these new and/or improved Dippin’ Dots Cereals should be releasing in the coming months. You can already enter an online sweepstakes for a chance to win free Dippin’ Dots for a year, which may very well be the only good thing that could come out of this cereal’s revival.
Ice cream franchise Carvel has always been a nostalgic brand. I mean, Fudgie the Whale and Cookie Puss are basically eternal bastions of the good ol’ days. The Batman and Superman of ice cream cakes. The Godzilla and Kong of wistfulness. The Dialga and Palkia of retrospective sentimentality. I could go on.
Part of what makes Carvel so beloved are their Crunchies. These bits of crumbled-up cookie are coated in chocolate sauce, and Carvel scatters them generously atop and between their cakes’ many delicately dairied layers.
And now, Carvel is cashing in on Crunchies’ cult appeal with a super-limited Crunchies Cereal. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to find the stuff in any supermarkets. Rather, from April 16th through the 18th, the first 150 people to make a purchase at each Carvel location will get a box of Crunchies Cereal. If we interpret that as 450 boxes per location—of which Carvel claims to run over 400, we’re talking somewhere in the ballpark of 180,000 Carvel Crunchies Cereal boxes in existence. Which sounds like a lot, honestly, but I’m still betting these will go fast.
I’ll try my best to get my cone-gripping mitts on a box to review, but no promises. Though, speaking of cones, maybe the next ice cream novelty to deserve a cereal would be Muddy Bites. I’d happily pierce my palate with those like a slain medieval dragon!
If there’ve been two themes in my pantry lately, it’s pouches and “grown-up” cereals. Between paltry serving sizes and keto fails, these haven’t been all that exciting, either.
So instead of reciprocally indulging in a mixing bowl of chocolate-syrup-slathered Cosmic Brownie bites—there’ll be plenty of time for that later—why not double down with a grown-up pouched cereal? A regular kangaroo of a breakfast, if you will.
Now, Schoolyard Snacks—formerly known as Cereal School—isn’t really an adult-stomached new kid on the block. But they offered to send me a sample of their Peanut Butter cereal variety, and in the interest of healthier cereal completionism, here we are.
With that, I’ll again clarify that I don’t follow a keto diet by any starchy stretch of the imagination. Therefore, my taste buds aren’t all-that attuned to alternative ingredients like those in Peanut Butter Schoolyard Snacks. However, having tried a fair number of adult cereals now, I feel I can give a reasoned perspective on how this release compares to other brands in the keto-sphere.
In short, if your palate is used to keto foodstuffs, then just add 2 points to whatever score I give these at the end. Now, lend me your eyes and stomach, dear reader: class is in session. Continue reading →
Did someone order fast food? Because I’m back with a quick, drive-through tweet reviews of two new cereal pouches in my pantry that aren’t quite substantial enough to chew over for the full length of a blog post. Chocolate Honeycomb Big Bites are now on shelves alongside regular, honey Big Bites, while Chocolate Toast Crunch Remix has debuted with Cinnamon Toast Crunch Remix and Golden Grahams S’Mores Remix.
Do note, that for fans of my full-length reviews, I’ll be posting more soon once a) I clear up my review backlog and b) my wild whirlwind life passes this hectic phase. Keep it crunchy, folks!
BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Chocolate Honeycomb Big Bites have no reason to be pouched. There's like 3 bowls' worth in this, the pieces are barely bigger than normal HC, plus they're only alright. Mid-grade cocoa powder flavor that beats Cosmic Brownie Cereal, but not Chocolate Eggo. pic.twitter.com/IrjxrS7oei
BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Choco-Caramel Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the most interesting of GM's 3 pouched Remixes. The cereal pieces are alright, but caramel corn MAKES this, with its buttery sweetness & golden milk-proof armor proving popcorn deserves a place in a real full-sized cereal. pic.twitter.com/JOkDktO9ED
