News: Malt-O-Meal Peanut Butter Cookie Bites is Coming Soon!

So Post, a Nutter Butter, and a hacksaw walk into a bakery…

No joke: Malt-O-Meal’s latest upcoming cereal circles look like bisected pieces of their parent company Post’s delightful 2017 Nutter Butter Cereal. And I’m all here for it.

Peanut Butter Cookies Bites was announced in typical fashion by M-O-M. By which I mean it appeared on their website with absolutely no warning or fanfare, left to be stumbled upon like a corporate Banksy piece commenting on PR hype cycles. I only found out about it with the continued help of @miss_tortellini on Instagram.

Yet the real reason I’m excited for PBCB is more than just their heritage as a legumically mutated cookie child of Chocolatey Chip Cookie Bites. More so, it’s the pragmatic potential of this cereal if it really ends up tasting just like Nutter Butter Cereal (which I’m considering a preemptive fact, solely to validate my already-sent-to-print Cereal Biology textbooks depicting these two cereals as different stages of PB mitosis).

Because where Nutter Butter Cereal had a serious spoon real estate problem, what with their big ol’ double waffles of goodness and all, I’m hoping these cookies are small enough to fit an average Christmas party treat tables’ worth of cereal in each bite.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: malt-o-meal, peanut butter, spooned & spotted. Leave a comment

Dec. ’18

Spooned & Spotted: Cap’n Crunch’s Strawberry Shortcake Crunch

Has the Cap’n gone loopy again?

It’s a rare case when the nautical breakfast-slinger ditches his traditional treasure chests for rounder doubloons, and when he does, it almost unanimously involves his seemingly deep-seated (emphasis on the sea) obsession with donuts.

Until now, as Instagram user @miss_tortellini has shared the world’s first glimpse at upcomimg Strawberry Shortcake Crunch. We don’t know much about the flavor breakdown of the loops and Crunch Berries yet—Will the loops be butter-fully caked? Will these be lab-spliced Straw Crunch Berries? Does this mean Chocolatey Berry Crunch is apt to be strawberry-flavored too? And did the real Strawberry Shortcake help out, or will she claim it’s an intellectual property violation?

But what we do know for certain is we’ll be able to strap the stuff on like a feedbag soon, as the cereal will hit Walmart in 34oz “Mega Bags.”

If I add straps, can I wear it like a tastelessly flavorful backpack? I’ll even one-strap it, since Cap’n Crunch seems like exactly the type of old fuddy duddy to think that’s still cool.

Thanks again to miss_tortellini for the photo. If you have any break(fast)ing news to share, feel free to hit up our Submissions page.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Dec. ’18

Spooned & Spotted: Cap’n Crunch’s Chocolatey Berry Crunch

If you or a loved one has been affected by Holiday Creep, you may be entitled to flavorful compensation.

It’s an epidemic that’s only getting worse: the aggressive expediting of seasonal products to store shelves, way ahead of their culturally accepted timeframe of appearance. Can you imagine if Punxsutawney Phil popped up just before December to tell us there’d still be 21 weeks of winter?

We’d be having spiteful groundhog fillets for Thanksgiving dinner!

Despite this, we tend to make exceptions for snack foods. Because as much as we hate to think about finding Valentine’s Day dates before 2019 has even gotten the chance to mess up our paper dating habits, chocolate and strawberry is a pretty irresistible flavor combo.

That’s why I can’t be too upset that Cap’n Crunch’s latest romantic advances have already been spotted at Target. Thomas M. sent in this photo of Chocolatey Berry Crunch, an upcoming cereal that combines the familiar taste of (now discontinued) Chocolatey Crunch with red Crunch Berries. I’m just going to assume the Berries are the atomically ambiguous tropical cherry(ish) we’re used to, and not a special strawberry blend, but I hope to be surprised nevertheless.

Because this mix opens up the very real possibility of a PB&J Crunch, set to celebrate Back to School 2019…probably some time around March.

Thanks again to Thomas for the photo. If you spot an interesting cereal find, you can share the good news here, or on Twitter.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. 3 Comments

Dec. ’18

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros Cereal

There’s an old adage in the breakfast and breakfurious business of cereal: K.I.C.S., which of course stands for Keep It Cinn-ple Stupid.

The Toast Crunch family of cereals is many things: necromantic, with its obsessive reanimation of old products. It’s viral, as the cereal’s cinnamon-spiced squares infect products with only a tertiary connection to the cereal medium. And the Toast Crunches are borderline mythological, as one of their kin is seemingly set to rival Santa Claus in seasonal popularity (at least according to short surveys given to a small sample of IHOP parking lot-dwellers [my people!]).

Yes, these cereals are a complicated brood set on cereal domination. But they’re also clever, because they always keep things cinn-ple. Whether it’s actual Cinnamon Toast Crunch products or a fruity family tree outcrop, every T.C.-ereal know what strategy works for them, and they stick to it: sticking a flour sack’s worth of confectioner’s sugar-textured flavoring formula to pieces that are already mildly (but not distractingly) sweet, a 1-2 combo that could make even an End Piece of the Loaf Toast Crunch sound appealing.

Butt, I digress. New Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros are interesting by design, because you, like I, may think on the surface that it’s just a lazy reimagining of an old flavor, stolen from Post. Yet its fascination comes from the question of whether Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s heavenly ghost of cereal dust can survive on an airy puffed piece without its decades old shell of squared crisped wheat/rice. If so, how long before these noodly Churros grow arms?

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, cinnamon, general mills, toast crunch. 21 Comments

Dec. ’18

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from Cerealously!

Merry XII/XXV! I hope you unwrapped a fully milked bowl of Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch.

Oh, is that just my tradition? Better not tell you what’s leaking from your stocking.

Yule drippings aside, I hope you have a warm and sweet day worth savoring. In the spirit of mirth, I want to extend the thanks that I owe all of you (for enduring my paragraph-length sentences) to another, behind-the-scenes Cerealously supporter, as well.

Who is this shimmering stalwart? Well, just look at the photo above, and allow me to explain:

Ripley the squiggled cardboard,

annoys me just a little bit.

Cause if you ever see him,

he’s probably stuck in my carpet.

~~~

All the cereal companies,

Love to pack samples with him

They seem to think ‘Why not give

bloggers just enough to swim?’

~~~

Then one scrap-less Christmas Eve,

dan g. came to say,

‘Ripley with your twists so light,

won’t you stuff my gifts tonight?’

~~~

Then all the mailmen loved him,

and delivered with a bow,

Ripley the squiggled cardboard,

You’re another carpet’s problem now!

See you all soon, with a flexible New Year’s Resolution’s worth of exciting new cereals to get slung in my mouth and squiggles to get stuck to my foot.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Leave a comment

Dec. ’18

Review: Pop-Tarts Crisps (Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon)

Calling it now: 2019 is going to be the year of zany breakfast peripherals.

Just as the ’80s and early 2000s video game industries saw an influx of variably successful light guns, and philharmonic orchestra’s worth of plastic instruments, the 2k1x’s penultimate year is already promising a wealth of niche offshoots for familiar breakfast brands.

Whether any of these budding taste-buddies will make it into a Smash Bros. game is another story, but if the first creatively derived Pop-Tartform I tried is any indication, we might have to raise regular Pop-Tarts to the rafters like foil-wrapped fading stars.

So while I wait for Pop-Tarts Cereal to complete Kellogg’s new almost-er pastry trifecta, it’s time to crack open perhaps the most understated and underhyped of the three: Pop-Tarts Crisps.

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Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, brown sugar, cinnamon, kellogg's, pop-tarts, strawberry. 1 Comment

Dec. ’18

The Empty Bowl Episode 6: Frank’s Breakfast Club

Crashing through the snow on a once-heaved open sigh? Thanks to the infamous irritability of Michigan winters, I too understand seasonal affective disorder.

And when even happy lamps have me feeling burnt out, I like to turn to the one ever-shining beacon of edible escapism I have on hand: cereal. Even the fibrous rays of Raisin Bran Crunch’s sun is tastefully magnificent enough to melt through the season’s sorry slush like a hot knife through raisin rum cake.

As always, cereal’s simply sweet food therapy has inspired Justin and I to return to The Empty Bowl amidst what’s apt to be a few holiday recording delays. We thank you for bearing with us and in return come bearing Episode 6’s three wise gifts: golden-baked Snickerdoodle Kookies cereal, some Frank insights on the Monster Cereals’ movie auditions, and mirthful musings about how to treat December’s Big Guy right.

Thank you all again for your continued support of the show: you can subscribe and support The Empty Bowl on Anchor, email us questions, and follow our feed of reminder mantras on Twitter.

Don’t forget to drink the milk, and from me: don’t forget to hug your nearest raisin bran.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Dec. ’18

Review: Strawberry Krispies Cereal

There are a lot of retro cereals Kellogg’s could’ve brought back.

Pokémon Cereal seems poised for a Detective Pikachu-themed comeback (hopefully without all the textured fur). OJ’s could fill the Orange Creampop Crunch-sized hole in my heart/roof of mouth. Or C3PO’s could return with special “Red Arm Marshmallows”—though I’m not sure anyone would recognize them at that point.

But no, rather than any of those, we got Strawberry Krispies. This 1983 cereal (with an early 2000s freeze-dried spiritual successor), is a tame choice—though I suppose it is a doubtlessly safer business investment for nosh-able necromancy than, say, Strawberry Crunchy Loggs.

But come on: that cereal was just a slow burner!

Wistful beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. Time to drown my crystal tears of extinct nostalgia in a few rose-tinted milk glasses instead.

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, kellogg's, rice krispies, strawberry. 3 Comments