You’re still here? It’s over. Go home—then get in your car and go to the store and buy this cereal!
Seriously, you need a review to tell you that CinnaGraham Toast Crunch is good? You’d think it would only take one look at the box above to stoke the very same deep, primal hunger for cinnamon-coated graham goodness that helped early humans evolve beyond simple hunter-gatherers and into sophisticated graham miners, their crude pickaxes chiseling away at vast veins of golden grain.
I joke, but seriously: there’s something about graham, be it crackered, pie crusted, or Teddy’d, that just gets my motor runnin’, directly counterintuitive to the anti-prurient origins of the foodstuff itself. And since, two years ago, we already got a spiritual predecessor to this CinnaGraham Toast Crunch in the form of Honey Maid Cinnamon Graham Cereal—which I called my Cereal of the Year—I went into this review beyond confident that General Mills’ latest Toast Crunch crusader couldn’t possibly fail.
Either way, I totally got ya, didn’t I? I bet when you saw General Mills’ lineup of new 2022 cereals hitting shelves this month, you thought I’d spring right for the exciting ones: most likely the golden twinkling CinnaGraham Crunch, or possibly the bold Reese’s Puffs Clusters Crunch. But no, instead I’m tearing into the new year with the less assuming, least outwardly exciting box of the bunch. The one whose whole branding is based around one of cereal’s tiredest tropes—that is, the proposed benefit of a making you feel more full using whole grains and other assorted brown stuff. I mean, just look at that bowl on the box: it all kinda warps together like a Magic Eye puzzle if you stare at it too long.
Of course, the second you look beyond the bland branding (blanding), Plentifull’s true promise shines through. With the promise of peanut butter coated flakes, you know you’re in for a cereal that isn’t so much filling in the sheer gut-leadening, bland and Grape-Nutsian sense of the word, but rather in the “candy bar filling” sense of a cereal using dense, rich ingredients to make it feel more like a full meal. That meal being dessert. Continue reading →
Like I mentioned in yesterday’s 2021 “Best Of” countdown, the Kellogg’s Strike may be over, but I’m still hesitant to support and outright endorse new Kellogg’s releases. While we wait to see how Kellogg’s corporate rhetoric and worker treatment evolves over the coming months, I’ll still share news of upcoming Kellogg’s releases on this site—but I’ll be including caveat reminders that a) it took Kellogg’s three whole months and endless bad PR just to make small concessions to the people who make their cereal, b) there are always satisfying alternatives and taste-alikes for these new Kellogg’s releases for those who would rather spend their money elsewhere, and c) a number of people noted dangerous finds in their Kellogg’s purchases while the company was using less-experienced scab labor to replace striking workers, and given lengthy production timelines, it’s unclear when cereal made by the reinstated striking workers will reach shelves.
That said, two new Froot Loops varieties are coming soon from the Battle Creek cereal behemoth. The first is the above Froot Loops Sweethearts, which is basically the exact same Froot Loops you already know, just resculpted into heart shapes and with a laughably ironic “Spread Love Edition” label. This is also the first new limited edition Froot Loops variety to feature the recently redesigned Toucan Sam—who looks….okay, I guess? Personally, I wish they would’ve stuck with the bolder, Adventure Time style Sam who was scrapped after a poor public response.
The other new Froot Loops variety is still a bit more esoteric at this time. It’s called Froot Loops Color Mix-Ups, and reader Laura sent me this pixelated evidence of it from an Acme grocery digital coupon. It’s unclear whether these Mix-Ups will taste any different from normal Froot Loops, but they appear to feature kaleidoscopically multicored Loops instead of the single-hued classic Loops.
Also worth noting is that, as the digital coupon applies to a number of other new Kellogg’s products, there’s a “Mixx Jumbo Snax” listed as well, albeit without any image. Could this be a jumbo-sized remake of 1990’s cryptozoological classic Big Mixx? Probably not, but a Loch Ness-loving boy can dream, can’t he?
Anyway, if you find a better image of Froot Loops Color Mix-Ups, please let me know!
O dumpster fire, O dumpster fire How flaming is thy garbage O rubbish year, O rubbish year Your trash was so combustive
I’m sure you don’t need your friendly neighborhood cereal blogger to remind you that 2021 has been, by and large, a rough one: a collective yikes, a 365-day-long concerted oof, if you will. And when I started this article, I initially felt like 2021 was a bad year for new cereals, too. Compared to the meaty breakfasts and Green Onion Chexes of recent years, 2021 definitely had fewer game-changing cereal oddities. The closest thing to a show-stopping headline was the 50th anniversary Monster Mash Cereal—which turned out to be a pretty milquetoast Monster Cereal send up that, while not worthy of my year-end list, was still a befitting symbol for this year.
Nevertheless, as I retro-flected on everything I reviewed this year, I was surprised to see a fair handful of fond memories. For a vast majority of this good stuff, I simply couldn’t believe they actually came out in 2021: that’s how long this year has felt. #2 on this year’s Best List, in particular, felt like something I would’ve eaten while still in high school—if not while still in diapers.
But I’m sure you’ll get enough of this blithe oh what a year small talk from your real-life NYE compatriots, so allow me to cut to the chase: here are the five new cereal(related product)s that made my mouth water this year—and the three that made my cry. Continue reading →
Merry Christmas y’all!! We* here at Cerealously hope your day is merry, bright, oh-so-sweet, and just right.
*By “we” I literally mean me and my two cats, whose best approximation of “cereal” is salmon bits suspended in gravy.
For such a special day, naturally I’ve got a special review on deck. This aptly titled “Christmas Morning Cereal” is a premium breakfast product from Dominique Ansel Bakery—the folks behind the once infamously hyped Cronut phenomenon. Apparently Dominique Ansel Bakery has been selling this Christmas Morning Cereal in limited annual batches since 2013, but I’ll admit this is the first year I’ve even heard of it, let alone tried it. That’s probably because I’m used to $4 family sized boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, while Christmas Morning Cereal costs $15.50 for a demure carton that’s just about big enough for 2-4 bowls of designer indulgence.
However, this particular Christmas Morning Cereal carton was an incredibly generous gift from the kind John Riggs, who runs a gaming YouTube channel in addition to being a fellow cereal fan and historian. So my sincerest Yuletide thanks go out to him, as I dive into what may very well be the priciest per-bite review in this site’s history. Continue reading →
Why use one word when four gets the idea across more laboriously? Like, why call it “water” when “cold distilled cloud sauce” sounds so charmingly clunky? Why settle for “walking” when “dual-legged ambulatory self-propelled motion” is right there? And why simply call your dessert “cinnamon” flavored when “Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnadust” offers so much candy-colored cross-branded opportunity?
Just kidding: how could I be upset that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is creeping its cinnamon sugar-swirled tendrils all across the Baking Needs aisle?
And boy howdy is Betty Crocker going all out with the Toast Crunch touch. We’ve got Cinnadust Frosting of course, ideal for all-purpose icing and all-setting spooning directly into your Cinnamon Toast Maw. Then there are two cake mixes: Coffee Cake and Crunch Cake, so you can have a slice of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the morning and after dinner. There’s Cinnadust Cookie Mix, when dunking cereal in milk just isn’t enough. Then there’s a Cinnamon Toast Crunch Complete Pancake Kit, which sounds like the ultimate mouthfeel gauntlet of crunchiness, stickiness, and fluffiness.
And if that wasn’t enough mouthwatering, molar-tingling sweetness for your day, Lucky Charms is joining the pancake mix too—this one, I believe, would pair beautifully with Mrs. Butterworth’s Fruity Pebbles Syrup (and by “beautifully” I mean “an abstract tie-dyed performance-art abomination”).
*pours Fruity Pebbles syrup directly into your mouth*
Yes, dear parishioners at this holy maple mass, you can now top your breakfast with Mrs. Butterworth’s own crimson lifeblood! Or perhaps it’s Fred Flintstone’s—the scripture isn’t clear on this matter. And this viscous red syrup sure ain’t clear either. All we can be sure about is that Mrs. Butterworth’s Fruity Pebbles-flavored syrup is now available at Walmart.
Personally, I can’t imagine loving the taste of liquefied Pebbles enough to finish an entire bottle of it, so I feel like you’d have to get creative with how you use this stuff. Pour it in your coffee, maybe? Or perhaps pour it all over your body and build the world’s stickiest slip-n-slide? I have no idea, but at least Cap’n Crunch’s Ocean Blue Syrup now has a competitor for the “most eerily food-colored cereal sauce in history” title belt.
"You take the blue bottle, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and Crunchatize whatever you want to Crunchatize. You take the red bottle, you stay in Pebbles-land, and I show you how deep the syrup hole goes." pic.twitter.com/RQLmSqcqwa
Well at least, “AI-generated cereal mixology” is the only rational explanation I can think of for Post’s new Pebbles Shake Ups! cereal pouches and the nonsensical menagerie of cereal pieces contained therein. First off, you’ve got Birthday Cake Pebbles Boulders, which is an edible enigma in its own right. Not only did I never expect Pebbles to dust off the spherical, ten-year-old Pebbles Boulders sub-brand, but they decided to create a new Boulders flavor just to use in these Shake Ups! Pebbles Boulders proper were only ever released in Caramel Apple and Chocolate Peanut Butter varieties, so Birthday Cake Pebbles Boulders are a new cereal released within a new cereal mix—that is, unless you assume these Boulders are just rebranded Birthday Cake Timbits Cereal pieces (which they totally are).
Rounding out this odd ensemble are Waffle Crisp squares and “Salted Pretzel Bits.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Waffle Crisp, and actual salty pretzel sound interesting, but a taste trilogy of birthday cake, maple, and salted pretzel seems just a little too random to rev my engine. Continue reading →
