Oof.

Ugh.

Yeugh, even.

Can I be real for a second? Wholly honest? I am sick of this sugar ring cereal “trend.” It’s lazy, it’s cheap, it’s boring, and it’s downright disrespectful to cereal fans excited for creative new spins on breakfast favorites. Kellogg’s is the primary offender here, spreading a plague of plodding fruity-ish riffs on the same vapid formula. It seems that ever since they got the cloyingly-hooped formula right with Pink Donut Cereal, they’ve been letting the idea decay and fester, with each imitative iteration outdoing its predecessor by dulling my taste buds even more—to the point where my sweet tooth has devolved into a salty tooth.

So even though Canada’s interpretation of Birthday Cake Froot Loops was pretty solid, every single American take on birthday cake for breakfast has flopped with the grace of a flip-flop stomping on Cookie Puss. So I had no excitement going into Kellogg’s stateside rendition of Birthday Cake Froot Loops—hence why I saved it for last out of all the new Kellogg’s Cereals.

Well, except for Baby Shark Cereal, whose upcoming review will likely be the same as this one, just simplified with epithets even a YouTube-loving child could understand.

Surprise, surprise: Birthday Cake Froot Loops is just as bad as my incendiary introduction would lead you to believe.

Allegedly a strawberry-flavored cereal, these Birthday Cake Froot Loops take whatever ambiance of candied fruit compote that made Canada’s version fun and over-frosts it harder than Marge’s Famous Raisin Sponge Cake.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the base of each loop. Not only do the arbitrarily chosen colors appear dim and tepid, but the “multigrain” blend that makes up the pieces tastes overly airy and without substance. It’s mainly corn flour, of course, because what child doesn’t ask for iced cornbread each year? A little more oat or wheat flour would’ve went a long way towards giving Birthday Cake Froot Loops a respectable, hardy foundation. Instead, we’re left with a box-worth of day-old grocery store cupcakes.

Then there’s the sugar component. It overwhelms each bite with depersonalized sweetness. Maybe I’m not thinking through the palette of a modern child, but even when I was young, I desired sugary foods with character over faceplants into a big bag of Domino. Kids will no doubt be happy to mindlessly munch on Birthday Cake Froot Loops, but they’d likely do the same with Cheerios, Chex, or any other flavor-neutral cereal that won’t leave your tongue slimy and brain hazy.

Finally, there’s the suggestion of strawberry. In a blind taste test, I wouldn’t peg it for the perennial patch favorite—rather, it has a sort of intimidating vagueness, somewhere between mixed berry bubblegum and the top layer of biofilm skimmed off the mixed berry yogurt someone left in the office fridge long before you started working there. You know, the one that scientists are requesting for vaccine research.

Despite the old adage, a spoon/ladle-full of sugar does not help this medicinal strawberry go down. It takes a lot of milk to turn Birthday Cake Froot Loops into a tolerable enough slurry of sog that can be sucked down without suffering corny ennui and sucro-lardiac arrest. Even then, it’s not particularly enjoyable. Edibility ≠ enthusiasm, and I find it many will fall deeply enough in love with Birthday Cake Froot Loops to make it to the unfathomable bottom of a family-sized box of it.

So to Toucan Sam and his Kellogg’s ornithologists, I say this: follow your nose, and follow my “NO”s. If a cereal looks boring, smells boring, and tastes boring, just say NO. You’re better than this, and cereal fans deserve better than this. The cereal industry’s future prospects are looking grimmer than ever, and yet another box of sugar rings is just another railroad spike in the coffin.

There’s simply no reason for Birthday Cake Froot Loops to exist, and even less reason to try it. If you want Froot Loops, go for the original or Wild Berry. If you want a sugary cereal, go for Donettes. And if you want both in one bowl? Then good thing cereals are easily mixed. Because at this point, I trust that you know how to make sum-thin’ good from the sum of some cereal parts than Kellogg’s does.

Sorry, Sam, but this cake can’t hold a candle to its cereal aisle neighbors. And it kind of tastes like a Yankee Candle, too.

The Bowl: Birthday Cake Froot Loops

The Breakdown: Too sweet, too boring, and too emotionally tiring. Full stop: this cereal is not worth buying, and I recommend sending a message with your dollar by not settling for “new,” bottom-of-the-sugarcane-barrel breakfast offerings.

The Bottom Line: 1 delirious cereal blogger out of 10