See this?

*gestures vaguely at each pixel of my blog*

Everything your backlit screen touches is his.

Cap’n Crunch’s, that is.

Sure, Cerealously was inspired by my lifelong love of breakfast cereal, but no other figure encapsulates the imaginative id of cereal culture quite like Cap’n Horatio Magellan Crunch. Maybe it’s because—unlike General Mills and Kellogg’s who have entire cinematic universes of familiar, oft-interacting mascots and the cereals they hawk—Quaker really only has the Cap’n’s self-contained, yet expansive, milky mythology (Life and the like don’t count to me because they aren’t character fronted, but full due respect to the based grain that is Quaker Oatmeal Squares).

Kooky characters like Wilma the Winsome White Whale, Chockle the Blob, and Crunch Berry Beast aside, Cap’n Crunch has also debuted an impressive arsenal of epic flavors across his many decades in the biz that’ve helped fuel his nostalgic legacy. You’ve got Oops! All Berries, sure—arguably the single most iconic definition of a hallucinogenically artificial cereal flavor—but I could go on and on honoring the Cap’ns service to tastebuds everywhere, from Choco Donuts and Sprinkled Donuts to Punch Crunch and my personal favorite, Orange Creampop Crunch.

Long history short, other cereals are appetizing, but only one is Crunchatizing, so I’m always excited to taste the Cap’n’s latest. But is Chocolate Caramel Crunch his greatest? Let’s break-fast it down.

Okay, I Crunch-Berried the lede a little by hyping up all of Cap’n Crunch’s limited edition offerings. They haven’t all been stellar—especially lately—but with Chocolate Caramel’s debut, I think I’ve finally cracked the code of what makes a new cache of Cap’n work or not.

Because, first things first, Chocolate Caramel Crunch is good. Really good, even. And it’s really good because it—much like the piety paid to a Capri Sun pouch—respects the chest. And not, I don’t mean the literal chest of Cap’n Crunch himself, but instead the treasure chest cereal pieces that make his heart swell with pride. And coconut oil.

See, Crunch Berries get all the buzz, but OG, all-chests Cap’n Crunch made the man a mythic legend for a reason. The original flavorist behind Cap’n Crunch, Pamela Low, based the chest pieces’ coating on one of her grandmother Luella’s recipes for brown sugar and butter over rice, a coating that’s remained unchanged to this day for its multigenerationally mouthwatering appeal. Knowing this, it makes sense to me why the Cap’n Crunch varieties that omit or change this doubloon-y golden glaze tend to be the less tasty ones. Cotton Candy Crunch, Blueberry Pancake Crunch, and Caramel Popcorn Crunch—with their comparatively bland spheres—all come to mind.

The failure of this last one, Caramel Popcorn Crunch especially, proves why this new Chocolate Caramel Crunch (which I haven’t even started to describe yet, I know) works. See, Cap’n Crunch varieties with chocolate chest pieces tend to be forgettable, too, as they trade the browned butteriness for a generic cocoa taste. So if Chocolate Caramel Crunch had used chocolate chests and Caramel Popcorn-esque puffs, the overall cereal would be bland and bleh.

But nope! The palate-smiths behind Chocolate Caramel Crunch made sure the caramel chest pieces here—much like with Orange Creampop Crunch—retained that, well, uniquely caramelized edge that packs each mouthful with golden brown goodness. Seriously: these caramel treasure chests are roasty, toasty, and basically carry Chocolate Caramel Crunch on their lithely ridged backs.

By this I mean the chocolate spheres are the weaker component by far. They’re better than Cocoa Puffs by a cuckoo’s beak, with more of a milkier chocolate taste compared to Sonny’s increasingly Cocoa-forward Puffs.

This unobtrusive sweetness merely accents the caramel chests, but that’s fine, because those squares were born to shine, baby. Main character energy. Plus the chocolate puffs do well in milk, melding nicely with the chests to produce an overall enjoyable chocolate–caramel cereal.

Chocolate and caramel is a pretty rare combo in the cereal aisle. And to be honest, when looking at old reviews for this toothsome leitmotif, I’ve found that basically every chocolate–caramel cereal ends up being pretty good. Lion Cereal. Dunkin’ Caramel Macchiato. That one Cinnamon Toast Crunch Remix. Maybe it’s just a hard pairing to get wrong, but I again insist that if Chocolate Caramel Crunch’s puffs and chests reversed roles, it wouldn’t be nearly as good.

So yeah, perfect casting here, Quaker: caramel leads and chocolate eggs it on. If I might pitch a fan sequel, how about a romcom between the orange chests from Creampop Crunch and those little red Target spheres from Chocolatey Berry Crunch?

The Bowl: Cap’n Crunch’s Chocolate Caramel Crunch

The Breakdown: A super solid return to form for Cap’n Crunch, this mostly caramelized, somewhat chocolatey stuff rights the wrongs of Caramel Popcorn Crunch while letting Grandma Luella’s little coconut oiled squares do what they do best.

The Bottom Line: 9 Orange Creampop-inspired dreamscapes I escape to for solace in trying times out of 10