Following the heralding Thanks of this past week, the season of giving can truly commence. I see no better way to start than by giving Gabe Fonseca’s latest generously and genuinely cereal-smithed quartet of Cereal Time breakfast OCs.

If you haven’t already subscribed to Cereal Time on YouTube, I recommend it. Not only is it a great retrospective counterpart to the modern crunchy journalism done here, but Gabe is dedicated enough to the cereal craft to have helped me out innumerable times with cereal knowledge and memorabilia.

And then after that, he has the nerve to still be nice enough to create fully realized cereal properties and send them as gifts! In comparison, I’m the kind of Grinch that would give burnt Grape-Nuts hunks for Christmas. Nor is it the first time: Gabe’s first wave of creations spanned everything from Gracelandic nutter ‘nanners to unfiltered gingerbread ore.

But can Gabe’s second take on bespoke breakfasts live up to his own standards, or will I sophomore slump face-first into my Piña ColadO’s? Allow me to pop, Ziploc and drop the facts on you.

Treasure Trove Cereal

Ostensibly the most “classic” of this collection, Treasure Trove Cereal nevertheless forges a pairing I haven’t seen since Honeycomb did it: honey and marshmallows (without the third s’more element to tip the scales of balance).

Treasure Trove instantly gets major (M&M’s + chocolate drizzled) Kudos for its big honkin’ carrot marbits, which are both surrealist and seriously sweet complements to the texturally contrasting honey cereal bits, Honey Nut Chex and Honey Smacks, to be specific.

In many cereals, you can’t just add marbits and end up with a better product. But if there’s already a meaty dichotomy going on within the recipient cereal, as we see here between brittle crispiness and chewy puffed grain, then the whole product can be much more subtly, and therefore positively, ‘mallowable.

Likewise, Treasure Trove’s spokes-piratess (named Wendy) provides exactly type of female mascot role model today’s girls need: the kind who robs the 1% of the flavor combos normally forbidden for the common folk.

The Bottom Line: 8 ancient granola bars out of 10

---

Cobbler Crunch Cereal

Containing 0% shoes nor shoemakers, Cobbler Crunch Cereal is completely untrue to its name, and thus must be given 0/10.

Just kidding: this kawaii riff on Peach Cheerios manages to greatly improve the original, whose dry and slimy one-note profile made it one of the most tepid limited edition Cheerios varieties.

True to this legacy, the Peach Cheerios in Gabe’s Cobbler Crunch have a distinct filminess to them, though that might be the contact byproduct of the dried peach pieces throughout, which present an even starker textural juxtaposition than Treasure Trove Cereal when the dried fruit is munched in tandem with Cobbler Crunch’s cinnamon oat clusters. If honey and marbits were an unlikely buddy cop drama in their own right, then peach and cinnamon is like an out-of-this world buddy-‘naut series about a sweetly gummied astronaut and his straight-laced cinnamon granola foil.

I call it: The Cold Cereal War.

Simply because I’m not the peachiest person (I’m more keen on 100% ape-made apricots, to be honest), I found it challenging to decipher Cobbler Crunch’s many unfamiliarly interlocked flavor ribbons, but by presenting a refreshing cavalcade of spiced sweetness that’s simultaneously a jungle gym for your taste buds, Gabe nevertheless deserves props for making a more creative peach cereal than, well, anyone.

The Bottom Line: 7 Shoe’t Loops out of 10

---

Piña ColadO’s Cereal

Oh, Gabe, I’m flattered. No, really, you shouldn’t have.

Wait, you mean the two tropi-cool mascots of Piña ColadO’s aren’t meant to be smooth & smoothie’d caricatures of me and Justin in our most relaxing Empty Bowl garb? But look at the hair! And the free Hawaiian shirt offer on the side!

Whatever, I’ll just make that my headcanon. Or at least my pineapplecanon.

Just as Cobbler Crunch remixed Peach Cheerios, Piña ColadO’s beefs up the already-wonderful Toasted Coconut Cheerios—which are apparently very challenging for many to find, despite their November release date—by adding dried coconut slivers and pineapple pieces. I will admit that it’s tough to appreciate each individual component of Piña ColadO’s Cereal, as the pops of floral fruitiness blend together pretty homogenously, but if you like any sort of cereal flavored like island time, this is the cereal to get caught in the rain with. Or at least the cereal to escape winter’s freezing rains with.

Specifically, Piña ColadO’s make a strong case for pineapple in the breakfast aisle—you might even say it could turn the whole cereal game upside down. Sure, the nearly popcorn-y coconut of Toasted Coconut Cheerios is grounded with the bakery-fresh sweetness of the slivers, but the occasional juicy tang of dried pineapple bring entirely new dimensions to a familiar tropical fruit profile.

Any chance we could get them into a pizza cereal?

The Bottom Line: 8.5 marooned macaroons out of 10

---

Spicy Krispies Treats Cereal

Well, I saved this one for last, for good reason: I, dan g. of Cerealous-ly, am a spice baby. Sure, I’ve built my tolerance slowly over the years through progressive sriracha therapy, but Gabe’s fiery foray into the world of Krispies Treats contains ghost pepper hot sauce, the very thought of which leaves my inner Boo Berry nervously tugging at his bowtie.

Before even opening the box, I can say Spicy Krispies Treats have the best branding, between the retro RKTC packaging and the very existence of Steve the Elf—who you’d expect to be named Ouch, right? Wrong: Steve does what Steve wants, according to the provided lore which reveals Steve has been forever ostracized from the Krispies clan after literally killing fourth brother Pow. And now? He has his sights set on kung-powing my nether-abdomen.

Whereas original Rice Krispies Treats Cereal boasted tiny chunks of buttered up Rice Krispies, and whereas modern day Rice Krispies Treats Cereal is trash that belongs in a trash bag that belongs in a dumpster that deserves to be set on fire, Spicy Krispies Treats Cereal is very much a literal single, blocky Rice Krispies Treat in a pouch. This super-organism’s plain appearance belies the sizzling syrup churning through its veins, and as I bit a hunk out of it as if it were an apple, I readied a tall glass of almond milk to chug, Hot Ones style.

I’m happy to admit, though, that Spice Krispies Treats Cereal isn’t bombastically hot. Rather, you could call this brunch fare delightfully devilish. The peppery, appropriately crackling heat creeps up on you quickly, spreading across your palate like something out of the game Pandemic—be sure to cordon off a small section of Madagascan tongue real estate in case of emergency. Beyond the pain & gain, the contrast between spicy and sweet is also more interesting than any textural inversion.

Still, my pitiable palate was ultimately unable to sustain more than a few bites of this stuff without milk. And with all due respect to Gabe, genuine Rice Krispies Treats don’t go as gracefully with milk as their cerealized selves, and the whole hock of seething rice becomes a model Titanic made of melting butter, capsizing in capsaicin-enriched hot milk.

Tragedies at sea aside, I think true-blue-flame spice heads would love to see Steve’s infernal butter bricks hit stores for real.

That is, if he can be trusted not to drop a Walmart forklift on his surviving brothers.

The Bottom Line: 7 Shaquille Ooh’Neals out of 10

---

So while you might not be able to try Gabe’s cereals for yourself—unless you’d like to inherit the better half of my Spice Krispies Treat that I will otherwise put on my mantle like an earned shard of the Aggro Crag—he deserves your support and kudos for his continued support of cereal culture as a whole.

Thanks again, Gabe, and happy December to all! Be sure to start gift-wrapping your designated cereal-nog now.