I have to say, that of all the ring-shaped foods out there, I’m pretty glad doughnuts are the only ones that have been into not just one cereal, but several.
It’s not that I wouldn’t love to try a bagel, ditalini pasta, bundt cake, or onion ring: it’s just that I think the world at large, in its current state, is not ready to handle such concentric, near-Olympian power in their breakfast bowl. It’d be like if the Chaos Emeralds married the Dragon Balls.
Whew, hope you’re still reading after that horrible intro. My doughnut-based creativity has run drier than a stale cruller after talking so highly about Kellogg’s other Donut Shop cereal: Pink Donut. That stuff tasted like delightful animal crackers, so like Lard Lad, I’m already holding this Donut Shop Chocolate Donut Cereal to high standards.
Some things just make sense together. Like peanut butter and chocolate. Or peanut butter and jelly. Or peanut butter and bananas. Or peanut butter and analogies about things that go well together.
Oh, and chocolate and marshmallows, I guess.
That’s why it makes no sense that it took ’til 2017 for General Mills to realize just how many cents they’d make by putting mini marshmallows in Cocoa Puffs. From the humble Mallo Cup to being 2/3 of the iconic s’more, chocolate and marshmallows have a long history of delightfully gumming up people’s teeth.
But hot cocoa/hot chocolate (I refuse to take a stance on which name is better. As I’ve said before, I’m staying as neutral as a packet of Swiss Miss) is perhaps the most memorably cozy pairing of the two. Therefore, the only explanation for why this took so long is that Sonny always flies south for the winter. I’m willing to forgive him for going AWOL for Cocoa Puffs, so long as his redundantly named Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs are good. Since my childhood self used to think hot cocoa was made by microwaving chocolate milk, the bar is pretty low.
I still have nightmares about tepid, radiated and pasteurized dairy products.
Like a coffee snob who thinks cream ruins roasted perfection or a hipster doughnut shop that only sells original and glazed, Tony the Tiger is an artisan.
While other cereal brands let their wacky flavor flags fly with any number of peanut buttery, gingerbready, or orange ice creamy variants, Anthony the Large Jungle Cat keeps it pretty minimalistic, preferring to perfect each flavor he introduces rather than rushing to meet some pumpkin spiced fad. After all, it took him 64 years to introduce a Cinnamon kind. And now, after the length of about 6–8 of Tony’s 9 feline lives, we finally get Chocolate Frosted Flakes.
What’s that you say, with your raised pitchfork pilfered from the clearance section of a Spirit Halloween? Chocolate Frosted Flakes already existed 20 years ago? Well those were Cocoa Frosted Flakes, not true-blue (or brown?) chocolate.
Oh, but you also say, holding a rudimentary torch made from back issues of the National Enquirer, “There are already two different kinds of Chocolate Frosted Flakes in my grocery store right now”? Well there are Frosted Flakes Choco Zucaritas made for Latin American markets, and Chocolate Frosted Flakes with Skeleton Marshmallows, made for Halloween, which are…uh…from a seasonal spin-off and therefore aren’t canon.
Phew. Through arbitrary technicalities, I’ve confirmed that 2017 Chocolate Frosted Flakes are the first of their kind. After all, Kellogg’s has made a big fuss about these ones are made differently. Like their much-hyped cinnamon-infusing process from 2016, the chocolatey frosting on these flakes is proprietarily designed to meet American tastes for milk chocolate, as opposed to Choco Zucaritas, which are supposed to be more dark chocolatey.
Thanks to @realtonytiger and the GRR-eat folks at @KelloggsUS, I'll be taste-testing Frosted Flakes' new, fudgiest fare shortly! 💪🐯🍫 pic.twitter.com/8U8wRimTu4
Maybe this is all choco hokum, but that’s not going to stop this American from indulging his sweet tooth. After Tony himself sent me this elaborate care package to try the stuff, I’d be remiss not to use his big metallic head to scoop shards of well-browned gold into my mouth like an emperor of the Nile. Continue reading →
Yes, from squirrels and industrial fasteners to Eddie Murphy professors and Link from The Legend of Zelda in a Deku forest, the humble nut has helped us do a lot of cool things—whether it’s put together cars or make a whole movie based on flatulence jokes.
Heck, without the nut, my favorite breakfast pastries would just be called “do’s.”
Nature’s Path obviously understands the under-celebrated nut, because their Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Cinnamon & Cashew Granola, which has a name so long that typing it is giving my fingers biceps, is the nuttiest granola I’ve ever had. And I don’t mean nutty like “gee lads, let’s get nutty and do backflips off a suspension bridge,” though putting chocolate and cinnamon together is pretty bold.
But is the taste of these nutty nuggets worth toasting, or Comedy Central Roast-ing? Let’s find out. Continue reading →
“That dude seriously needs to cool it with the cookie cereal.”
—actual quote (I wish I were joking) overheard from two girls at Walmart who watched me buy a 2-pound bag of Malt-O-Meal Chocolatey Chip Cookie Bites, ponder my life, then go back to grab a box of Cookie Crisp, too
Yes, I didn’t plan to spend $10 on crunchy, artificially chocolate chip cookie-flavored ellipsoids, but here we are. At least they didn’t see me haul this plastic leviathan onto my balcony and grumble “stupid shiny cookie bag” as I struggled to get a good photo.
But enough public embarrassment. Let’s talk Malt-O-Meal. I don’t always pay attention to the brand—let alone buy it—since their (admittedly very affordable) cereal always seems to taste a little too cheap, with the heavy bag imparting some chemical chintziness into every piece. But when I heard* that Malt-O-Meal, who has already Malt-O-Meal-ified just about every other major cereal, from Cap’n Crunch to French Toast Crunch, was wading into a hitherto untouched cereal frontier, I had to try it for myself.
Even if my apartment’s limited storage space forces me to (literally) spoon with the cereal bag to make room. Continue reading →
Much like the seismic phenomenon from which it draws its name, a Quakerquake is a tough to predict event that really shakes up the norm. It occurs when Quaker, on a whim, decides to release an onslaught of new products—often of shaky quality—to flood the breakfast aisle with various tan boxes that look identical to the company’s other thousand oatmeal receptacles. This is why aftershocks of a Quakerquake will often be felt months later: they leave the “NEW” label on their flavors so long, you won’t know whether the antioxidant-rich. steel-cut. all-natural apple cinnamon oatmeal came before or after the gluten-free, sugar-free, enjoyment-free apple cinnamon.
I guess with babies (and suckers) born every day, oatmeal is always bound to be new to someone.
Long story short, these new Quaker Honey Vanilla Multigrain Flakes are from the cereal arm of Quaker’s latest a-Quake-ening. It debuts alongside Cranberry Apple Multigrain Flakes and Oats & Honey with Vanilla & Pecan Granola. I chose to review this one first, because even though Cran-Apple is more autumnal, last week’s Shredded Wheat burnt me out on fruit, while the granola simply has too many ampersands to be trusted.
Plus, granola is barely cereal anyway. It’s like that weird cousin who ate gravel in kindergarten. Continue reading →
Before eating Generals Mills’ new Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites, you are required—by intergalactic law, I’m assuming—to listen to Yello’s ’80s hit “Oh Yeah” and mentally replace all instances of the words “Ohhh yeahhh” with “Doughhh yeahhh.” Only then may these goo-oozing (goozing for short) Cinnamon Toast Crunch-specked doughnut holes roll off your plate and directly onto your taste buds.
Okay fine, if you have poor wi-fi or are enjoying your Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites from a submarine, the Parisian Catacombs, or a coffin you were prematurely placed in—alongside your favorite microwave—I’ll give you the pass on the song. But since these microwaveable freezer aisle treats are one of the season’s most hyped-up cereal confections, they deserve some sort of ceremony.
So while you arrange the cinnamon scented candles into a doughnut shape with an effigy of Dunkin’ Donuts’ Fred the Baker in the middle, I’ll ceremoniously devour mine. Continue reading →
I don’t remember learning about Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven in Sunday school. Is that where young folks who like to eat breakfast like senior citizens go when they die? If so, the whatever higher power is up there can hurry up and smite me, because there’s nothing I secretly love more than eating bowls full of fibrous cereal and grapes that got the shrunken head treatment.
Hey, something’s gotta balance out all the Cinnamon Toast Crunch I eat, um, for science.
Yes, Raisin Walnut & Honey Heaven was my natural first choice when presented with Quaker’s four new Overnight Oat flavors. The little cups of oats, which you’re supposed to pour milk on and refrigerate for 6+ hours before eating (my condolences to the world’s insomniacs), also come in Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch, Blueberry Banana & Vanilla Bliss, and Orchard Peach Pecan Perfection.
Why each flavor sounds so euphoric and zen, I don’t know, but I do know I’ll now forever picture the Quaker Oat guy’s face on the Buddha’s plumply smiling body. Continue reading →
