BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Cap'n Crunch's new Treats lack something I've come to expect from cereal bars—a gooey, binding sugar coating on the bottom. Without this cerebral sweetness, these are just ho-hum, milquetoast granola bars that add rice crisps to dilute any iconic cereal flavor. pic.twitter.com/dYeCn9AKy3
— Cerealously 🥛🥣 (@cerealouslynet) July 3, 2021
New cereal pickings are getting slim here at Cerealously HQ. Guess I better go grocery aisle huntin’. Be back soon!
When I saw reports of these “New” Cap’n Crunch Treats, I got some serious dĂ©jĂ chew, and suddenly I was transported back to the strange, alien world of 2013. Back then, I was but an innocent student with an X-treme nacho cheese chip on my shoulder—classic college prank, real funny, guys—and this blog was still a twinkle in my cereal-scarfing eye.
The Crunch Berry and Peanut Butter Crunch Cap’n Crunch Treats of that era were just about identical looking to the above ones, which hit stores this month—albeit with box art featuring the Cap’n making the two halves of his Treat kiss, instead of the intimidating “here comes the plane” drizzle he’s doing today.
But the fact of the matter is that these Treats, while no doubt delicious, are not new. In fact, the idea of Cap’n Crunch Bars has existed since the late ’90s. I can’t blame Quaker for treat-ing these like they’re new, though. I mean, who among us, besides the anal-retentive breakfast bloggers, can keep track of which cereals have passed the BAR exam? At this point, the mutualistic amalgamation of cereal pieces into a single, stronger organism just feels like a natural stage in any cereal’s evolutionary lifecycle. Though I will note, interestingly, that these Cap’n Crunch Treats appear to use pieces of various sizes—giving them the exotic geologic appearance of riverbed minerals.
How might such a sedimentary strategy affect their taste? I’ll have to find out, assuming I can find these tempting Cap’n Crunch Treats.
T-T-T-Trix-ity Treat ya’self, before you…uh….cheat ya’self, out of a sweet new cereal bar from General Mills!
Now, Trix cereal bars are far from new. They’ve existed in several different shapes and ill-advised artificiality-free forms. So what’s unique about this newest version? Well, nothing, really. We’ve seen General Mills use this same dinky lil granola bar structure to Treat-ify every cereal from Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch to Honey Nut Cheerios and Reese’s Puffs. They taste fine, and usually do a pleasant job translating their namesake cereals into a more portably snackable form.
They’re just too darn small! They may be fine come October for giving to Trix or Treaters, but at *just* 16 bars a box, I’ll be Hungry Hungry Hippo’ing these faster than you can say “wait, you’re already done? I didn’t even think of anything to say…”
Trix Cereal Bars are out in stores now.
“Hop to it, wee one!” — Dotty, of Animal Crossing fame.
Ever since I read this quote in-game, it has played in my head during laborious moments of great urgency. And covering every new cereal hitting shelves this January, by the end of January? That’s no wee effort. Thus, I must get hopped up on sugar to review what I already have, as fast as I can.
Many a bowl’s work ahead of me, I’m starting with a straightforward new release. These Froot Loops & Frosted Flakes Cereal Bars are already out, but are they worth squaring off with at breakfast-time? I’ll make it clear: yes and no. That is, these Froot Loops Cereal Bars are wonderful, while the Frosted Flakes version leaves a lot to be desired. Allow me to elaborate: Continue reading
When it comes to Quick Reviews on this blog, I have a sordid history: 98% of the time that I title a post “Quick Review,” I end up removing the word “Quick” after effortlessly coasting past the 500-word mark. But this time, with Cinnamon Toast Crunch Soft Baked Bars, I’m committed to making this, perhaps, my shortest review ever. Why? Let me give you a few quick reasons: Continue reading
Woof, it took me a while to unscramble my brain before starting this post—just looking at a Lucky Charms Soft Baked Bar threw me into a hapless hypnotic sugar trance. It’s not that the things taste bad; they’re actually addictive little blondies, so simply appealing that after getting halfway through their initial, Costco-exclusive 40-count box release, I simply couldn’t see right. A punch-drunk man-sized Dough Boy, I waddled and swayed around the house scaring my cats like a kaiju. After giving the rest away, I vowed to never touch a Lucky Charms Soft Baked Bar again—especially not the one I found flattened into a wrapping-fused pancake at the bottom of my backpack.
That said, now that Lucky Charms’ doughy delights are available in far-more-reasonable 6-bar boxes, I recommend everyone keep an eye out for them on their next grocery trip. The unpretentious pleasantness of these Lucky Charms treats also bodes well for General Mills’ companion release: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Soft Baked Bars, which are entirely new and could very likely outshine their marshmallowy cousins.
These CTC bars, however, shouldn’t be confused with Cinnamon Toast Crunch Soft Filled Bars, a frozen product released alongside a Cocoa Puffs version, both consisting of oven-ready soft breads with neufchâtel cheese inside. Tragically, those particularly tempting desserts ended up being wholesale only, meaning the only ones who can enjoy them are elementary school cafeteria-goers and the freelance kindergarten cop I hired to smuggle me out a crate of ’em. He never came back.
Instead, I’m sure Soft Baked Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bars will be less cheesy, but far easier to tear open at a moment’s notice for a quick hit of swirling cinna-sugar goodness. If you manage to find them before I do, let me know what you think in the comments below!
Why waste time eating many small things when one big thing does the trick?
Such is the philosophy that has plagued cereal sales for the past decade—and for understandable reasons: breakfast as a temporally restricted concept is not what it used to be. For me, entering a workday with belly bloated rarely sounds appealing, especially since I’ve optimized my morning routine to essentially get me from bed to door in thoughtless, uninterruptible, and Rube-Goldbergian fashion. And clearly I’m not alone, as cereal companies have scrambled like diner eggs to adapt classic flavors for on-the-go breakfasting, while rebranding cereal itself as the midnight snack it was always destined to be.
But while concepts like breakfast shakes and mobile cereal receptacles are comparatively recent innovations, the world of cereal bars has largely eschewed architectural change, in favor of the tried and true “cereal bits bound by sweet-cream glue and shaped into crude rectangles” approach. Though I will say that in the case of General Mills bars, like these *new* Honey Nut Cheerios Treats, they’ve been getting smaller and lighter when compared to certain sugary bricks of yore (that can still apparently be bought, albeit only in cafeteria-friendly quantities).
I deeply enjoyed those aforementioned Honey Nut Cheerios “Milk ‘n Cereal Bars”—even if the freeze-dried milk sandwiched in the middle could practically be repurposed as sticky tack—so I’m interested to see how 2020’s slimmed-down take on America’s favorite cereal compares. Continue reading
Forty is a large number. There’s a reason it’s a common Biblical increment of days, as well as the highest number ever counted to on Sesame Street: achieving forty of something is a Big feat—whether it’s Bird or Man in the Sky.
Which is why it’s both a blessing and curse that Lucky Charms’ newest sort-of-cereal-bar is only currently available in boxes (would crates be a better word? caches? sarcophagi?) of forty. As a hardline cereal journalist, of course I had a cinderblock’s worth of these redressed Fiber One brownies shipped to my house, and now it sits as a fixed centerpiece on my coffee table (for at least the next forty days and forty nights), patiently awaiting hungry houseguests—or at least mischievous house cats who love tipping over boxes.
These Marshmallow Blondies are simple beige squares, with a splattered smattering of half-baked marshmallows and an abstract cascade of icing. Certainly much different than the ‘pressed cereal log’ approach of most cereal bars, but is it worth the XL investment? As a natural blondie, I feel qualified to tell you. Continue reading
