Tag Archives: chocolate

Review: Three Wishes Cocoa Cereal

Three Wishes Cocoa Cereal Review Box

There are a lot of tough jobs in this world: oil rig worker, skyscraper window washer, lumberjack. But if we’re talking about a real David vs. Goliath battle of wits and resources, being an indie cereal maker is a profession where you have to overcome a lot of lopsided odds. Trying to market a new breakfast product against multi-billion dollar corporate behemoths like General Mills or Kellogg’s means accepting that your product will have to cost more and work harder without decades of brand recognition and cheap, bulk ingredients.

This is naturally why many independent cereal companies target their own niche of cereal consumers. Since the world’s cereal giants usually lack truly wholesome releases for those eating low carb, high protein, gluten-free or organic diets, we’ve seen any number of specialty or boutique breakfast startups offering cereals that are theoretically more healthy than any Special K or Kashi product.

From Magic Spoon and Cereal School to OffLimits and Three Wishes, there’s a lot of growing competition in the specialty cereal game. So how do you tell them apart? Well, for me it all comes down to the base grain*, which I’ve asterisked because several of these use grain alternatives like tapioca flour or chicory root fiber. If you read my first review of Three Wishes Cereal, where I covered their three introductory flavors, I noted how they perform a lot better in the base grain camp.

Does their newest release measure up? Let’s find out in three (wishes), two (wishes), one (wish)… Continue reading

News: Chocolate Eggo Cereal

New Eggo Chocolate Waffle Cereal

How does the poem go?

Do not weep for Waffle Crisp, for it is not gone.
It is the wind that shakes the mighty Maple.
It is the gentle butter that melts upon your face.
It is the crisped batter bubble that griddles through the dark amber.
It is the sticky remnants of a syrup’d stream. 

Something like that. The point is that while I, like most, may never stop mourning the U.S. discontinuation of Waffle Crisp, the mantle of maple cereals now lies on strong shoulders. After Eggo Cereal was discontinued itself back in 2012 and only just revived last year in Homestyle Maple and Blueberry flavors, it seems the stuff was successful enough to warrant another iteration.

Granted, I’d think Chocolate Chip would make more sense, but I can’t stay mad at the idea of a chocolate maple cereal. First teased by Cereal Snob a few days ago and since confirmed by Kellogg’s, a Chocolate Eggo Cereal is indeed coming soon.

Though perhaps I shouldn’t get too excited, as the naming and description for this product cleverly dances around the word “maple,” leaving it unclear whether this might be just another chocolate cereal.

“Kellogg’s Eggo Chocolate Waffle Cereal has the delicious taste and mouthwatering aroma of Eggo, all packed into an indulgent mini chocolate waffle piece. Each piece is dusted with chocolatey goodness that saturates the milk all the way to the last bite, leaving a bowl of delectable chocolatey cereal milk. The new cereal will be available at retailers nationwide in December.”

Well there you have it: all we know is that we know nothing for sure. Oh well, December is a ways away (about three weeks of quarantine, it will feel like). For now, I’m just glad Eggo is helping those of us who won’t…ahem…let go of Waffle Crisp’s memory.

News: Chocolate Life Cereal

New Chocolate Life Cereal

Talk about a redundant name. We all know that chocolate, much like ball, already is life. Ergo, when life gives you chocolate, it’s really giving you it’s all.

But do I trust Chocolate and Life to successfully meld in the same cereal? That remains to be seen, as I have a bit of a review backlog to clear before I go on the prowl for Quaker’s newly released cocoa-infused, multigrain thatched squares. I’ll admit, I’m a little apprehensive; I’m not the biggest Life cereal fan, simply because they lack a satisfying crunch, instead of crisping into kindling like a road-rolled Chex piece. Plus, Life’s latest new cereals didn’t blow me away either.

But with my dark outlook on Life, I might just be the eternal pessimist. If the idea of Chocolate Life has you ready to uproot yours in search of it, you can already find it listed on Walmart.com.

Review: Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal – Caramel Macchiato & Mocha Latte

New Dunkin' Cereal Review

Not since the egg predated the chicken has such a causality dilemma been posed: “but first, cereal” or “but first, coffee”? I’m sure you’ve seen the latter phrase emblazoned on countless Etsy shirts and flea market embroideries—right next to the Live, Laugh, Love pillows and fat chicken kitchen décor—but with cereal serving as a perfect toothsome preface to just about any activity, sometimes one can face cognitive gridlock when forced to choose between a warm mugful and a cold-milked bowlful.

But worry no longer, crunchy koan ponderers, because Post & Dunkin’ have teamed up to reanimate the Donut-slinging brand’s cereal division, which has laid dormant since Ralston stopped making their chocolate and glazed goodies in the late ’80s. Granted, these two new cereals are based on coffee drinks rather than doughnuts, but that simply gives you an excuse to dunk a real cruller in your caffeinated cereal endmilk.

Yes, it is this last point that makes Dunkin’ cereals so significant—there have been mainstream coffee-flavored cereals before, but none that dared bring real bouncy bean juice into a supermarket aisle already known for sugar-rushing young kids: the last demographic that needs more energy. Sure, Dunkin’ cereals only contain 1/10th the caffeine of a cup of coffee per serving, but if my own childhood cereal consumption velocity is any indication, those perky percentiles will add up fast—the length of a single SpongeBob episode kind of fast.

But enough pep talk, let’s simultaneously eat and drink our breakfast. Continue reading

News: KIND Cereal Comes to Walmart in Four Flavors

KIND Cereal Cranberry Almond Box

Am I excited for KIND Cereal? Well, kind of.

Sure, creative new cereal ideas are always welcome, but at the $6.98 price point KIND and Walmart are asking per box, these suckers better include a pouch of truffle oil as the prize inside. Not to mention how, after reviewing 9 similarly concepted Cerealology cereals with exciting ingredients like matcha and figs, it’s hard for me super excited about four more (comparatively tame) super grain cereals. Continue reading

Review: Chocolatey Churro Pop-Tarts

New Chocolatey Churro Pop-Tarts Review Box

“An upper crust choice.” — The American Pastry Society

“A new high for the genre.” — Popular Tarts Magazine

“Do this one justice with a Stainless Steel Wolf Gourmet WGTR124S 4-Slice model.” — Toast Fancy 

I’m not gonna beat around the crumbly, biscuity bush here: new Frosted Chocolatey Churro Pop-Tarts are good. So good that you shouldn’t need to read my next few hundred words of assorted praise to just go out and buy a box. But nevertheless, I will do my due diligence and explain why this is the best new Pop-Tarts flavor in a long time. Continue reading

News: Chocolatey Churro & SpongeBob Pop-Tarts!

New Sea Berry Raspberry SpongeBob Pop-Tarts Box

You know, I’m really starting to think this Sponged Robert character might take off. I mean look at him: he’s the epitome of glee, teaches kids basic geometry, and I’ve never even seen him do a Fortnite dance yet!

Maybe he belongs beside Mario at the virtual Olympics.

All Fry Cook Games aside, Nickelodeon & Kellogg’s licensed push for SpongeBob’s upcoming Sponge on the Run movie is continuing its run of admittedly uninspired breakfast tie-ins with these Sea Berry Pop-Tarts, already listed on Walmart.com. Continue reading

Review: Timbits Cereal (Birthday Cake & Chocolate Glazed)

New Timbits Cereal Review Boxes

Bits.

We all love ’em.

Or at least I do. I love all bits, whether it’s exponentially sugar-fortified cereal dust, forgotten salt-stewed French fry-lets, or the last messy bite of a restaurant meal that you saved as a parting gift for yourself after boxing up the rest of the leftovers—the very same last bite you had to awkwardly tell the waiter you were saving as he’s midway through lifting the plate from your desperate mitts. Or maybe that’s just me.

No matter how you spin it, I’ll always love bits more than pieces. Well, unless it’s those honey mustard and onion pretzel pieces. And I wouldn’t be surprised if my strange bit-diction stems from a long childhood relationship with Timbits: those lovable lil totally-not-doughnut-holes from Tim Hortons that just about any teacher who had a hope of winning their class’ trust would bring in by the party pack-ful on syllabus day.

Though Tim Hortons and his namesake ‘bits were a source of warm nostalgia for my fellow Michiganders, the coffee chain is a more deeply in-granulated cultural epicenter in its country of origin, Canada. So it makes sense that the first ever Timbits Cereal would be released exclusively north of the states—even if I firmly believe my mitten of origin should be considered an annexed state of the Hortonian Empire. Thanks to Cereal Time’s Gabe Fonseca, I was able to secure boxes of both Timbits Cereal flavors, Birthday Cake and Chocolate Glazed.

So let’s all grab a coffee, PBR coffee, or perhaps some strange soup of poutine and Labatt Blue and see if these itty bitty Timbits are a slam dunk. Continue reading