Obligatory disclaimer: I don’t eat a keto diet, so my palate is not hard-wired to seek out cereals like General Mills’ new Wonderworks trilogy. However, since it’s a new release from a big cereal manufacturer, I likewise feel obligated to give it a try. So while Wonderworks is in a totally different flav-o-sphere than the likes of Reese’s Puffs or Cocoa Puffs, I hope to at least give you an idea of which flavor is most worth a try.
Because, let’s make this clear, one of these three flavors is way better than the others. Continue reading →
Nine. From esotericism and enneagrams to The Beatles, it’s a number of power, a symbol of completion. But can nine ingredients alone complete an ambitious, expensive cereal?
Seriously, here are a couple other foreboding nines with an upside-down one in front: $6.99 for a box of LäraBar Cereal. I’m sure you, like me, are now thinking in your most Napoleon Dynamite-like inner voice, “that’s almost a dollar an ingredient!” When news first dropped about three LäraBar Cereals—Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Cashew Cookie, and Apple Pie here—I did not deem them worth driving off and paying for, especially since the similar-sounding and same-priced KIND Bar Cereals debuted to damning reviews.
But General Mills sent me a sampler of their early 2021 new releases, and it included today’s LäraBar Cereal flavor, so I might as well take it for a spoon. I am grateful, after all, even if the other two flavors sound more like my sugared bread & cocoa butter review fare.
Apple Pie LäraBar Cereal does indeed have only nine ingredients listed: whole grain oats, honey, rice, sunflower seeds, dried apples, almonds, coconut oil, sea salt, and cinnamon. Turns out, one of these ingredients ends up dominating 90% of Apple Pie LäraBar Cereal’s entire flavor profile. Can you guess which? Continue reading →
With news of two more cereals getting the oversized snack pouch treatment, it seems Kellogg’s is going all in with their JUMBO SNAX (yes, the all-caps is mandatory) line. I’ll admit, I wasn’t overly impressed with the first quartet of big honkin’ Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes Tiger Paws and Caramel Corn Pops, but these latest announcements have me jumbouncing with anticipation.
Compared to those four cereals, Smorz and Cinnabon are B-Team Kellogg’s cereals. They rarely get the same attention when it comes to limited edition variants—in fact, neither Smorz nor Cinnabon has ever had a spinoff flavor. This isn’t because they taste bad. Far from it! Cinnabon brings a solid, balanced cinnamon–sugar sweetness, while Smorz’ graham puffs are top notch in pillowy texture and dense taste that distinguishes itself from s’mores cereals’ Golden Graham’d genre standard.
Hence why I think these JUMBO SNAX will be good, too, even if both cereals benefit more from milk than dry munching—meaning you shouldn’t let their on-the-go premise stop your from dumping JUMBO SNAX into a bowl. If there’s anything that leaves me hesitant about this duo it’s, a) Smorz’ decision to remove marshmallows, and b) the fact that so few JUMBO SNAX come in a pouch. But since these exist in the first place, JUMBO SNAX must be pretty popular, so I salute Kellogg’s for bringing Smorz and Cinnabon up from the minor leagues.
Expect to see both of these JUMBO SNAX in stores this April.
BRB, changing the name of my site to Curmudgeonously.
Why? Because the longer I write about cereal, the harder it gets for a new cereal to excite me. Don’t get me wrong, my heart still yearns and burns (figuratively) for cereal, but after reviewing 450+ breakfast products, the next plain ol’ chocolate, vanilla, or cinnamon-flavored cereal has to do a lot different to capture my attention. At a certain point, my trusty cartful of adjectives starts to get stale.
That was my mindset going into this newest flavor of Frosted Mini-Wheats. Not that Cinnamon Roll is really new territory for the brand. There were Cinnamon Streusel Mini-Wheats in 2007, and Cinnamon Roll Little Bites in 2012. The only thing 2021’s Cinnamon Roll Frosted Mini-Wheats have that the others don’t is….a kinda ugly box. The grey-blue is uninspiring, the cinnamon roll watermarks make it look like an off-brand DUPLO, and, well, I’ve already voiced my distaste for the redesigned Mini-Wheats mascot many times.
But all hesitations notwithstanding, I must go into this review unbiased. Even if I want to punt the mascot with a pair of steel-toed boots. Continue reading →
What makes a good cereal shape? For the overwhelming most part, cereal pieces fall into three categories: puffs, flakes, and squares. Sure, there are plenty of exceptions, from your basic puffed rice to the geometric marvel that is the stuffed Krave pillow, but I don’t believe my palate’s ever encountered anything else quite like Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros.
While most of my cheers and jeers about this noodly cereal medium can be found in my original review for plain CTC Churros, they’re worth reiterating as I dive into this vaguely cylindrical Chocolate sequel. Continue reading →
Merry Post-Christmastime! May your day after be filled with contented lethargy, stocking stuffer candy snarfing, and cats rustling joyfully through bins of discarded wrapping paper.
Yet for bootstrapping cereal bloggers such as myself, the end of Christmas means I’ve got a mountain of cereal news and reviews to surmount. January is the biggest time of the year for new breakfast releases, and cereal company PR reps have been mailing me salvos of sweet stuff for the past few weeks. And while this may have been a serendipitous way to find boxes for all the gifts I gave, I still have enough cardboard clogging up my house to provide beds for twenty more cats than I already own.
By my cursory count, there are nearly two-dozen cereals in my kitchen, and while not all of them call for a blog article, I certainly have my work cut out for me. So before I dive into 2020’s best and brightest breakfast inductees, I want to ease in with a quick look at a U.K. exclusive that’s really bringing a snowy inn’s worth of cheer and innovation to this winter. 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 →
(Update: there will also be a third Larabar Cereal variety: Cashew Cookie!)
Six months after the first bar-turned-cereal reared its overpriced head, Larabar is giving chase. It’s unclear whether KIND inspired Larabar parent company General Mills to deconstruct their energy bars too—try as I might, I couldn’t figure out who makes KIND Cereal. KIND is owned by Mars, a name that certainly isn’t a breakfast aisle regular, as they repeatedly refuse to drop an M&M’s cereal. But I digress; I like Larabars a lot more than KIND bars, so I’m genuinely wishing them well with the ambitious Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip above.
I’ll be honest with y’all: I think this cereal is going to taste amazing.I anticipate a total slapper, if not a Cereal of the Year contender. Why am I so confident? Just look at it! Chocolate chips, peanuts, oats and flakes—how can it go wrong? I’ll lament that there probably won’t be any doughy notes like in a real Larabar, but this is giving me serious Love Crunch vibes. And that’s saying something.
