Tag Archives: cocoa puffs

Coming Soon: Soft Filled Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Cocoa Puffs Bars from Pillsbury

Pillsbury Soft Filled Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bars

Image via General Mills

What’s with General Mills and thermal activation? First we got the infamously inscrutable Toaster Strudel, essentially a high-maintenance Posh-Tart, and now a pair of Soft Filled Cereal Bars. Is the whole company a puppet operation run by a shadow council of Pillsbury Doughclerics, hellbent on igniting the world and ascending to the breaded plane?

Or am I just really lazy and hate waiting for the toaster when I could be eagerly and beaverly carving into a Pop-Tart?

Image via General Mills

Despite my aversion to exertion, I’m excited to try Pillsbury’s latest “ovenable” cereal-pastry crossover. According to General Mills, both are a “Frozen soft bar filled with cinnamon [or chocolatey] Neufchatel cheese.” The prospect of turning my oven (or countertop, as they can be thawed to eat, though who would want to risk the inevitable accidental face-plant into it) into a fudgy or cinnamon bunny cheesecake factory has me cheesequaking in my desk chair.

It makes me wonder what other cheeses may have cereal crossover potential. Cream Cheese Bagel Toast Crunch? Cottage Cheese Pebbles? Come on, Big Cereal, you have to claim this untapped potential before Doritos does!

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cocoa puffs, general mills, toast crunch. 5 Comments

Jun. ’18

Cereal News Round Up!

It’s been a crazy couple of days for cereal—or at least, products that aren’t primarily cereal.

The chaos broke in appropriately outlandish form, with a photo of 7-11’s new Cap’n Crunch Berry Slurpee hitting Instagram thanks to @junkfoodduo. Now while my first reaction is an only-human revulsion, I remembered that if Cheetos can release a cinnamon sugar corn puff iced beverage I enjoyed, then perhaps the Cap’n can too.

I imagine it has something to do with churned cream corn?

Now before I roadtrip to the nearest 7-11 like a grog-deprived pirate, there are more chilled cereal crossovers to see.

Like a new Cocoa Puff bedazzled frozen yogurt from 16Handles, news courtesy of @markie_devo. I have no idea how wide this chain serves, but I just like the sight of a Cocoa Puff-bearded froyo that manages to come closer than any before to stealing my name.

Finally, @candyhunting discovered Toaster Strudel’s plan to release toastable little rectangles diorama’d with Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Trix.

I’m really surprised the first cereal x toaster pastry hybrid didn’t come from the typically-more-experimental family of Pop-Tarts. But I’m even more surprised that this suggests Cinnamon Toast Crunch may be on an unstoppable chain of delicious guest roles, with a Mickey Mouse-esque aura that may permeate even weirder pumpkin spice-esque areas some day.

Could we see Cinnamon Toast Crunch cat litter?

All in all, this is a terrific chain of events that we can expect to enjoy soon—though with the rate that new cereal products are being released this year, I may be doggy paddling to my fridge through crunchy rings by September.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News, Uncategorized. Tags: cap'n crunch, cocoa puffs, toast crunch. 1 Comment

Nov. ’17

Review: Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs Cereal

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.

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 8 rating, chocolate, cocoa puffs, general mills, holiday. 2 Comments

Oct. ’17

News: Holiday Cereals – Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs & Cinnamon Vanilla Lucky Charms

(Image via General Mills)liday

Merry October, everyone!

I love seeing all my favorite holiday decorations out on lawns already: the jack-o-lanterns people put on top of their trees, Rudolph the Red-Eyed Werewolf, and Santa’s iconic wife: Mrs. Freddy Krueger.

To celebrate the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Krampus Day/general merriment season that is totally already here, General Mills is already shipping out two new holiday cereals to Target and other stores.

First is Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs. Consider this one filed away in my “How The Heck Did This Not Happen 10 Years Ago” drawer: marshmallows and Cocoa Puffs seems like a no-brainer, especially after the deliciousness of Count Chocula and Chocolate Lucky Charms. Cocoa Puffs Treats cereal bars have blended Sonny’s choco-corn orbs (chocorbs, for short) with fluffy sugar before to great success, so I’m glad to finally see it come full circle.

Err, full snowball marshmallow, I mean.

No word on whether the Puffs here will be flavored different to match the smoky richness of real hot cocoa, but considering how my childhood self used to stupidly think hot cocoa was made by microwaving chocolate milk, Hot Cocoa Cocoa Puffs have to at least be better than that. Though I may try microwaving them. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cocoa puffs, general mills, ho, lucky charms. 6 Comments

Jul. ’17

Review: Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops Cereal

Neapolitan ice cream is criminally underrated. I mean, it combines the three most popular ice cream flavors (though I still can’t fathom how plain ol’ vanilla is more popular than Chocozuma’s Revenge, Chocolardiac Arrest, or any of those other “X-Treme Ice Creamz”) into one—sometimes even in snowman form—and we still hardly see it appear in things other than ice cream. Heck, even Naples itself has a flag that looks more like Superman ice cream than neapolitan’s iconic pink, brown, and creme.

And before these new neapolitan Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops, there has been only one other neapolitan cereal—and it was only released in New Zealand. I guess America will have to make the first kiwi cereal as revenge.

But enough melty melancholia. Let’s see if these strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate Cocoa Puffs are good enough to turn my local Baskin-Robbins’ 31 flavors into 401k. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 6 rating, chocolate, cocoa puffs, general mills, strawberry, vanilla. 2 Comments

May. ’17

Spooned & Spotted: Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops Cereal

(Update: We reviewed Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops!)

Drink it in, folks: Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops, the first (American*) neapolitan cereal, is here.

Err, perhaps “drink it in” isn’t fitting enough. “Lick it in”? “Cone it in”? “Do everything but bite it in because you have sensitive teeth and a chronically frozen brain”?

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we can finally taste strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate all in the same cereal bowl without Frankenstein-ing some weird mix of Tiny Toast, Life, and crumbled-up Halloween Pop-Tarts (I know there are many chocolate cereals, but if you’re going to be a mad breakfast scientist, you might as well go borderline bonkers).

Spotted at Jewel-Osco and graciously shared by fellow snack scholar The Junk Food Aisle, Ice Cream Scoops Cocoa Puffs appropriately combine corn puffs bearing the three fruity, beany, and fudgy flavors of neapolitan ice cream. Vanilla and chocolate have crossed paths beneath Sonny’s bill before, but strawberry is a welcome newcomer. It’s so welcome that it makes me forget that last year’s greatest ice cream cereal (and simply greatest cereal), Cap’n Crunch’s Orange Creampop Crunch, has passed on to the great cosmic creamsicle in the sky.

Here’s hoping that if these Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops work out, we’ll get different frozen novelty flavors in the future. Superman Puffs, anyone?

Thanks again to Junk Food Aisle for sharing the scoop—literally. Got a freshly spotted flavor of your own to dish out? Spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.

*There has been a neapolitan cereal before…in New Zealand! As usual, Cereal Time time traveller Gabe Fonseca knows all about it.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: chocolate, cocoa puffs, general mills, spooned & spotted, strawberry, vanilla. 10 Comments

May. ’16

Three of the Best Cereal Commercials on TV Now

Cereal isn’t all about the sugary flakes and crunchy rings. It’s about the culture, too. Of course, since you’re reading a cereal blog, I probably don’t need to tell you that.

From the colorful characters to the mail-in premiums and games on the back of the box, there’s a good reason breakfast cereal has stood the test of time and become a full-on lifestyle for nostalgia-holics like me.

Growing up, my favorite part was always the TV commercials. Only on Saturday morning could you slurp down a bowl of Golden Grahams, binge watch Pokémon, then see a commercial about Toucan Sam’s deep sea adventures that makes you forget the Golden Grahams and inspires you tow your mother to the grocery store for a fresh box of Froot Loops that will fuel the exact same process the next weekend.

But as we grow older and start to substitute Cartoon Network with CNN and such, we see way fewer cereal commercials. I guess it’s hard to bookend Wolf Blitzer with Chip the Wolf.

That’s why I still purposely tune into Nickelodeon most mornings while I chomp down Raisin Bran Crunch or Cheerios. Aside from the sweet, sweet SpongeBob re-runs, I get to see that cereal commercials are still alive, well, and awesome.

Here are three of the best. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cheerios, cocoa puffs, commercials, general mills, lucky charms, special. 3 Comments

Apr. ’16

Review: Cocoa Puffs (Now With 50% More Real Cocoa)

That’s a bold claim, Cocoa Puffs.

I mean, you could’ve just said “now with more chocolatey taste!” or called the cereal “SUPER Cocoa Puffs,” but you chose to drop some hard stats on us. Exactly 50% more cocoa, eh? Alright, if you say so: I better go 50% more cuckoo for these.

And trust me, I have a pretty refined Cocoa Puffs palate. Cocoa Puffs is one of the first cereals I can remember eating as a young’n. Back in my early grade school days, I ate a bowl every single morning until I got sick of ’em. One day, in fact, I tried a bowl of Cocoa Puffs with chocolate milk instead of regular milk and got quite literally sick, diagnosed with a condition that doctors could classify only as “Chocolardiac Arrest.”

But what didn’t kill me only made me stronger, and now my taste buds are braced and ready to be blown away by a choco-bombshell. Are you ready, Cocoa Puffs?

En garde!

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, cocoa puffs, general mills. 19 Comments