Tag Archives: cookies and cream

News: Dippin’ Dots Cereal Returns

Back by unpopular demand, now in a perennially putrid flavor! Seriously, I’m not trying to be rude, but if you asked me to guess which discontinued cereal would be getting a 2021 reboot, I’d probably die of natural causes before even remembering Dippin’ Dots Cereal ever existed. First released in June 2018, DD Cereal came in Banana Split and Cookies ‘N Cream. They were both extremely boring, and since they only debuted in family-sized boxes, I was left with enough uneaten cereal to stuff an ark’s worth of Beanie Babies.

This new variety, Birthday Cake Dippin’ Dots Cereal, has me the opposite of optimistic—well, maybe “pessimistic” is harsh. How about, “floptimistic”? As I’ve reiterated throughout countless one-note saccharine reviews, birthday cake is borderline impossible to translate into an interesting cereal, and unless this new Dippin’ Dots Cereal is actually sold in the freezer aisle, I have little hope this stuff will break its namesake flavor’s streak of blandly frosted failures.

Cookies ‘N Cream Dippin’ Dots Cereal is also returning, with a “NEW! IMPROVED FLAVOR.” However, based on the box art so far, it looks like this iteration of DD Cereal has removed the crispy coated clusters, which were the only freakin’ good part about Dippin’ Dots Cereal in the first place!

That said, it’s too soon to pass definitive judgement, because these are clearly still concept boxes—you can tell because Birthday Cake is described as a multigrain cereal, while CnC is described as corn with real cocoa. I think I scream for everyone when I say it better be the former.

Regardless, these new and/or improved Dippin’ Dots Cereals should be releasing in the coming months. You can already enter an online sweepstakes for a chance to win free Dippin’ Dots for a year, which may very well be the only good thing that could come out of this cereal’s revival.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: birthday cake, cookies and cream, news. 2 Comments

Sep. ’19

Review: Millville Cookies & Cream Cereal

Oreo O’rnithology: the academic study of Earth’s diverse and varied flocks of cookies & cream cereals.

This field of research has only recently exploded in popularity. After the first Oreo O extinction around the turn of the millennium, budding scientists found themselves sandwiched somewhere between cereal paleontology and purgatory. Despite the ever-feeding buzz that demanded Oreo O’s’ reinstitution, it wasn’t until 2013’s false flag release of General Mills’ ghastly Hershey’s Cookies & Crème Cereal that interest in the subject—and the prophesied birth of a new C&C prodigy—began to bloom anew.

From there, creams and dreams came true quite rapidly. The world discovered South Korea’s worst kept and best tasted secret. Malt-O-Meal dropped a suspicious Oreo O’s taste alike. Then we finally got the real stuff back, albeit with a milked-down flavor that only soured with the tepid release of Golden and Mega Stuf variants. Now, mass investment in the category seems to be approaching critical mass. We’ve had a promising yet poorly executed cookies & cream cereal. One that hits your gut like a fossilized Hydrox cookie. And now, I’ve unearthed an unsuspecting store brand interpretation from Millville—in hopes that it will satisfy the authentic Oreo O’s cravings that only expensive Eastern hemisphere exports can currently satisfy.

Now, I’ve learned that Millville Cookies & Cream Cereal is by no means new—readers claim the stuff, along with its Golden variant, have been out for anywhere from 2 to 12 months. But as someone who makes few pilgrimages out to Aldi without good reason, I was hitherto ignorant, plodding along on the dark side of the moonpie while generic Oreo O’s bred like space bacteria somewhere in Aldi’s cardboard jungle of discount groceries.

But that ends today: I will make my penance with the cosmic Oreo O’verlords—and find out if there’s a new cookies & cream (dun)king in town. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 3 rating, cookies and cream, millville. Leave a comment

Aug. ’19

Review: Cookies & Crème Pop-Tarts Cereal

Look, I know, deep down, that I am but a flake fragment stuck between two cogs within the grand corporate cereal machine, but can’t a crumb dream of being a marbit?

By this I mean: I seriously doubt anything I’ve written on this website has ever influenced a cerealsmith’s grand designs—though if Blueberry Muffin Toasters hits shelves, I will claim peripheral clout by right of Justinian association. But in my imagination, I like to pretend that something like Cookies & Crème Pop-Tarts Cereal was made with a picture of me on an easel, connected with string to a bran map of all my favorite flavor descriptors.

Yes, that sounds narcissistic, but my birthday is next week, so give me a break.
And yes, I know, unsubtly mentioning my upcoming birthday isn’t much better.

C’mon though, a merger of Oreo O’s and Pop-Tarts? Sure, they could’ve picked any of my more-obscure, all-time favorite Pop-Tarts (Milk Chocolate Graham, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, or Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal Delight), but the only cereals more quintessentially dan g. would be a PB&J Waffle Crisp or Gingerbread Golden Grahams!

Ahem, Post and General Mills? Next week, remember? You’re not invited to my all-night laser tag lock-in without presents.

Okay, enough about me: let’s write about these little sandwich cookie pillows entirely in the second and third persons. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, cookies and cream, kellogg's, pop-tarts. 4 Comments

Jun. ’19

Spooned & Spotted: Cookies & Crème Pop-Tarts Cereal

Do you hear that? Those foreboding rumbling of a tectonic plate sandwiched between two others, heralding the beginning of something…cataclysmic?

It’s an anomaly in Earth’s chocolate cookie crust, and we haven’t felt one of this magnitude since the great Oreo Cheesequake that turned countless communities upside down—while leaving them dizzyingly unable to fall.

Yes, we seem to be reaching critically crème-y mass, with newly spotted Cookies & Crème Pop-Tarts Cereal being the third cereal of its Oreo-flavored kind to arrive this past month. While I thought the Oreo craze peaked two years ago with the olfactory onslaught of perhaps unnecessarily zany cookie flavors, from Mississippi Mud Pie to the Swedish Fish who for some reason swim in it.

But now that Nabisco’s mad science has tempered to a sort of eccentric performance art, with more reasonable flavors like Latte Thins and Rocky Road, it feels high time for the famous cookie’s signature flavor to return to its black & white simplicity, once again populating both owned brand and imitator products all across the grocery store. Spotted by @m_huddy at Woodman’s (thanks!), Cookies & Crème Pop-Tarts Cereal brings a two-toned filling (a la S’Mores Krave) to a fascinatingly chip-studded P-TC shell.

While I am more excited for C&C Pop-Tarts Cereal, I am close to predicting it dead in the skim-diluted water. Why? Because it feels like a direct chaser to Cookies ‘n’ Creme Fillows, which were so good (and dense!) that I have serious doubts the comparatively welterweight anatomy of Pop-Tarts Cereal will even be able to touch gloves with General Mills’ game-changing, choco-icing champion.

Perhaps I’ll just have to pit them head to head, M&M’s style. Don’t blame me, Pop-Tarts, it’s a natural cereal phenomenon: survival of the crème-swollen fattest.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cookies and cream, kellogg's, pop-tarts. 2 Comments

May. ’19

News: Mega Stuf Oreo O’s are Coming to Walmart!

How convenient: just days after I dunked on Americanized Oreo O’s for not staying true to 2002’s Extreme Creme Oreo O’s (ostensibly the definitive, Game of the Year Edition of Oreo O’s), we get this.

Perhaps rightfully realizing the prurient wordplay potential of high-octane creme, the Oreo O’s + marshmallows equation has been redubbed Mega Stuf Oreo O’s. Equally plausible is a necessary signal boost for actual Mega Oreo cookies, whose excessive novelty has been rendered practically obsolete by the self-lampooning leviathan that is The Most Stuf Oreo cookie. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cookies and cream, news, oreo o's, post. 5 Comments

May. ’19

Review: Fillows Cereal (Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme and Pillsbury Cinnamon Roll!)

What would it take to end the Krave Civil War?

You know, the ceaseless, caustic conflict between those who love those graham-wrapped little choco-chrysalises (hi, it’s me) and those who think they taste like dog food (*ahem*). Such division doesn’t belong in the breakfast aisle, a demilitarized zone for those seeking unanimously sweet solidarity and shared cereal ceasefires. But what are we to do?

Should we pan-fry pieces of Krave to make them more palatable?
Barrel-age our Krave in Bailey’s to make it more…utilitarian?
Or must we Kravers acquiesce and bury all our polarizing cereal right next to the hatchet?

The answer’s far simpler: build a better filled pillow cereal. Which is just what General Mills has done with their aptly named Fillows line of cereals. These little cereal nuggets are filled with crème (though some sites have called it icing), and are currently only available at Walmart in family-sized boxes. But even though each box weighs over a pound—and features foil, rather than plastic, bags to properly secure their shimmering density—I don’t think you’ll need a family to finish it.

Just be ready to carry a food baby when you’re finished.

Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 9 rating, cinnamon, cookies and cream, general mills. 10 Comments

May. ’19

News: Fillows Cereal is Launching in Pillsbury Cinnamon Roll & Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme!

Ever have one of those dreams where the Pillsbury Doughboy offers you a bite of his arm, and you wake up molar-deep in memory foam?

Uh, yeah, me neither.

But if you have ever wanted to sink your teeth in a pillow first thing every morning, General Mills has two new cereals to tickle your down-feathered fancy.

They’re called Fillows, and they’re launching this Monday at select Walmart stores, before hitting other grocery chains this fall. Coming in both Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme and Pillsbury Cinnamon Roll, Fillows are likely a bold effort by General Mills to counter their rivals’ tasty cereal partnerships—though Cookies ‘n’Creme has actually existed in regional markets for some time now.

Fillows claim to be “the only cereal to deliver a crunchy shell with a burst of creme filling in every bite.” Which isn’t really true, especially since Fillows are already a direct dig at Krave—I hear they even meant to call ’em Krillows, but it would’ve ruined their idea for a crunchy crustacean cereal.

Comparisons aside, I’m very excited to try both icing-packed flavors and immediately fill my own pillow with my face.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cinnamon, cookies and cream, general mills, news. 9 Comments

Jan. ’19

Review: Rice Krispies Treats Snap Crackle Poppers (3 Flavors!)

What makes a balanced breakfast?

Cereal commercials will have you believe it calls for toast, fruit, milked cereal, another glass of milk, maybe like a sausage?, and some OJ for good measure. Despite such a figurative feast’s skewed carbo-hydrating to protein ratio, it’s still probably a better balanced breakfast than what I had in mind: a bowl of Rice Krispies in one hand and Cocoa Krispies in the other—each precariously perched on a card-tower of respective Confetti Cupcake and Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts.

Perfectly balanced, as all impending stomachaches should be.

That said, I’m really excited to work Kellogg’s new Rice Krispies Treats Snap Crackle Poppers into my balanced breakfast. Why, you ask? Because they’d make quite the square meal.

Nothing quite like 100 words of buildup to a two-word punchline. Anyway, for those still with me after that egregious comedy sin, it’s time to do some sweet penance: a three-part munchline of creamily coated and cubed Rice Krispies! Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: 7 rating, 8 rating, chocolate, cookies and cream, kellogg's, rice krispies, vanilla. 2 Comments