Tag Archives: holiday

News (UK): Sainsbury’s Mince Pie Wheats Cereal

…and the U.S. won’t even get a Fruit Cake Cereal.

Well, uh, maybe that’s for the best.

Regardless, I’m rankled as a wrinkled raisin over the fact that I’ll likely never get to try Sainsbury’s new U.K.-exclusive Mince Pie Wheats Cereal. I mean, shredded wheat pockets filled with spiced raisins, cinnamon & nutmeg? Frosted Mini-Wheats could never. And yes, for those like me who were unaware, the “mincemeat” in mince pies is in fact, not meat, but a sweet treat that’s fun to eat. Or so I’d imagine—I haven’t tried a real mince pie, either. But according to early overseas reviews, Mince Pie Wheats do their namesake justice:

“It’s good to be honest, I taste the raisin, cinnamon and nutmeg, and it does have that familiar mince pie flavour, but then the bitterness hits. Maybe they’ve tried to recreate those notes you get with boozy mince pies? The next morning I have the cereal for breakfast. When you add milk it diminishes the bitterness – you can still taste it, but not offensively, and once I get over the fact I’m eating mince pie cereal, I realise I’m very much enjoying these wheaties. Before I know it, the bowl is empty and I’m happily full. See you tomorrow, mince pie wheats. Love, your newest convert xox.” —Huffington Post U.K.

Have you tried Mince Pie Wheats? Sound off in the comments below if you think it’d be worth the effort for me to track it down.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cinnamon, holiday, international, raisins. 4 Comments

Oct. ’20

Review: Elf Cereal

Ahh, okay. The extended Elven cereal mythos is starting to make sense.

So seventeen years after the events depicted in the 2003 Will Ferrell holiday family comedy Elf, an unfleshed-out character tribe known as the South Pole Elves resurfaced in reality, when known Chaotic Neutral trickster archetype “Elf on the Shelf” escaped from an Antarctic prison, as described in my recent post on the Shelved Elf’s upcoming second cereal.

We can then assume that, since Buddy the Elf & the North Pole’s noble proletariat are the Nice List antithesis of Elf on the Shelf’s menacing malice, General Mills’ new Elf Cereal must be on a divine Clausian crusade to restore wholesome holiday energy to the breakfast table. I mean, why else would an Elf Cereal take nearly two decades to happen? And no, we don’t count the false prophet.

Personally, though I think Elf is a well-written Christmas movie, I’ve seen it enough times that my fanaticism for its fa-la-la follies tapered off after the first decade or so of annual airings. Nevertheless, I’ll be reviewing Elf Cereal, all maple-puffed and pine-mallowed, with the unbiased palate of a…

Line?

Yeah, from Elf, or at least Buddy’s Musical Christmas.

Uh.

The unbiased palate of a narwhal. Let’s move on. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: general mills, holiday, maple, movie cereals. 3 Comments

Oct. ’20

News: Elf on the Shelf Vanilla Candy Cane Cookie Cereal

Shhh!! Do not move. Do not say a word. Quietly read the words I’m about to present you: he’s in the room with you, right now. But he can’t see you if you remain still and silent, like Christmas Eve’s unstirred mouse.

The Elf on the Shelf feeds on fear. An animistic Yuletide talisman capable of movement speeds greater than SCP-173 when not in view, this guy was clearly deemed too dangerous for Santa’s workshop and sent to a maximum-security Antarctic prison, where he easily slipped past inattentive penguin guards to asexually multiply across shelves worldwide.

Okay fine, a lot of people love the Elf on the Shelf. I think he’s creepy. And that’s why he finds me delicious.

I’ll admit, when Kellogg’s first released Elf on the Shelf Sugar Cookie Cereal last year, I didn’t expect it to return for 2020—let alone with offspring. For while Elf on the Shelf Sugar Cookie Cereal is just alright, it’s no Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and never will be.

However it’s sequel flavor sounds a bit more permafrost-breaking. As the first mint cereal without chocolate, Elf on the Shelf Vanilla Candy Cane Cookie Cereal brings back those familiar crunchy stars but swap out the boring white pill marbits for cute peppermint swirl ones. Given 2020’s tepid track record with vanilla cereals, I’m hesitant to say whether EotS VCCCC will actually be good, but I’m giving it points for originality regardless.

Expect to see both Elf on the Shelf cereals on, well, store shelves starting this month.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: holiday, kellogg's, mint, news, vanilla. 2 Comments

Sep. ’20

News: Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch 2020 & New Elf Cereal

December 2020: The Toast Crunch Dynasty’s Last Stand. As the snow piles around the old cathedral and the rabid Teddy Grahams—prematurely upset from their winter slumber—keep pouring through the crunched-open stained glass windows. What few Crazy Squares remain regret cannibalizing their Churro & French Toast comrades. They sharpen their sugar cookie shurikens and prepare to defend their cereal’s legacy. Cinnamon Toast Crunch? An irrelevant cereal? Over their soggy bodies.

I over-exaggerate, of course: Cinnamon Toast Crunch is one of the most popular cereals ever, and such acclaim is unlikely to dissipate any time soon. But between Honey Maid Cinnamon Graham Crunch and Malt-O-Meal ChurrO’s, Post has proven how much better Cinnamon Toast Crunch could be if it really applied itself. Despite this, Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch as of yet has no equal, let alone a superior. For the time being, the annual return of Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch is worth celebrating.

The stuff isn’t all that flavorfully complicated—it’s doughy and buttery, yet still lightly cinnamon’d and heavily sugared. According to General Mills, SCTC is already shipping to stores, so once you get over the cross-temporal discomfort of seeing holiday cereals next to Halloween ones, I encourage you to pick up enough boxes to catapult from a second-story window at trick-or-treaters. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: holiday, movie cereals, toast crunch. 4 Comments

Oct. ’19

News: Kellogg’s Elf on the Shelf Cereal, Ryan’s World Cereal & Llama Loops

Oh, Kellogg’s. Are you a mercenary now? A contract cereal killer? Blink twice if you’re embroiled too deep in a dark web conspiracy.

Look, I’ve already whined about and refused to further dine on Kellogg’s generic sugar loop cereal epidemic, but these three upcoming Kellogg’s releases suggest there’s a bigger problem: (sugar) cookie cutter partnerships. I know, I know, lazy movie cereals have been a breakfast trend since the Forced death of original ideas like C-3POs, but now that Kellogg’s jumped the Baby Shark, it seems the floodgates have been opened for other shadily proprietary entities to easily buy (or be bought for, who knows) their own blasé breakfasts. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: holiday, kellogg's, news. 4 Comments

Jun. ’19

Spooned & Spotted: Cap’n Crunch’s Hero Crunch

What better way to celebrate the Fourth of July than with the Fourth patriotic Cap’n Crunch box to come out in the past two years?

Personally, I never expected last year’s mythically rumored and inscrutably unavailable Freedom Crunch to spread its wings once more, but now it’s reprinting its same red, white, and blue Crunch Berries like they’re state quarters.

This year, we saw the concept return in a milder, more bottle rocketed form, and just this month, we saw it debut with perhaps its most creative art yet—one that ditches the Cap’n’s stink eye in favor of one that borders on a Crunch-led assault against Independence Day alien invaders.

Finally, we have the above, Dollar General-exclusive Hero Crunch. This is perhaps the most bizarre case of an unnecessary product variant I’ve seen in four score and seven years, between the militant (and likely ineffective) camouflage and the unadorned Cap’n whose arm appears to be reverberating through space and time.

I mean c’mon, couldn’t they have at least given him a ghillie suit?

Our thanks to Gabe Fonseca for the photo. You can find Hero Crunch now at Dollar General—if it doesn’t blend into the shelves.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: cap'n crunch, holiday, quaker, spooned & spotted. 4 Comments

Mar. ’19

Spooned & Spotted: Reese’s Puffs Bunnies (2019)

Foiled again by these un-foiled Easter animals!

Yes, Reese’s Puffs’ go-to spring seasonal shapes, Bunnies, have returned once more. And while I love the things for their increased surface area and the cocoa-catching crevasses of their angular anatomy, I was hoping we’d finally get the PB-stuffed Reese’s Puffs Eggs I’ve been dreaming of ever since I first dunked a real oblong Easter Reese’s into a tall glass of Peeps nectar.

(Okay, I didn’t actually use the Peeps juice. You ever try milking one of those things?)

While the actual bite-sized Bunnies appear to be the same, this year’s boxes strip away the old pastel pastiche that mimicked Reese’s other Easter wrappers in favor of a classical brand styling that’s more in line with the cereal’s other limited edition holiday Puff sculpts. Being a washed-up warrior of washed-out colors, I’m a little disappointed by this decision, but I suppose cheerful yellow doesn’t have much place in a cereal known for being an impulsively grabbed orange eye-catcher—it’s the veritable Krispy Kreme Hot Light of the breakfast aisle.

That is of course, unless you add Peeps Coffee Creamer.

Thanks to Dominic C. for the real-life proof. If you have a new cereal find of your own, feel free to hop over to our Submissions page.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: general mills, holiday, reese's puffs. Leave a comment