Someone ask Gordon Ramsay for his best Caribbean fusion recipes, because in his words: “finally, some good f***ing food.”
The American debut of Tropical Froot Loops is incredible for two reasons: first, this originally Mexico-exclusive menagerie of looped Pineapples, Bananas, Oranges & Mangoes is so good that it seemed destined to be just the latest in a long line of creative breakfast explorations that never hit the U.S. Second, Froot Loops has been consistently missingthe mark with its recent releases, so the introduction of what we can assume is the same winning formula (containing all kinds of rarely-seen-in-cereal fruit flavors) from south of the border is cause for celebration.
I swear, if Kellogg’s finds a way to bungle the best bits of Tropical Froot Loops during the cereal localization process, I’ll be giving my box a viking funeral. Continue reading →
The answer is way more interesting than you might think. More than just an unhinged marketing gimmick, the story of South Korean Green Onion Chex is really about a fight for breakfast democracy, 16 years in the making.
In 2004, Kellogg’s of South Korea made one very short-sighted assumption. They wanted to debut a new version of their Chocolate Chex cereal—yes, it must be noted that, for some reason, Kellogg’s SK has the rights to use Chex (a General Mills cereal almost everywhere else) in branding—so Kellogg’s marketers launched an event for kids: an election between two candidates in the running to be “the president of Kellogg–Chex world.”
Kids could vote for either Cheky, a hip young square who promised to double the chocolate flavor in Kellogg’s Chex cereal, or Chaka, a rude and ugly Chex piece who promised to put green onions in Kellogg’s Chex instead. Again, foolishly assuming that kids would naturally choose super-chocolatey Cheky over his hybrid Shrek/Mucinex Mascot opponent, Kellogg’s SK let kids vote through a public online poll. Continue reading →
Oh ho ho, how whimsical: it seems there was a simple misunderstanding here. Quite humorous, Kellogg’s, all things considered. For years we cereal diehards have been asking for “two-in-one cereals” to return, given the iron and Nintendium-clad nostalgic reputations of Nerds Cereal and the Nintendo Cereal System. There’s just something so symbolically powerful about two individually sealed bags of different flavored cereal bits snuggling up in the same box like snakes in a peanut brittle can.
But the funny folks at Kellogg’s must have misinterpreted that as a request for two cereals in the same bag. An understandable semantic switcheroo, true, but the separate bags thing is kind of a dealbreaker. Well, that and the part about wanting new cereal flavors.
I’m sure there’s someone out there whose whole body is positively quivering with excitement about a convenient cereal Mashup of Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops specifically, but that person isn’t me—and I’m someone that loves mixing different cereals on my own accord. For reasons that will soon be made even clearer, this isn’t exactly cereal mixology’s power couple. They may be Kellogg’s two most iconic breakfast flagships, but Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops are famous because their familiar and universally lovable flavorings stand alone and taste consistent, in contrast to some of Kellogg’s more divisive, but in-bowl experiment-friendly brands like Krave or Raisin Bran (yes, I said it: GORP is practically the patron saint of intersecting snacks).
Because even if we put aside the obvious question—why wouldn’t I just buy one box of each Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops so I can mix them at my own personal ideal ratio?—there’s plenty of taste bud trouble here in Tony and Sam’s paradise.
“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 →
Thins. Crisps. Lite Snacks. Husks. Narrowed, flattened, and otherwise vaguely “healthified” versions of popular junk food flavors go by many names, but they share one constant: they’re never better than the originals, though one could hardly expect them to. At best, they make the toothsome tastes they’ve inherited more lithe and mobile.
I’m not sure whether portion size or convenience was the primary genesis behind Pop-Tarts Crisps—or perhaps it was heritage?—but thus far, we’ve seen threeflavors of the little pastry planks hit shelves, each more okay-ish-er than the last. Now with Appletastic Pop-Tarts Crisps landing out of left field, Pop-Tarts has made the conspicuous decision to not only drop another fruity Crisps flavor, but to also make it one that’s no longer even part of the main Pop-Tart cast. While Pop-Tarts Bites have at least made noble efforts to expand the taste profile of its line’s spotlit flavors, I have to wonder whether these will be Appletastic enough to make up for not being S’Mores Pop-Tarts Crisps.
Whether it’s Blue Moon ice cream or a glass of cold water at 3:00 a.m., some things have flavors that defy conventional description. Adjectives hardly do them justice. And to me, this is a great thing. The best part of exploring eccentric foodstuffs is having a taste take the words out of your mouth and stuff appetizing abstractions in their place.
That’s not to say Caramel Apple Jacks are mind-bogglingly good—just that this review is about to be a real struggle because we’re dealing with some serious fourth-dimensional stuff right here.
It doesn’t help that even regular Apple Jacks have a complicated history of not including apple ingredients, then quietly adding them recently—even though the loops are still way cinnamon heavy. So muddling the mix even more with caramel, whose flavor is best described as “caramelized,” only makes my job harder.
Regardless, this is basically the first ever meaningful variant of Apple Jacks (save for Cinnamon Jacks) that didn’t just change the pieces’ shapes or color, so I have to try my darnedest to wrangle up a crew of strapping young sentences and hogtie this taste down. Continue reading →
Oh, I once had a dream about a donut, alright. It was the size of two Gateway Arches and had the auto-cannibalistic serpent’s head of a dough-roboros. The thing started spinning toward me like Sonic the Hedgehog, launching sprinkled shrapnel all across the Windows XP wallpaper I’d been having lunch on, and I only managed to flee by rolling down a rollicking green hill. The dream donut launched off the hill and into the sun, exploding into a yeasty meteor shower.
So yeah, Tim Hortons: any chance you could make that one?
For those who have been sleeping under a rock-hard stale cruller all year, Tim Hortons has been testing a number of experimental donut flavors in their Innovation Café and across Canada. And while the likes of Chocolate Truffle and Dulce de Leche have had some pretty crumby reviews, the latest flavor debuting in both whole-nut and Timbit form is sure to pique any cereal blog reader’s interest.
Tim Hortons Froot Loops Dream Donuts pair a pink-glazed and white-iced donut with a whole handful’s worth of Froot Loops pieces themselves—pieces that can be pummeled to smithereens and stuck to a Timbit, too. Unfortunately, if the comparatively natural colors of these foreign Froot Loops are any indication, FL Dream Donuts are likely to be Canada-exclusive for the foreseeable future. This means it’s also very unlikely that I’ll be able to do a full review of these baked treats, but other reviewers have already done the sticky work for us, if you want to know how the taste stacks up:
Personally, I’m hesitant about any cereal dessert that includes full-sized pieces, as they often end up tasting extremely stale. But if you live near a participating Canadian Tim Hortons, let me know whether these Froot Loops Donuts made your dreams come true—or if they chased you nightmarishly into the Hudson Bay.
Since the first Pop-Tart was piped full of sweet goo and flapped over like an Agatha Crispy book…since that first Pop-Tart thwapped out of the toaster with enough velocity to spook the family dog two feet into the air…and since the first celestially blessed starchild opened a Pop-Tart pouch to find three inside instead of two…I’ve been on this blog, prolonging the intro to an ice cream review like it’s an SAT essay to delay the inevitable post-lactose malaise of eating it.
And right on schedule, here I am: with a Good Humor Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tart bar sitting lusterlessly on a plate before me. Clearly just palette swapping the Strawberry Shortcake bars that are perhaps Good Humor’s most iconic, these Pop-Tarts bars bring the other most beloved toaster pastry flavor into the chilled spotlight of the freezer aisle.
Alright, I’ve made peace with myself and my god, and am ready to plunge deep into dire dairy digestive disarray—yes, I use alliteration as a coping mechanism. Continue reading →
