How much Cinnadust is a single Cinnamon Toast Crunch square worth? What is the measure of a “Cinnamoji’s” life? How many of them do I hold in this cylinder of absurd magnitude? Is it really true? That all we are is Cinnadust in the wind?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch is making me think way too hard for something so redundantly simple. By almost any practical measure, Cinnadust has no reason to exist. Despite its considerable girth, at $5.48 this currently Sam’s Club exclusive Cinnadust is way more expensive than grabbing a small spice jar and a 10lb bag of Domino granulated—which, given the sweetness of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, is pretty much the right ratio.
But maybe it tastes better than just cinnamon sugar, right? Maybe Cinnadust is hiding some real magic in its “other natural flavors.” Maybe this mausoleum-sized flavor shaker was worth the brave squares it sacrificed.
The year is 20TC: I listen to the satisfying crunch as I click with my dusty Cinnamouse to publish a new Cinneriously.net blog post about Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s latest cinnamon sugar lifestyle cinnfusion: Cinnalink, a brain chip that immediately (and constantly) triggers the neural enjoyment of eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch, all without lifting a spoon! It’s the taste you no longer need to see—though you can recreate the experience with the brand’s accompanying Cinnavision Goggles.
Yes, with over 1,000 different uses for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch essence they’ve extracted from each crazy square’s mortal soul, General Mills is just a few Cinnamon Toast Seraphims away from opening up a holy portal to the Cinnaverse’s sweet, sweet paradise. And we’re all invited over for eternal breakfast!
But that’s in the future. Right now, Cinnamon Toast Crunch has only begun its quest to literally milk the cereal’s cult status dry with peripheral products that, though ostensibly only flavored with cinnamon and sugar, still carry name brand markup. It’s especially fitting that this latest piece of Toast Crunch news, Nestle’s Cinnamilk, came out the same day I finally acquired CTC Cinnadust:
I consider this poetic because, as Nestle also makes Nesquik, I could now either a) simply drink Cinnamilk, b) mix Cinnadust and regular milk, Nesquik style, or c) mix Cinnadust and Cinnamilk to clip out of reality and into the Cinnaverse—years before General Mills’ plan to do the same. That said, there’s also the traditionalist’s option d), to eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and drink the milk left behind, but who would want to do something so antiquated? It’s 2020, Grandpa: we ingest cereal in other forms of matter now. Now hook me up to my CinnamO₂n tank.
Now that I’ve spent this entire blog post wasting your time by Cinnamon Toast Chuckling at my own jokes, I’ll leave you with the one fact you probably came here for:
14oz bottles of Cinnamilk will hit mass retailers in January.
That’s it, folks: I’m officially out of my element and not properly certified to dissect this news piece. It just feels like, after so many recentmutationswithin the Toast Crunch family—which is really more like a genus at this point—Toast Crunchology has become a discipline so complicated it requires a college degree to fully grasp the ecological, gastronomical, and heck, cosmological significance of Chocolate Churro Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Of course, the humorless reality is that this Chocolate Churro Toast Crunch is far from revolutionary. Just as regular Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros tasted nearly identical to their square relatives, so too will Chocolate Churro Cinnamon Toast Crunch most likely adapt Chocolate Toast Crunch in a more tubular, crunchy, and palate-lancing shape.
Despite its not-too-surprising existence—a convenient clap-back to Chocolatey Churro Pop-Tarts, perhaps?—Chocolate Churro Toast Crunch is probably going to be pretty good, because Chocolate Toast Crunch and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros are also, well, pretty good. Congratulations, young Choco—Cinna Churros: you are the apples of both parents’ eyes.
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 →
Finally, a cereal snack that will scream D-J KHALED! when you open it.
That’s how remixes work nowadays, right?
Perhaps in line with their recent Retro Recipe debut, General Mills is releasing three pouched portmanteaus that pair familiar cereal pieces with other breakfast guest stars. As first shared by Candy Hunting, these Remixes aren’t quite shelf ready yet, but from what we can see, there’s plenty to speculate about.
The Cinnamon Toast Crunch Remix takes a pretty safe position: CTC squares and Churros join Vanilla Chex for what should be a fairly predictable hyper-sweet Toast Crunch Textural Medley. The Golden Grahams S’Mores Remix is also well-trodden territory for other big cereal companies, so I’m sure the name-brand GG thing will be good, but likely leave me craving a bigger serving.
Chocolate Toast Crunch’s Remix is the biggest surprise here, since Cocoa Puffs is usually General Mills’ flagship chocolate cereal—and I’ve heard from many people claiming Chocolate Toast Crunch has been discontinued, at least in their area. It’s also the only Remix that thinks outside the cereal box, enlisting caramel corn as well as Vanilla Chex again. Given how well H-E-B incorporated popcorn into their own caramel granola, I expect this Remix to be a standout hit, too.
All that said, my excitement for these Remixes is at a meek 5.5/10. Not saying I could’ve designed a more exciting trio of sweets *cough* Honey & Oat Cheerios Oat Crunch, Honey Nut Chex & Pralines *cough* but I faintly hope that if these are just store samples so far, they’ll get enough feedback to crank up the indulgence factor like a Rollercoaster Tycoon ride given a triple corkscrew loop.
In a year that refuses to be read like a book, we’re getting at least one more sweet little twist of cereal-adjacent obscurity.
Starbucks—err, well only Barnes & Noble Café locations that serve Starbucks coffee—is unleashing a new cookie studded with Cinnamon Toast Crunch squares. But don’t expect a pure and chaste cereal milk & cookies experience: as one Redditor has mentioned, this cookie is a triple threat of oatmeal, cinnamon, and chocolate chip. Which, honestly, sounds a lot better. Just as Honey Maid Cinnamon Graham Cereal is basically Toast Crunch with a beefed-up base grain, so too does this cookie sound like Chocolate Toast Crunch if it were made with oat flour.
If you’ve tried this cookie, let me know what you think of it in the comments below. Personally, I’m swearing off Barnes & Noble until the disrespected ghost of Borders Books & Music tells me it’s okay.
Ha, good luck catching me now, legal sharks: let’s see how your eyes like…
POCKET CINNADUST!
I have reason to practice such self defense. When I first leaked news of a Cinnamon Toast Crunch seasoning blend several months ago, I immediately had to take the post down after being served a crisp Cinnamon Toast Cease & Desist Letter. Granted, it was sent not by General Mills but by a company that focus-groups new product ideas, but it is funny that this one actually came out, since a lot of products teased in programs like that never come to fruition.
I mean seriously: why Cinnadust? It’s ostensibly just cinnamon and sugar together in a spice bottle, which you can already buy, right? Well, the product’s official release also claims there are traces of vanilla and graham to be found within, which, aside from being exciting, really makes this more of a Post Honey Maid Cinnamon Graham Cereal Seasoning Blend, huh?
No matter its specific formulation, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnadust is sure to have a lot of applications when it releases this September at Sam’s Club, and in 2021 everywhere else. You could wear it on your face like fake five o’clock shadow. You could pretend to sneeze it out and convince people you’re cereal-blooded.
You could even bring it to the beach and return it to nature, allowing it to mingle with fish bones and driftwood once more.
Woof, it took me a while to unscramble my brain before starting this post—just looking at a Lucky Charms Soft Baked Bar threw me into a hapless hypnotic sugar trance. It’s not that the things taste bad; they’re actually addictive little blondies, so simply appealing that after getting halfway through their initial, Costco-exclusive 40-count box release, I simply couldn’t see right. A punch-drunk man-sized Dough Boy, I waddled and swayed around the house scaring my cats like a kaiju. After giving the rest away, I vowed to never touch a Lucky Charms Soft Baked Bar again—especially not the one I found flattened into a wrapping-fused pancake at the bottom of my backpack.
That said, now that Lucky Charms’ doughy delights are available in far-more-reasonable 6-bar boxes, I recommend everyone keep an eye out for them on their next grocery trip. The unpretentious pleasantness of these Lucky Charms treats also bodes well for General Mills’ companion release: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Soft Baked Bars, which are entirely new and could very likely outshine their marshmallowy cousins.
These CTC bars, however, shouldn’t be confused with Cinnamon Toast Crunch Soft Filled Bars, a frozen product released alongside a Cocoa Puffs version, both consisting of oven-ready soft breads with neufchâtel cheese inside. Tragically, those particularly tempting desserts ended up being wholesale only, meaning the only ones who can enjoy them are elementary school cafeteria-goers and the freelance kindergarten cop I hired to smuggle me out a crate of ’em. He never came back.
Instead, I’m sure Soft Baked Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bars will be less cheesy, but far easier to tear open at a moment’s notice for a quick hit of swirling cinna-sugar goodness. If you manage to find them before I do, let me know what you think in the comments below!
