It turns out reports of Tiny Toast’s death have not been greatly exaggerated. The brand of crunchy, strawberry and blueberry-flavored mini-loaves has been officially absorbed into the Toast Crunch family of cereals, as General Mills and many suddenly cereal-happy media outlets (after the Oreo O’s news, no one’s sleeping on everyone’s favorite wake-up foodstuff anymore) are now reporting.
I took to Twitter this morning to succinctly share my thoughts on this change, and I thought I’d reproduce my retrospection here, since copying and pasting tweets is the only way to keep me from writing 1,000+ more unnecessarily sappy words about pygmy bread pieces. Continue reading →
With French Toast Crunch’s continued triumph of nostalgia, Tiny Toast’s recent rebrand into Strawberry Toast Crunch and Blueberry Toast Crunch, and now Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s debut, one thing has become clear: bread-shaped cereal is here to stay. Though I’m slightly conflicted about what this means for the Toast Crunch family of cereals. On one hand, I worry that we’ll never get another variety with flavor-swirled squares, but the other hand is too busy scooping up fistfuls of Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal because all these small slices are so darn cute that I’d rather formally adopt them as children than eat them.
I’ve already got names picked out: Crusty, Carbo, Butt Slice—the list goes on.
But any way you slice it (or square it), I’m just happy we’re getting new Toast Crunch varieties, because that brings us ever closer to getting my childhood white whale: PB&J Toast Crunch. Now enough nuttiness: let’s slice open these wee slices and hope they taste like apple pie slices. Continue reading →
Is Tiny Toast…toast? At first glance, that’s what the “debut” of “new” “Strawberry Toast Crunch” and “Blueberry Toast Crunch” would seem to “indicate.”
Whoops, I don’t think I needed those last snarky quotation marks.
Reader Sydney N. kindly sent us the above snapshot from Walmart, which shows the adorably fruit-speckled bread slices we’ve known as Tiny Toast for nearly a year now re-branded under the Toast Crunch family of cereals. Led by the patriarchal Cinnamon Toast Crunch, this crunchy clan also consists of wild child Chocolate Toast Crunch, Canadian uncle French Toast Crunch, deadbeat son who only comes back to mooch on Christmas Cinnamon Star Crunch, (and his long-lost twin brother Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch), as well as a plethora of dead ancestors, from Peanut Butter Toast Crunch to Frosted Toast Crunch, who the family nonchalantly buried in the backyard after they failed to live up to Daddy’s legacy.
♫ Our house, is a very very very morbid house. ♫
Tiny Toast’s relationship to the Toast Crunch kinfolk has always been dubious: the cereals look so much like French Toast Crunch that we never knew if they were related, or if Tiny Toast was just French’s obsessive best friend who weirdly emulates his hero. But now that it’s been established in cereal canon that TT is FTC’s cousin who moved south to warmer, berry-friendly weather and changed his name, I can rest easy at night—and start editing my fan fictions.
That was all a very long-winded segue into my main point about Strawberry and Blueberry Toast Crunches: that it may not mean Tiny Toast’s demise at all. The fresh-faced pair has only been seen at Walmart so far, so it could be a store-exclusive rebrand demo, like Post did with Waffle Crisp and Good Morenings Waffle Crunch. I refuse to make a definite coroner’s call on Tiny Toast until General Mills itself gives the sweet slices a eulogy.
Which is perfectly fine with me, because like my great-granny definitely might have said, “you can have too many cooks in the kitchen, but you can never have too many cute crunchy loaves in the cereal aisle.”
Thanks again for the photo, Sydney! If you’ve got a cool cereal photo of your own to share, spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.
Can you see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Instant Oatmeal—or as some call it in Canada: “Croque Cannele Gruau Instantané?”
Of course: it’s got cinnamon sugar amorphous globs in every bite! It’s the taste you can see…still sticking to your ceiling three weeks later if you fling it hard enough.
Wait, wait—that’s the oatmeal’s old slogan. The new one is much better: crave those crazy hot oat lumps!
Fine, I give up. There’s no real appetizing catchphrase for Canada’s second new cereal-oatmeal hybrid. And even if there was, a burnt sienna bowl of microwaved roses by any other name would taste just as sweet. Or in the case of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeal, just as bland and disappointing. I know I usually leave my opinion out of each review’s introduction, but I couldn’t resist spoiling my spoiled breakfast from the get-go. This oatmeal has a host of toasty problems, so let’s work backwards and try sourcing its flaws like a paleontologist doing CSI on a pile of raptor skeletons. Continue reading →
What can I say: sometimes I just love cereal so much, I want to kiss it.
I know, I know: a bad one-liner to introduce a bad review. But since this Cinnamon Toast Crunch Lip Balm is the first ever non-edible product I’ve reviewed here, I didn’t know how else to start.
If the antiquated art didn’t give it away, this lip balm totally isn’t new, but I found it in a local grocery bargain bin—along with 10(!) other cereal “flavors”—and I couldn’t resist. I was tempted to drop a crisp green Alexander Hamilton, buy all of them, and coat my mouth ’til it became a living pair of those candy wax lips, but I found some self-restraint and chose the one that sounded like it’d be the most pleasant to have slathered near my taste buds all afternoon.
I’m not saying Cocoa Puff-smacked lips isn’t an appetizing idea, I’m just saying I’ve had enough public Mr. Goodbar mishaps to give me pause. Continue reading →
You may get exclusive, drool-worthy Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeals, but we here in the States are getting our own cereal-oat hybrid with new Honey Nut Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch granolas! In fact, this stuff is actually better than granola, because it’s a “Granola Snack!”
Just why is a Granola Snack better than plain ol’ oat clusters? Because with the word “Snack” in the name, I’m justified in munching through a whole bag anywhere, at any time, no matter how ridiculous I look.
Stuck in rush hour traffic and every radio station is playing commercials at the same time? Keep a Granola Snack in your cupholder.
Halfway through a stationary bicycle workout and need something to do with your hands? Double fist two Granola Snacks.
Grocery store ran out of stuffing mix and the turkey’s already in the oven? Spice up your bird with some cornbread and a Cinnamon Toast Crunch Granola Snack.
But okay, okay, I shouldn’t propose ruining Thanksgiving until I know this stuff’s actually good. Let’s go find a spin class and test it out. Continue reading →
For most of my time running this blog, I’ve had to console my Canadian friends who can’t get any U.S.-exclusive cereals without enlisting an expensive flock of highly trained carrier pigeons to do their dirty work. But now? We’re only 2 months into 2017, and Canada has already got a Quebec-sized pile of delicious exclusives!
First they got arguably the world’s first banana bread-flavored cereal. Then they got the coolest Corn Flakes box you could possibly wake up to. And now they’ve got Lucky Charms Oatmeal and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Oatmeal. At this rate of awesomeness I bet they’ll have an ice cream sandwich-flavored Cap’n Crunch cereal by next week. And it’ll somehow involve Pokémon, too.
These new oatmeals, based off two of General Mills’s most popular cereals, mix squishy-licious instant oatmeal with either rainbow Lucky Charms marshmallows or a swirling auburn galaxy of crunchy Cinnamon Toast Crunch bits. Either way, you can’t go wrong—though I wonder if hot oatmeal would make Lucky’s marbits instantly melt into technicolor puddles. I hope these oatmeals sell well, because I want to see General Mills try Cookie Crisp Oatmeal and Reese’s Puffs Oatmeal next.
What hypothetical cereal–oatmeal combo would you love to munch the most?
Big thanks go to our friend Junk Food Dog for sending in this picture, which he took at Zehrs. 5 boxes for $10 is such a good deal that I can only assume he bought the whole display case of ’em. Who needs to pay rent when you can build a house out of sugary deliciousness?
If you’ve got a cereal or oatmeal photo of your own to share, pass it along on our submissions page, or just email us at cerealously.net@gmail.com. There’s a good chance your picture could be featured on the site.
O Cookie! my Cookie! our sweet breakfasts are done,
My spoon is in the dishwasher rack, your “prize inside” was fun,
December’s near, Salvation Army bells I hear, the people’s stomachs rumbling,
While eyes scan the cereal aisle, the boxes plump and shining;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O this new bleeding box of red,
While in the trash my last Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch lies,
Eaten, empty, and dead.
Okay, I could easily go on for two more verses, fervently typing until my own fingers fall cold and dead, but I think it’s time to move on and face the facts. Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch was arguably the most revolutionary Holiday cereal in years, but after a two-year tenure on shelves, it has been unexpectedly replaced by Generals Mills’s new Cinnamon Star Crunch. My instinct is to remain pouty and cynical, but I’m going to take “the Grinch approach:”
When someone steals your annual present, sometimes you just have to sing anyway. So let’s carve into this box like it’s a roast beast.
