There’s an old adage in the breakfast and breakfurious business of cereal: K.I.C.S., which of course stands for Keep It Cinn-ple Stupid.
The Toast Crunch family of cereals is many things: necromantic, with its obsessive reanimation of old products. It’s viral, as the cereal’s cinnamon-spiced squares infect products with only a tertiary connection to the cereal medium. And the Toast Crunches are borderline mythological, as one of their kin is seemingly set to rival Santa Claus in seasonal popularity (at least according to short surveys given to a small sample of IHOP parking lot-dwellers [my people!]).
Yes, these cereals are a complicated brood set on cereal domination. But they’re also clever, because they always keep things cinn-ple. Whether it’s actual Cinnamon Toast Crunch products or a fruity family tree outcrop, every T.C.-ereal know what strategy works for them, and they stick to it: sticking a flour sack’s worth of confectioner’s sugar-textured flavoring formula to pieces that are already mildly (but not distractingly) sweet, a 1-2 combo that could make even an End Piece of the Loaf Toast Crunch sound appealing.
Butt, I digress. New Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros are interesting by design, because you, like I, may think on the surface that it’s just a lazy reimagining of an old flavor, stolen from Post. Yet its fascination comes from the question of whether Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s heavenly ghost of cereal dust can survive on an airy puffed piece without its decades old shell of squared crisped wheat/rice. If so, how long before these noodly Churros grow arms?
I shouldn’t’ve clickbaited you. We both knew the answer would be a yes so resounding it emits an auburn-swirled aurora borealis. The cinnamon sugar coating is immediately recognizable and has been replicated here with Turing-topping accuracy. About 68% golden sugar and 32% cinnamon-spiked sugar, this granules-shy-of-hedonistic sweetness makes self control buckle under the wait of a mouthwater-fall.
But while the coating is sweet-spot-on, the airily tubular texture certainly shakes up the flavor balance of these Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros. With so much more wheat and rice surface area to more neutrally counter the cinnamon sugar’s potency, any individual Churro brings a heftier crunch and more toastfully wheat-y core than its four-cornered compatriots. By improving two of Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s namesake components at the cost of its principal spice, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros neither elevates above nor concedes to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Both are tasty, but in idiosyncratic ways. Your choice in Cinnamon Toast transport vehicle simply depends on mouthfeel preferences: do you want to eat a mouthful of mild-mannered Lincoln Logs (that will bluntly stab overeager eaters in the mouthwalls), or a bunch of fragile flakes whose primal sugar urges will quickly reunite them in a single, primordial cinna-sugar soup?
This self-questionnaire’s sentiment holds up to dairy scrutiny, as well. Despite looking like Kashi’s hardy stick bundles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros are far more porous. Milk turns them into swollen cinnamon pool noodles. The texture may be flume and doom, but the milked cinnamon sugar is as good as always. The flavor’s finally liberated from its grassroots shape and left free to diffuse its delicious lifeblood into the now-blessed endmilk around it. I do have to recommend using milk overall, if only so that everyone can enjoy the obscenely theatrical experience of using each piece as a micro-straw.
Ultimately, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros’ existence proclaims a simple truth: “We can put this stuff on anything, and you’ll probably love it. So enjoy these Churros if you want, but don’t forget to remind us that we should be innovating beyond a single spice. Most bloggers would agree we still need a Gingerbread Toast Crunch before the inevitably fatal Cinnamon Sugar Assimilation.”
The Bowl: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros Cereal
The Breakdown: Slightly more wholesome and much crunchier, this cylindrical cousin of Cinnamon Toast Crunch won’t smack you with a sugary haze—but it might sock you with a pool noodle.
The Bottom Line: 8 Cinnamon Lights localized entirely within your kitchen out of 10
Back to the cereal. I think it tastes like cinnamon covered cardboard that get soggy in milk by the end. I like the visual references to Lincoln Logs and Noodles.
These had a slight, almost egg-like taste to them for me. Although it did have the cinnamon taste from CTC, there was also a notably different taste to them as well. The tubes though were a bit harder and larger than I am used to in cereal.
I think I might almost have enjoyed this more if the flavor was kept the same, but it was in more of the square shape as found in CTC.
It’s good without the milk…
The review was a delightful read. If they ever make Churos: The Movie, you MUST write the review. I love that interspersed in the comments is an ad for buying pot stock. Churos and pot. Like wow, man, what a combination!
I just wanted to add my two cents to the comments about the writing: if I wanted to read a carefully thought out, overly punctuated, perfect piece of prose, I would certainly NOT be pinning my hopes on a cereal blog. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoy the approach of this review. It’s the same kind of style you’d expect if you were sitting at the table with a friend, eating a bowl of cereal and discussing it. In other words- don’t show up to McDonalds in a black tie and limousine expecting filet on the menu.
i really appreciate it <3 all these kind words have left me inspired
Maybe ask Patrick Stewart –or similar– to do an audio recording of this review? It might be worth doing a few queries.
To paraphrase Eddie Murphy when he was talking about bill Cosby
If you don’t like the writing have some alpha bits and a smile and shut the f**k up.
Keep up the good work
Too sweet for my taste. However, it’s good when mixed with cheerios or other bland cereals
Loved the review as always Dan. I appreciate you sharing your porridgeous prose in whatever fashion strikes your fancy.
Love these little noodles, nice to have a crunch.
I like Dan’s writing style. It’s very funny, perfect for a cereal blog. Keep writing however you want, Dan.
What would possess someone to criticize someone’s writing style on 1)their own blog 2)about CEREAL 3)that is obviously updated almost daily therefore does not lend itself to meticulous editing and sentence construction based on whether rude people on the internet will find it “enjoyable”? I think the author has a great, unique voice that combines with the subject matter to produce a fun, interesting blog. “Auburn-swirled aurora borealis” I mean come on, that’s delightful.
I want to say I found this blog through the Empty Bowl podcast and I think it is really great (the podcast and the site!) I tracked down some Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch a few days ago and loved it. I have had the Post Churro cereal and enjoyed it, so I am intrigued by this variety that kind of looks more like real churros–might feel like I stopped by the state fair for a quick breakfast!
Personally, I love the wordiness of the review. It makes it far more creative and personal than saying “The cereal is good, it tastes like cinnamon” while also serving as an interesting and often funny piece of writing. I say keep writing how you write, and thanks for another great review!
Thank you <3
I appreciate and enjoyed the review. However, I have to say your writing is extremely wordy and at times hard to follow. Writing a bit more concisely would make reading these reviews much more enjoyable.
I agree. This is ludicrous sentence construction:
“pieces that are already mildly (but not distractingly) sweet (but inconspicuously)”
Neither parenthetical provides additional information, and the not so inconspicuous double “buts” are quite distracting, since they bring the flow of the sentence to a grinding halt.
This blog is my creative outlet, and I have no apologies about trying experimental writing styles, even if it doesn’t work perfectly. I’ll grant you that the last but is a bit jarring, but this is a cereal website, not a writer’s circle.
I’d take the fact your cereal blog is attracting such pedantic commentary as a compliment.
No other cereal blog can boast such am absurdist claim.
I came here in my search to see how many people agree with me on how pleasantly (but not insanely) surprising (but decently) they find this cereal to be, not for a seminar on writing. Keep doing what you do. I gotta go get another box.
You really go on a blog where someone sacrifices their time and not be a complete prick. It’s a cereal blog man.
Christ’s sake.
Sorry, this is aimed at fbernario.