Review: Apple Strawberry Raisin Bran Crunch Cereal

Kellogg's Apple Strawberry Raisin Bran Crunch Cereal Box

Leave it to Raisin Bran Crunch to bring two of America’s most contentious summer pie flavors together.

Seriously: apple pie and strawberry pie’s rivalry is the warm weather equivalent of pumpkin vs. pecan, and I bet this bitter—yet so sweet—feud is the reason we don’t see apple and strawberry flavors mix very often. I don’t know what apple did to strawberry to evoke decades of estrangement, but I can only assume it involved a pie to the face. And maybe a few clowns.

But now, thanks to the unifying power of Raisin Bran’s radiant sun, we can finally experience apple and strawberry in tandem without having to sandwich together two slices of Grandma’s Independence Day desserts. Because while it may be delicious, that’s how you end up with a Fourth New Belt Notch of July.

Kellogg's Raisin Bran Crunch Apple Strawberry Cereal Flakes & Clusters

I’m gonna be up front with you: Raisin Bran Crunch Apple Strawberry smells and tastes like Fruit Roll-Up Cereal.

Seriously—the über crunchy flakes are glossed with a puckering, ripe strawberry glaze that also smacks of candied cherry and pectin. It’s like Kellogg’s encased every earthy bran shard in red Jell-O and melted Swedish Fish, only deeming the flakes fit for consumption once enough raw red flavor was infused via gelatin osmosis.

The flip-side is that you have to eat these flakes in moderation. They’re addictively crunchy, but if you munch too many at once, they’ll start to impart a medicinal, Robitussin-like fruitiness upon your overeager tongue.

Thankfully, Kellogg’s decided to bake dried strawberry and apple bits into Apple Strawberry Raisin Bran Crunch’s clusters, so we don’t have to go on a wild spoon chase just to taste both at the same time. And you definitely can taste both: the strawberries are simultaneously sweet and tart like a Wonka candy, while the apples have the sour juiciness of a Granny Smith—even though the apple slices on the front of the box are red.

On their own, these potent flavors might be overpowering, but they’re pleasantly tempered by the syrupy brown sugar sweetness of the granola they’re glued to.

Unfortunately, the small size, wimpy crunch, and rarity of these clusters leaves a lot to be desired. On the bright side, their crispy texture and fruity coating reminds me of Kellogg’s discontinued Yogos. You lose some, you win some, I guess.

Kellogg's Raisin Bran Crunch Apple Strawberry Cereal Fruit

While apple and strawberry are this cereal’s guests of honor, the humble raisin still makes welcome appearances in every spoonful. Raisin Bran Crunch’s titular dried fruit is known for being both juicy and sugary, but in this case, it also has a gummy apple-strawberry finish from being in close proximity to the clusters. Altogether, this gives every raisin the chewy, ambiguously fruity, and nearly Purple Kool-Aid-esque flavor of a dehydrated, Shaggy-shaped Scooby-Doo fruit snack.

Simultaneously golden-baked and multi-fruited, dry Raisin Bran Crunch Apple Strawberry is probably the closest the world will ever get to a Holiday Fruit Cake Cereal. But instead of politely declining seconds or leaving refrigerated leftovers to congeal and grow self aware, this is a fruit cake you may actually want to eat.

Kellogg's Raisin Bran Crunch Apple Strawberry Cereal with Milk

Milk makes Apple Strawberry Raisin Bran Crunch even more vibrantly fruity, with the drink’s creaminess bringing the dried grape, apple, and strawberry flavors together into a single, blended whole. Depending on how obscure you like your analogies, there are three things I can compare milky Apple Strawberry Raisin Bran Crunch to:

1) A grain-enhanced power smoothie,

2) Rainbow Twizzlers, or

3) The innards of several different Hostess Fruit Pies, all mushed together by someone who used the blunt end of a bran muffin to do the mushing.

Raisin Bran Crunch Apple Strawberry: The Final Straw

If you’re already a raisin bran fan, then this novel evolution of Kellogg’s classic Raisin Bran Crunch taste is definitely worth a try. Its unique blend of fruits rarely seen together makes Apple Strawberry Raisin Bran Crunch a quiet innovator in 2017’s sea of hyped-up Girl Scout Cookie and Blueberry Pancake cereals.

But if you’re vocally anti-bran, this cereal won’t change your mind. It’s still full of graininess and grape juiciness, and its twists of tart fruit may come off as too aromatic for the uninitiated.

As for me? Well, as the guy who was (not really) voted “Most Likely to Carve Shakespearean Sonnets about Raisin Bran into Gas Station Restroom Stalls,” you’d better believe I’m gonna make a pie crust with this stuff.


 

The Bowl: Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch Apple Strawberry Cereal

The Breakdown: Perhaps too sour or perfumed for strawberry rookies and green apple greenhorns, and certainly lacking in cluster density, Raisin Bran Crunch Apple Strawberry nevertheless earns big points for its satisfying crunch and flavor originality. No other cereals tastes like a Fig Newton that got bonked on the noggin by a falling apple.

The Bottom Line: 8 muffin mortar and pestles out of 10

(Quick Nutrition Facts: 180 calories, 4 grams of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein per 1 cup serving)

17 responses »

  1. Sorry, Doesn’t hold a candle to APPLE RAISIN CRISP cereal that Kellogg yanked from the shelves years ago. Best cereal ever. And you could even actually see the apple chunks.

  2. Plase think about introducing

    Kellogg’s
    Cranberry and Pecans
    Crunch Cereal

    I love ❤️ Raisen Brand Crunch and its the only Ceral I eat❤️. However, your New Strawberry & Apple is not good and no flavor.
    I’m sorry 😐, Carole

  3. Seriously? Who the hell do you people think you are? Who made you the authority on Raisin Bran? I’ll have YOU know that I have been eating a healthy portion of RBC every day for 14 years.

    The Apple and Strawberry variety is THE best flavor, HANDS DOWN. I love it, my husband loves it, our kids will love it, no matter what YOU say. Shame.

  4. I tried this cereal and very disappointed, no crunch to it just bran flakes! I’ll stick with the raisin bran crunch instead.

  5. This cereal will not be on my grocery list again!We couldn’t taste the apple and the strawberry flavor is is overpowering!!!

  6. I didn’t care for it. My current favorite is regular RBC wifh a little bit of added Golden Berry Blend from Trader Joe’s (raisins, cranberries, cherries and blueberries). Very tasty.

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