Tag Archives: 9 rating

Review: Malt-O-Meal Peanut Butter Cookie Bites

Malt-O-Meal Peanut Butter Cookie Bites Review Box

Look, I don’t know much about sacred geometry, but I’m still going to thank it. Whatever Euclidian miracle is allowing my long-lost (or so it feels) Waffle Crisp to live on in spirit post-discontinuation deserves my praise. And Waffle Crisp’s memory isn’t being preserved in just one cereal analogue, either: Chicken & Waffles Cereal, which I’m ashamed to have just casually typed, is be bringing back the real, bite-sized Belgian thing; but Honey Bun Cereal presented an interesting, if not geometrically adjacent, twist on the concept.

The most important similarity is their source: Waffle Crisp and its latest subspecies are all made by Post. Post just happens to own Malt-O-Meal, making the economically bagged and bulging cereal company’s new Peanut Butter Cookie Bites a technical tangential relative of Waffle crisp, too. Though these PB pieces are round, I simply can’t disown them from my mental retcon of Waffle Crisp genealogy, as they have their father’s tic-tac-toed belly.

But will Malt-O-Meal’s Peanut Butter Cookie Bites live up to its nostalgically syruped parentage, or am I simply using this long-winded introduction to cope with Waffle Crisp’s disappearance? Better try coping calorically to compare. Continue reading

Review (x2): Hostess Honey Bun Cereal & Hostess Powdered Donettes Cereal

Hostess Honey Bun & Powdered Donettes Cereal Revies

To me, snack cakes are near-sacred totems. Arcane talismans that exude nostalgic simplicity and forbidden sweetness so concentrated that it can be hard to process for an adult stomach.

Ironic, since they’re so processed.

In more innocent times I gobbled Twinkies and Zebra Cakes with reckless abandon—I notoriously once went so far as to fit a whole Ho-Ho in my mouth on a self-administered dare. But now I merely visit them, usually in the convenience stores I consider their most fitting temples, gazing upon how impressively unchanged they are in a more health-conscious world that’s largely moved on without them.

So while I rarely partake in glazed glee any more, I’m excited that Hostess has teamed up with Post to turn two of its standout snacks into chibi cereal cakes. Granted, neither Honey Bun Cereal nor Powdered Donettes Cereal seem like obvious choices for the brand, but in a way, I’m glad: throwing chocolate and vanilla rings in a bag with marshmallows and calling ’em Cupcakes & Twinkies would’ve been too easy.

Geometric precedents aside, let’s return to the world of swirled cereal buns and curvaceous donuts. Dare me to shove a whole box in my mouth?

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Review: Pop-Tarts Crisps (Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon)

Kellogg's Pop-Tarts Crisps Review - Boxes

Calling it now: 2019 is going to be the year of zany breakfast peripherals.

Just as the ’80s and early 2000s video game industries saw an influx of variably successful light guns, and philharmonic orchestra’s worth of plastic instruments, the 2k1x’s penultimate year is already promising a wealth of niche offshoots for familiar breakfast brands.

Whether any of these budding taste-buddies will make it into a Smash Bros. game is another story, but if the first creatively derived Pop-Tartform I tried is any indication, we might have to raise regular Pop-Tarts to the rafters like foil-wrapped fading stars.

So while I wait for Pop-Tarts Cereal to complete Kellogg’s new almost-er pastry trifecta, it’s time to crack open perhaps the most understated and underhyped of the three: Pop-Tarts Crisps.

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Review: Pop-Tarts Bites (Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon!)

Kellogg's Pop-Tarts Bites Review - Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon Boxes

Understanding the pervasive appeal of Pop-Tarts Bites is easy:

Would you rather have a bite of pie, or a bite of entire pie?
A red Skittle or a concentrated rainbow pill?
The east wall of a gingerbread house, or the entire 20-acre gingerbread farm?

My point is that while any individual bite of a Pop-Tart—which maxes out at around a quarter-Tart in extreme cases, or at least in my own—cannot possibly contain the same measured deliciousness as the entirety of a Pop-Tart, as in all of the crust and everything inside, in one bite. It’s like having a party-sized pizza, which typically have contentiously hand-soiling Cheese Only slices, vs. a whole-crust-and-kaboodle Pizza Roll.

Yes, Pop-Tarts Bites are tasty enough to surpass my typically quasi-topical recipe for review introductions. These spiritual successors to Pop-Tarts Mini Crisps (née Popsters) naturally come in the toaster pastry brand’s two unshakeable pillars of flavor: Strawberry & Brown Sugar Cinnamon. The de facto Pop-Tarts royal family will begin appearing in all their shrunken glory come January, but for now, I was postally blessed via Kellogg’s with enough pouches to last me ’til Christmas (edit: Christmas Eve) (edit 2: Christmas Eve Eve).

(edit 3: I need to stop eating these)

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Review: Millville Snickerdoodle Kookies Cereal

Millville Aldi Snickerdoodle Kookies Cereal Review Box

Is it time for a Cinnamon Toast Coup yet?

Loose crunchologic records suggest the crazy squared cereal’s cinnamon dynasty dates back to roughly the Byzantine era, while recent calcium dating suggests its dominance began way back in the Earth’s primordial soup, wherein the CTC clan of sugar-specked protozoa were the only ones of their kind that didn’t sog into earlier extinction.

Regardless of its origin, there’s little doubt that Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the most popular cinnamon cereal out there. And while I love CTC and its rich pedigree of powdered and breaded breakfast-stuff, I’ve long hoped for a challenger to the throne.

Because if the cinnamon spice must flow, so too must some fresh milk.

Despite Kellogg’s best efforts, they haven’t come close, while Post and Quaker’s strongest cinna-sieges are comfort classics at best. I guess it’s up to Millville, Aldi store-brand underdog and possible puppet organization, to come out of left field with a cinnamon-seasoned seasonal cereal and hopefully blow me away…from my Cinnamon Toast addiction for at least a few merry mouthfuls.

So come, Snickerdoodle Kookies, first of the S. Doodle cereal lineage: show me what you’re really made of, and don’t hold back. Continue reading

Review: Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch (2018)

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch Review Box

We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of a breakfast star.

Our dearly departed Cinnamon Star Crunch, who will remain in our hearts, minds, and stomach memories forever, lived a short life. Only on shelves for the 2016 holiday season, the tragically young crunchy cinnamon stars have now died a second death.

To paraphrase Banksy, who, like the palate-tearing stars, enjoys shredding things, “They say you’re discontinued twice. Once when you stop crunching and the second, a bit later on, when somebody mentions your limited edition existence for the last time.” 

You see, now that Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, the ivory-sugared golden boy of holiday seasons 2015 & 2016, has returned to the delight of many, its deliciously

raw (yet processed) yuletide impact will likely wipe Cinnamon Star Crunch from our collective cultural memory. It’s up to we few remaining cereal historians to preserve the cereal’s name, and its sort of, well, uniquely, umm…it tasted like cinnamon, right?

Wait, what am I doing in this black suit and tie? I’ve got Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch to eat!  Continue reading

Review: Malt-O-Meal & Cold Stone Creamery Our Strawberry Blonde Cereal

Malt-O-Meal Cold Stone Creamery Our Strawberry Blonde Cereal Review Bag

Are you prepared for this responsibility?

I sure hope so, because we already have this Strawberry Blonde. It’s not just your Strawberry Blonde or my Strawberry Blonde.

This is Our Strawberry Blonde, so if you weren’t ready to telekinetically eat this cereal with me, then you shouldn’t have decided to trade your usual Cocoa Krispies for an infant-sized bag containing a revolutionary gastronomic feat that blends honey graham squares (Golden Grahams who had their identities stolen), strawberry puffs (rarely seen pieces that I hope were stolen from the JIF PB&J dumpster at the Kellogg’s factory), and the perennial favorite: “marshmallows” (looking as amorphously rotund as always).

It’s a daring pairing, but after witnessing the transformative taste bud magic of Malt-O-Meal and Cold Stone Creamery’s other cereal pairing, I wouldn’t be surprised if this reunification of three potent cereal powers turns saucily sorcerous.

Care to scream with me?

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Review: Nilla Wafer Banana Pudding Cereal

Post Banana Pudding Nilla Wafer Cereal Review Box

The last scoop of banana split.

The last slice of banana bread.

The last little bit of banana that gets caught in the peel’s dry and strand-filled corner. You know, the kinda gross bit you only eat out of pity.

Yes this last scoop of banana pudding will end the Great Banana Cereal Bonanza of Summer 2018—unless Curious George rises up Planet of the Apes-style to storm the breakfast aisle. And while Kellogg’s Raisin Bran with Bananas is the still the reigning chimp-snack champ, Post’s Banana Pudding Nilla Wafer cereal is by far the one I remain most optimistic about.

See, I relate a lot to the humble Nilla Wafer’s “underrated weirdo” approach to the cookie aisle, as it stoically endures what must be countless jeers, wedgies, and “your mom” jokes from the looming shadows of bigger cookies like Oreo or Chips Ahoy.

Heck, I think even Fig Newton once stole a Nilla Wafer’s lunch money.

So because I’ve had a strange flavor obsession with Nabisco’s divinely golden-buttery discs, I’ve long wished for a Nilla Wafer. And now it’s come true—I can only assume that Post added the nostalgic dessert flavor of banana pudding after smartly observed that Nilla flavor alone couldn’t sell a cereal outside of a niche audience of dudes wiling to pour their hearts out online for a half dollar-sized vanilla biscuit.

So like Dave Coulier into a box of long-lost Vanilla Weasels (hey, that’s two Full House references this week: no mercy to be had!), let’s dive in, with emphasis! Continue reading