Yearly Archives: 2021

Review: Special K with Blueberries

New Special K with Blueberries Review Box

The fruit-to-artificial-imitation pipeline is really interesting to me. You’ve got fake flavors like green apple that, while not anything like eating a Granny Smith, at least sort of makes sense, as the artificial version still puckers one’s lips with hyped-up juiciness. But then you have the candied bananas, strawberries, and blueberries of the world. These range anywhere from “okay, I could see it, maybe in a sweet smoothie” to “why must humans play God?”

Blueberry is fascinating to me because, though I love Kellogg’s blueberry Fruity Snacks and Boo Berry, I’m not under any impression that those reflect reality. In all honesty, I’m not the biggest fan of plain blueberries. I’m much more of a strawberry fella, even (and especially) when it comes to jelly. Don’t even get me started on Grape PB&Js.

Oh man, I got so off topic there. The point is that the dried blueberries—something I’ve never had before—in Kellogg’s new Special K with Blueberries cereal strike an interesting balance between fresh and highly concentrated blueberry flavor. And they’re huge! Continue reading

Review: Chocolate Churro Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Chocolate Churro Cereal Review Box

What makes a good cereal shape? For the overwhelming most part, cereal pieces fall into three categories: puffs, flakes, and squares. Sure, there are plenty of exceptions, from your basic puffed rice to the geometric marvel that is the stuffed Krave pillow, but I don’t believe my palate’s ever encountered anything else quite like Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros.

While most of my cheers and jeers about this noodly cereal medium can be found in my original review for plain CTC Churros, they’re worth reiterating as I dive into this vaguely cylindrical Chocolate sequel. Continue reading

Review (x2): Chocolate Strawberry Cheeros & Multigrain Cheerios with Strawberries!

New Chocolate Strawberry Cheerios and Multigrain Cheerios with Strawberries Cereal Review - Boxes

Are strawberries anyone else’s favorite fruit? Don’t get me wrong, I love just about every fruit—pears can rot in the dry, mealy ground for all I care. But there’s something about the perfect pop-ability, late spring–early summer vibes, and shortcake satisfaction of strawberries. It doesn’t hurt that artificial strawberry is the best fake fruit flavor, too.

Seriously, if y’all got any pink Laffy Taffy laying around, chuck ’em in the general direction of Michigan.

Because I like strawberries so much, I will never turn down a new strawberry cereal. So when Cheerios introduced both Chocolate Strawberry and Multigrain with Strawberries varieties, I knew I had to tackle both in one straw-some ode of a review to my favorite, rosily plump fruit. After all, plain ol’ Strawberry Cheerios were amazing, so what could go wrong, right? Continue reading

News: Pink Lemonade Pop-Tarts Return

New Lemon Groove Pink Lemonade Pop-Tarts Box

Pink lemonade is the oddest concept to me—you’re saying most of the stuff just adds red food coloring to normal lemonade? And that it’s mostly just homemade versions that actually add strawberry, because most commercial versions just call it, you know, Strawberry Lemonade? Talk about disappointing. The best thing pink lemonade ever got me was a Princess Peach tip card cut from the back of a Pink Lemonade Hi-C juice box. This one, to be specific:

Hi-C Peach Tip Card

And now Pink Lemonade Pop-Tarts are returning to reignite my pink lemonade delusions. Yes, Pink Lemonade Pop-Tarts first came out in 2016. And they were pretty good, albeit a little weird. A sour Pop-Tart is a bit unconventional—and it’s a concept that can be done extremely poorly—but PL Pop-Tarts strike a fun balance of puckering and sweetening.

So while I have mixed feelings about pink lemonade as a concept, I’ll be glad to see these on shelves again, even if I am a bit sad Kellogg’s pivoted away from the vibrant pink frosting in favor of the “Printed Fun” designs that have become more common lately. Not that these are bad, but sometimes they can be printed on the pastry cruddily, making the whole thing look like a discount brand paper towel.

Oh well: whatever it takes to bring a little summer warmth to my cold Midwest winter. You can check for Pink Lemonade Pop-Tart availability near you on Walmart.com.

News: Pebbles Cake Mix, Pebbles Crisps, & Chocolate Honeycomb

Duncan Hines Fruity Pebbles Cake Kit

It’s simple geology: you make Pebbles rain, I’m going to call it a rockslide.

Seriously, the deluge of new products Post is releasing to commemorate Pebbles’ 50th anniversary this year is nothing short of meteoric. Coffee creamer. Candy bars. Bunnies. Even a Birthday Cake Pebbles variety, which is a perfect segue into the Flintstone-fronted cereal’s latest announcement.

Despite its EPIC branding, this cake mix seems far simpler in execution. It’s actually just confetti cake mix with frosting and some Fruity Pebbles cereal to adorn your creation. Since I have a personal vendetta against confetti cakes, I can’t say I’m all that excited for this one, but if you need a quick and tasty way to bring color to your next birthday party, why not celebrate with Pebbles? Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted: Waffle Crisp Returns to the U.S.

Jeez, what a drama queen.

…is what I said to myself upon hearing the news that Waffle Crisp, discontinued in 2018, was returning to American shelves. Less than a week ago, I penned an overdramatic elegy for Waffle Crisp, believing I may have just taste tested one of the last produced boxes of the stuff in Mexico—where it seemingly never really got discontinued in the first place.

Honestly, it was a cathartic exercise of closure, and Post had to go ruin the moment’s beauty by pulling a deus ex machina, bagging up a bunch of Waffle Crisp, and shipping it out. I’m kidding, of course: I’m genuinely very excited that Waffle Crisp will have wide availability again. These bags have already been spotted at Walmart, and you can check their site for availability near you.

However, I will warn you that this newly returned Waffle Crisp appears to be the same as the Mexican edition—in fact, those didn’t even have Spanish boxes. Just stickers over the English text. What that means is, it’s probably gonna taste a bit different from what you remember. In my experience, this strain of Waffle Crisp emphasizes the buttery and toasted elements of a waffle more so than the maple bits. This is still good, mind you, but if your nostalgia trip feels a little off, that’s probably why.

My thanks to Cereal Life and Michael for the photographic evidence.

News: Cereal-Flavored Carnation Breakfast Essentials

New Carnation Breakfast Essentials Cereal Flavors

To paraphrase Smash Mouth, “well, the year’s new cereals keep comin’, and they don’t stop comin’.” And with a flood that great, it’s no surprise we’re getting some more liquefied cereal delicacies to pair with, you know, the traditional solid kind.

In addition to Coffee Mate Cinnamon Toast Crunch creamer, Nestle is enlisting three more cereal cornerstoners to join their line of Carnation Breakfast Essentials nutritional drinks. That said, it’s honestly pretty baffling to see General Mills and Kellogg’s cereals joining forces here—I love you, Golden Grahams, but you’re hopelessly outnumbered if the Kellogg’s pair turns on you.

Yes, between Froot Loops, Golden Grahams, and Krave Carnation Breakfast Essentials, that’s some pretty impressive coverage of cereal’s three core flavor categories: fruity, honey, and chocolate. You know what? I bet these’ll all taste pretty swell, too. As your resident spindly cereal blogger, I don’t drink a lot of Carnation or other fortified beverages, but the ones I have strike a nice balance of taste and nutrition. Nothing too crazy—I bet these’ll just be like slightly thicker cereal milk. About two steps down in thickness from Kefir.

Let me know if you’ve tried any of these in the comments. I have a feeling I won’t review all of them, but I might give the Krave a try unless someone* recommends against it.

*Someone who isn’t genetically biased against Krave. Y’all know who you are.

The Empty Bowl Episode Forty-Four: 2020’s Best & Worst Cereals

Though I’m a few days late, I can’t leave 2020 in the past without doing an annual breakdown of its best and brightest cereals. And since this crappy year had its fair share of crappy cereals, too, for the first time I’ve assembled a Bottom 3 as well as a Top 5.

I also wanted to present these lists a little differently this time around. Tweaking my annual tradition as well as our typical episode outline, my 2020 Breakfast Review is explained at length in Episode Forty-Four of The Empty Bowl, a meditative podcast about cereal hosted by Justin McElroy and me. This was partly to save myself the wrist strain that comes with octupling my article length, but if you really really would rather read my lists than hear them, I’ll give a short and sweet summary below.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun making this episode, and I hope it helps start your 2021 with a heaping spoonful of chill, too. Cheers! Continue reading