Review: Franken Berry Cereal (2017)

Franken Berry Monster Cereal Marshmallows Strawberry 2017 Review – Box

For those about to rock read my third annual review of the exact same cereal, we salute you!

Listen, Frank. Can I call you Frankie? Francis? Franco-Prussian War?

You know I love you, man. It’s true, it’s true: I tell people I love the taste of Count Chocula the best—not counting my estranged (emphasis on the strange) love, Fruity Yummy Mummy, who’s currently jamming to “Walk Like an Egyptian” in some funky undead pyramid disco in the sky.

But from an aesthetic standpoint, I like you best. I promise. No I don’t mean you, you. Let’s be real here: Boo Berry is both suaver and cuter in his debonair porkpie hat. I’d let him take me to the Poltergeist Prom any day. No way my father would let me get picked up by a pink dude with steampunk apparatuses on his neck. We live in the clean energy age, Francesco.

But your cereal? Those neon pink ghosts and pastel marshmallows? The pastel marshmallows that make the whole thing feel like a Taiwanese night market?
Hoo, doggy! Or should I say, A-WOO, werewolfy!

François, your artificially strawberry-flavored cereal is the prettiest I’ve ever seen. I’d hang it on my refrigerator if it contained enough magnesium per serving (I don’t understand how magnets work). But for now, I have to eat it. So let’s forget about the Count, forget that I just swooned so hard over Boo Berry that I crashed through your coffee table, and let’s have Franken Berry for breakfast. Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted: Barbara’s Puffins – Berry Burst Protein

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZd7xW_F4A0/?taken-by=cerealparty

This is a Puffins appreciation post.

For years, Puffins have quietly been one of the uniquely crunchiest and wholesome cereal lines in the cereal aisle (or sometimes the health food aisle—you know, the aisle that feels like Woodstock and a farmer’s market had a straight-edged child?). And for years, no one has been talking about them! Sure, the brand’s Stoically Unnamed Puffin Mascot may not have the appeal of Tony the Tiger or Cap’n Crunch, but any bird that can perch on a spoon without spilling its contents deserves praise—or at least a Licensed Yoga Instructor certificate.

Oh, and the cereal is pretty darn good, too. From Cinnamon to Peanut Butter & Chocolate, Puffins keeps it simple, rarely introducing new flavors. But now we’re getting the first new Puffins variety since 2015’s Limited Edition Pumpkin Puffins. Puffins PROTEIN BERRY BURST (their all-caps, not mine) is gluten free and apparently hitting Whole Foods already, thanks to this photo from friend-of-Cerealously Cereal Party. This is interesting, as I messaged Barbara’s Bakery about the product, and they said it won’t be coming out until 2018.

Either this one Whole Foods has a magical time portal to the future, or Barbara is lying to me as part of a grand conspiracy to deprive me of protein and steal my tender tendons.

Since I might not find this cereal for a while, I can only speculate as to what it’ll taste like. It appears to mix regular Puffins with a mixed berry puree (probably strawberry, raspberry, and perhaps blueberry), and the gluten-free label suggests it will be heavy on the corniness. Since the holidays are already approaching, I’m just gonna pretend it tastes like that one fruitcake that’s been stuck in an infinite loop of re-gifting within my family for the past 5 years.

Hey, speaking of holidays: when are we getting Gingerbread Puffins. I mean, the cereal already has molasses in it, and you could PhotoShop gumdrop buttons onto that Puffin mascot faster than I could re-gift a fruitcake!

Thanks again to Cereal Party for sharing the photo. If you have any great product photos of your own—whether they’re new, old, full of protein or full of gluten—we want to see ’em! Send them on over to our Submissions page, and they could appear on the site.

Review: Steak ‘n Shake Breakfast Cereal Milkshakes (Cinnamon Crunch & Honey Smacks)

Steak 'n Shake Breakfast Cereal Milkshakes

Whoever first decided to pair milkshakes with cereal deserves a monument. Only a giant marble shake cup will do, preferably filled with liquid platinum and gold nuggets to stand in for soft serve-soaked cereal nibs. It’s an unexpectedly genius idea: sure, cereal and milk have an esteemed history, but you don’t generally associate an indulgent dessert like a milkshake with anything breakfast related—unless you had a bad night at the casino and want to make one last terrible 4am choice.

Now I may revoke my celebration of the breakfast shake’s inventor if this confection enables the shuddersome creation of cereal-infused cheese, but for now, let’s celebrate this golden age of shakes by uniting sugared cereals and cold cream cylinders in holy gastro-matrimony—at a place that’s literally 50% founded on milkshakes.

Yes, Steak ‘n Shake has 5 new Breakfast Shakes—technically 4, because one is Caramel Latte and you can tell the other shakes are only bringing him along because their moms made them (I’ve been there, buddy…as Caramel Latte). I intend to review all of them—Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Krispies, Cinnamon Crunch, and Honey Smacks—eventually, but based on how late my shake-seeking partner and I made it to The House of Beef and Lactose, I didn’t want to be up until 4am with a sugar-addled brain and an abdomen swollen to the size of a cow’s first three stomachs.

Because at that point, I’d feel terrible enough to go back for a fifth. Continue reading

News: Gingerbread Spice Life Cereal is Coming Soon!

Gingerbread Life Cereal – Quaker Spiced Multigrain Box

(Image via Quaker)

DAYS SINCE LIFE-CHANGING CEREAL INCIDENT: 0

It’s been a while since I had to change that sign, but this news seals it. Limited Edition Gingerbread Spice Life Multigrain Cereal is coming this holiday season, which, seeing how people prepare for winter celebration, means a box of Gingerbread Life it should have been in my pantry two weeks ago, sandwiched between Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cinnamon Frosted Flakes to make a crunchy speculoos sandwich.

Speaking of which, I have a history with gingerbread cereal—or at least with fanatically wanting it. A search on my site reveals how big of a gingerbread fanman I am, and I’ve always thought that Cinnamon Toast Crunch would adopt the flavor first (if anyone ever did), due to their reputation for holiday cereals tasty enough to open your third eye and hang mistletoe from the lashes.

Life Cereal was one of the last brands I’d expect to release a naturally flavored gingerbread cereal—right alongside Crispix, Froot Loops, and Fiber One—but seeing how well they spiced Pumpkin Spice Life, I’m willing to give old man Quaker the benefit of the doubt. Seriously: the only thing on the line is the crushingly weighty anticipation built up slowly over decades of my life. That’s it. No pressure.

While I wait for Gingerbread Spice Life to hit shelves, I think I need to add something new to my cereal bucket list. Almost all my dream flavors have now existed as cereals: maple, PB&J, and now gingerbread. I’ll just have to pick something so obscure and impossible that it’ll never happen and I can wistfully dream about it forever.

Zucchini Bread Toast Crunch, anyone?

Review: Quaker Green Apple Fig Oatmeal with Antioxidants

Quaker Green Apple Fig Oatmeal with Antioxidants Review – Box

“Aw, I gotta play with that guy??” Green Apple whines. “But Mom, he’s totally uncool! Fig always gets picked last when we play fruitball—a total poindexter.”

Yes, I imagine figs as the unpopular kid in the brutal playground hierarchy of the personified fruit world. I mean, fig has what: fancy mostarda and some under-celebrated cookies named after the inventor of calculus? I don’t blame you, Green Apple: if Momma Quaker forced me to go on a playdate with Fig, I’d turn sour too.

Yet here we are anyway: about to dive into a steaming bowl of Quaker’s newest instant oatmeal flavor: Green Apple Fig. If you’re wondering why I’m using so many colons in this review, the answer’s simple: with 4 grams of fiber and enough infused antioxidants to take a true crime TV channel off the air, this Green Apple Fig oatmeal is all about the colon.

And now that we’ve gotten my token crude joke out of the way, let’s dig in! Continue reading

News: “Classic Trix” is Making a Comeback!

Classic Trix Cereal Box 2017

(Image via General Mills)

Grab your HitClips, Heelys, and old retainer, because Classic Trix are making a comeback, and since Trix are for kids, you’ll have to act like a kid to eat them. Otherwise some neighborhood ragamuffins will swing through your kitchen on a cartoon vine, call you a silly rabbit, and make off with your raspberry red, lemony yellow, orangey orange, wildberry blue, grapity purple, and watermelon bounty.

On second thought, you might want to leave the dental gear behind. Wouldn’t want you to be stuck sipping Trix yogurt through a straw. Continue reading

Review: Nature’s Path Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Cinnamon & Cashew Granola

Nature's Path Organic Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Cashew Granola Review – Bag

We should all be thankful for nuts.

Yes, from squirrels and industrial fasteners to Eddie Murphy professors and Link from The Legend of Zelda in a Deku forest, the humble nut has helped us do a lot of cool things—whether it’s put together cars or make a whole movie based on flatulence jokes.

Heck, without the nut, my favorite breakfast pastries would just be called “do’s.”

Nature’s Path obviously understands the under-celebrated nut, because their Love Crunch Dark Chocolate Cinnamon & Cashew Granola, which has a name so long that typing it is giving my fingers biceps, is the nuttiest granola I’ve ever had. And I don’t mean nutty like “gee lads, let’s get nutty and do backflips off a suspension bridge,” though putting chocolate and cinnamon together is pretty bold.

But is the taste of these nutty nuggets worth toasting, or Comedy Central Roast-ing? Let’s find out. Continue reading

News: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios are Coming Soon!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios Cereal Box

(Image via General Mills)

By golly, someone is finally challenging Reese’s Puffs’ munch-worthy monopoly in the “chocolate and peanut butter cereal” market.

But wait…the call is coming…from inside the house?

Yes, instead of Kellogg’s, Post, or Quaker taking Reese’s Puffs head on with Chocolate Peanut Butter Krave, Pebbles, or…Corn Crunch, General Mills is just releasing another choco-PB cereal: the appropriately named Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios.

Dang, I would’ve preferred “Reese’s Doughnut Crunch.”

The only reason I can see for doing this is so that Reese’s Puffs have a thematically appropriate tag-team partner when Vince McMahon inevitably starts a Cereal Royal Rumble. My money is on Cap’n Crunch and Count Chocula, as they’ll doubtlessly just tear their opponent’s mouths to shreds.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheerios, which is flavored with real cocoa and peanut butter, isn’t the first time we’ve seen those respective flavors in Cheerios. We’ve had Chocolate Cheerios, Dark Chocolate Multigrain Cheerios, Peanut Butter Multigrain Cheerios, and plain ol’ Peanut Butter Cheerios (only abroad, with an appropriately nutty mascot). But this is the first time they’ve been paired together.

No word on when Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheerios will hit shelves, but I hope they debut alongside the return of Banana Nut Cheerios late this October, so I can mix them together and make a Bluth’s Frozen Elvis Banana Cereal.