Spooned & Spotted: Pumpkin Spice Cereals Are Back for 2017!

2017 Pumpkin Spice Cereals Breakfast

After a summer no-doubt filled with complex hollandaise recipes and brunch casseroles with more strata than a riverbed, do you want to go back to basics for your autumn breakfasts?

Well it doesn’t get much more basic than these pumpkin spice cereals. *ba-dum-tss*

Yes, despite the lingering stockpile of leftover hot dogs and Bomb Pops in my fridge, fall has officially creeped its way into August, as the Four Cereal Horsemen of the A-pumpk-alypse have already hit shelves. All four of the pumpkin spice cereals you see above are returning from years past, and there’s no word yet whether whether we’ll see a new *cough* Pumpkin Spice Toast Crunch *cough* autumnal cereal for 2017.

Personally, I hope that all’s quiet on the pumpkin front to make more room for a caramel apple or candy corn cereal. Heck, even Cap’n Crunch’s Circus Peanuts would break the pumpkin spiced fatigue.

Based on how busy the next few months get, I may give a quick re-review to each of these cereals, but for now, here are some trading card bios to refresh your taste buds’ memory: Continue reading

News: Steak ‘n Shake is Debuting Cereal-Flavored Breakfast Shakes!

Steak 'n Shake Breakfast Shakes – Cereal Milkshakes with Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Krispies, Honey Smacks

If you believe the clickbait headlines, “millennials are killing breakfast cereal,” whether it’s because they’re too lazy to wash bowls or because they prefer the portable taste of Electrolyte-Fortified Kale Rectangles to sugary cinnamon squares  in the morning.

But even if millennials are killing breakfast cereal, then it seems like more of a noble sacrifice for a greater good than a murder, because we seem to have entered a golden age of cereal milkshakes.

First, Burger King gave us two delectable cereal shakes infused with chunks of Froot Loops and Lucky Charms, respectively.

And now Steak & Shake, an honorable eatery that knows milkshakes well enough to build 33.33% of its business on them (though I prefer their flame-grilled ampersands), is adding 5* specialty breakfast shakes to their portfolio of plasmatic lactose beverages.

*I qualify this 5, because though coffee is an essential part of any balanced breakfast, Steak ‘n Shake’s Caramel Frappé seems laughably out of place here. They might as well have added a Scrambled Egg Shake at this point

We get three recognizable Kellogg’s in shake form: Frosted Flakes, Honey Smacks, and Cocoa Krispies, as well as an über generic Cinnamon Crunch Shake. This makes sense, since Kellogg’s seems to have exclusive milkshake rights here, and they don’t have a pure cinnamon cereal to bring the table—at least not without making Tony do double duty, negotiating a complicated Cinnabon cross-promo, or making a hilariously ironic Special K Shake.

I don’t know which flavor I’m most excited to try first—probably the sheer uniqueness of a Honey Smacks Shake that I can Dig ‘Em into—but I do know one thing: I hope they’re served all day long. Because if I’m going to be forced to eat 1200 some calories before 9am, I’d rather eat a couple peanut butter & strawberry Pop-Tart sandwiches.

Review: Quaker Multigrain Flakes Cereal – Honey Vanilla

Quaker Honey Vanilla Multigrain Flakes Cereal Review – Box

Can you feel it, fellow breakfast clubbers?

We’re at the epicenter of a Quakerquake.

Much like the seismic phenomenon from which it draws its name, a Quakerquake is a tough to predict event that really shakes up the norm. It occurs when Quaker, on a whim, decides to release an onslaught of new products—often of shaky quality—to flood the breakfast aisle with various tan boxes that look identical to the company’s other thousand oatmeal receptacles. This is why aftershocks of a Quakerquake will often be felt months later: they leave the “NEW” label on their flavors so long, you won’t know whether the antioxidant-rich. steel-cut. all-natural apple cinnamon oatmeal came before or after the gluten-free, sugar-free, enjoyment-free apple cinnamon.

I guess with babies (and suckers) born every day, oatmeal is always bound to be new to someone.

Long story short, these new Quaker Honey Vanilla Multigrain Flakes are from the cereal arm of Quaker’s latest a-Quake-ening. It debuts alongside Cranberry Apple Multigrain Flakes and Oats & Honey with Vanilla & Pecan Granola. I chose to review this one first, because even though Cran-Apple is more autumnal, last week’s Shredded Wheat burnt me out on fruit, while the granola simply has too many ampersands to be trusted.

Plus, granola is barely cereal anyway. It’s like that weird cousin who ate gravel in kindergarten. Continue reading

News: Halloween Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts are Returning…with New Printed Fun!

Halloween Spookylicious Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts Printed Fun

(Image via Kellogg’s)

Rejoice, fellow spook scholars, because Halloween is drawing ever closer. We’ve cleared the werewolf days of summer, which means we’re now beginning the “back to ghoul season,” and it’s at this critical period of pre-Halloween prep that we must savor every little scary detail we can find in grocery store aisles—because before you know it, Santa and his fleet of reindeer conquistadors will be edging our proud inflatable pumpkins off of front lawns everywhere.

These Halloween Edition Printed Fun Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts are a perfect example of the little things that make the coming season great. The box art alone proves that every bile-dripping zombie hand and ghost-emitting chocolate fudge chunk brings the world closer to perfection.

And Kellogg’s decision to mix up their established Halloween Pop-Tart design is the neatest trick and sweetest treat yet. Formerly known as Spookylicious Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tarts (a moniker which was especially terrifying for my spellcheck), these resurrected toaster pastries now boast a slab of orange frosting and fun, jack-o-lantern-esque faces—instead of the crunchy sprinkles of its ancestral Tarts. Kellogg’s website gives us a sneak peek at another, more arachnid print.

Though a sneak peek may not be necessary. Some have already seen these Pop-Tarts popping up in stores, alongside returning autumn flavors Pumpkin Pie and Caramel Apple. Since all three tastes in this Tart trilogy, which represent scaling levels of Halloweeniness, are delicious, I can safely say that the scariest part of this October will be the low number of costumes my ballooned waistline will be able to fit into after eating a triple-decker stack of fall-flavored Pop-Tarts.

I’ll be the one at the party dressed as a sumo cow.

Review: Frosted Mixed Berry Shredded Wheat Cereal

Post Frosted Mixed Berry Shredded Wheat Cereal Review – Box

Well, well, well: here we are again, Shredded Wheat.

My first experience with one of Shredded Wheat’s new trilogy of flavors, which not-so-subtly tries top compete with Frosted Mini-Wheats by, well, frosting the brand’s iconic miniature wheat biscuits and stuffing (allegedly) flavorful stuff inside, was cosmically bland. I swore I wouldn’t try another flavor. I started smashing all square and/or thatched things in my apparent. I even told people I was allergic to wheat—just the sight of it, not the taste.

But after being coerced by a trusted source to give this Mixed Berry variety a try, and after (unsurprisingly) failing to find Count Chocula when it’s still hot enough out to boil swimming pools into holy water, I find myself staring at a bowlful of vaguely mauve biscuits.

Alright, Shredded Wheat. Let’s do this. Just don’t forget: bore me once, shame on you. Bore me twice, I’m going to start crank-calling the National Wheat Foundation out of juvenile spite. Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted (Australia): Despicable Me Cereal

Australian Despicable Me Cereal

Hey, remember just last week when I chatted nerdishly about how a trip across the border, equator, or prime meridian can drastically change the nature of a familiar cereal?

It is happening again.

Never thought I’d quote Twin Peaks in a post about Minions, but here we are. If there’s a fan art mash-up of those two things, please throw it into fire and walk with me to the eyeball bleach emporium.

Yes, here we are: as Instagram fan @ruthhewsonfit has kindly shared with us, Australia has a very unique take on Minion cereal mania. While America’s latest fortified take on those little cyclops Twinkie McNuggets was a basic oat and marshmallow mix-’em-up with a brown sugar vanilla glaze, Despicable Me: Down Under Edition is way cooler: it looks like crunchy cashews and has a unique banana smoothie flavor.

It sounds closer to the Minions Banana Berry cereal we got some baker’s dozen or so Minion movies ago (or at least that’s how it feels), but this one is made by Kellogg’s. I have to assume that those jumbo anthropomorphized Tic-Tacs snuck into General Mills headquarters, stole the formula, and then made farting noises while babbling like a ’90s dial-up internet tone.

You know, standard Minion stuff.

Big thanks to Ruth for sharing this photo that I’m equally excited to see and jealous I can’t eat. We’re jonesing for a good banana cereal here in the States while we wait for Banana Nut Cheerios to return, so if you think you can throw the cereal hard enough to reach me, it’d be much appreciated. Though given their shape, the pieces would probably come right back, boomerang-style.

Got a cool cereal snapshot from America, Australia, Antarctica, or even the Andromeda Galaxy? We want to see it and share it! Use our Submissions page or start your intergalactic transmission now.

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites

General Mills Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites Review Cereal Donut Holes – Box

Before eating Generals Mills’ new Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites, you are required—by intergalactic law, I’m assuming—to listen to Yello’s ’80s hit “Oh Yeah” and mentally replace all instances of the words “Ohhh yeahhh” with “Doughhh yeahhh.” Only then may these goo-oozing (goozing for short) Cinnamon Toast Crunch-specked doughnut holes roll off your plate and directly onto your taste buds.

Okay fine, if you have poor wi-fi or are enjoying your Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites from a submarine, the Parisian Catacombs, or a coffin you were prematurely placed in—alongside your favorite microwave—I’ll give you the pass on the song. But since these microwaveable freezer aisle treats are one of the season’s most hyped-up cereal confections, they deserve some sort of ceremony.

So while you arrange the cinnamon scented candles into a doughnut shape with an effigy of Dunkin’ Donuts’ Fred the Baker in the middle, I’ll ceremoniously devour mine. Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted: Lucky Charms with Three New Rainbow Marshmallows!

Lucky Charms with Three New Rainbow Marshmallows Box

Some seven and a half years ago, an MMA fighter turned farmer released a video of him gawking at a double rainbow whilst apparently hyped up on something far giddier than marshmallows. Now in the year 2017, Lucky the Leprechaun is doing him one better, with a new Lucky Charms cereal boasting three new rainbow marshmallows.

And it’s an old Lucky, too! We’ve all gotten used to seeing the Fairly OddParents-esque current Lucky, so it’s nice to see the familiar face many of us grew up with make a return along some colorfully granulated parabola friends.

These chic new marbits come just a few months after Lucky Charms debuted a full palette’s worth of Mixed-Up Marshmallows. While I say this with a tinfoil hat worn so tightly on my head it’s channeling local AM radio stations directly into my noggin, I still believe that the cereal brand’s marshmallow fashion show is being done to condition cereal lovers for the inevitable day that Lucky Charms ditches artificial colors, as per General Mills’ ongoing plight to make our nostalgic Saturday morning sugar bombs “all natural.”

I mean, just look at two of those marshmallows: no atomic blue, and no overly radioactive Shrek green! Call me a conspiracy theorist or a rose-tinted idealist if you must, but I want all my marshmallows to stay looking like something Thanos would put in the Infinity Gauntlet.

Lucky Charms Three New Rainbows Box Back

Unfortunately, the backs of these boxes don’t reveal any clues about dastardly Cerealluminati plots—just some sort of maze game that’ll keep you entertained precisely long enough to survive a Price is Right commercial break.

I’ve spotted these boxes at Walmart and Meijer now. Got a fascinating new cereal scoop of your own? Plop it on down at our Submissions page for a chance to see it on the blog!