“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 →
Oatmeal Crisp is a strange and wonderful beast, and it’s quietly getting a new Apple Crisp variety—in Canada only.
Traditionally lumped with Basic 4 and Raisin Nut Bran in the odd pantheon of “General Mills Cereals That Are Really But No One Talks About Them,” Oatmeal Crisp is a decadent cereal featuring toasted oatmeal flakes glazed with sugar syrup, paired with almond slivers and granola clusters.
So it’s pretty much normal oatmeal, just made more crunchy, less microwaveable, and with about a thousand more delicious calories per oatmeal-imeter.
Given my love for toasted oatmealcereals, I’m personally embarrassed that I haven’t geeked out about it more. As punishment, I’ll accept execution by way of conveyor belt-induced mass Oatmeal Crisp ingestion.
Canada’s newest Apple Crisp Oatmeal Crisp variety, discovered and kindly shared by our friend Junk Food Jeff, excitingly pairs the not-so-iconic cereal with the apple-cinnamon taste (and homely thatched charm) of a homemade apple pie, apple streusel, or apple slice topped with cinnamon and butter and microwaved for 12 seconds because I’m too poor to bake, okay Grandma?
Meanwhile, America has only seen regular Almond and Hearty Raisin Oatmeal Crisp in the past decade or so. I tried to more thoroughly research Oatmeal Crisp’s past American flavors, but this cult favorite is so elusive that online cereal historians can’t come to a consensus. The cereal’s Wikipedia page also name-drops Triple Berry, Apple Brown Sugar, Maple Nut, and Vanilla Yogurt as past, oddly specific flavors, while trusted resource Mr. Breakfast only names Maple Brown Sugar in addition to the mainstays.
Whatever Oatmeal Crisp’s true past contains (perhaps we once briefly overlapped with a parallel universe where Oatmeal Crisp is a currency), I’m just excited that its shelf presence isn’t petering out here in the 21st century. As Basic 4 and Raisin Nut Bran feel like they’re becoming modern relics, one of them has to survive and speak on behalf of weird cereals everywhere.
As a cereal weirdo myself, I thank Oatmeal Crisp for being my Lorax.
Our thanks again to Junk Food Jeff for sharing the photo. Wanna see your own find in a Spooned & Spotted post? We’d love to see your latest breakfast haul, discovery, or feast: send it over on our Submissions page.
With French Toast Crunch’s continued triumph of nostalgia, Tiny Toast’s recent rebrand into Strawberry Toast Crunch and Blueberry Toast Crunch, and now Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s debut, one thing has become clear: bread-shaped cereal is here to stay. Though I’m slightly conflicted about what this means for the Toast Crunch family of cereals. On one hand, I worry that we’ll never get another variety with flavor-swirled squares, but the other hand is too busy scooping up fistfuls of Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal because all these small slices are so darn cute that I’d rather formally adopt them as children than eat them.
I’ve already got names picked out: Crusty, Carbo, Butt Slice—the list goes on.
But any way you slice it (or square it), I’m just happy we’re getting new Toast Crunch varieties, because that brings us ever closer to getting my childhood white whale: PB&J Toast Crunch. Now enough nuttiness: let’s slice open these wee slices and hope they taste like apple pie slices. Continue reading →
As I gaze upon these Green Apple Jolly Rancher Pop-Tarts, I must ask: has science gone too far?
A) Yes. Candy and pastries mixing? Next you’ll tell me there are Oil & Water Pop-Tarts.
B) No. Not far enough, actually. I want to see Pop-Tarts flavored Jolly Ranchers.
C) I really don’t care please just stuff neon-dyed dough rectangles into my mouth so I can make my tongue look like a cosmic bowling alley.
I would circle option C, but my hands are too covered in slippery green apple filling to get a grip on a pencil, mouse, or my life.
That’s right: there has been much buzz about Kellogg’s brand new Jolly Ranchers line of Pop-Tarts, which also includes Cherry and Watermelon. Some camps find the idea more nostalgic than spilled Crystal Pepsi in a used record shop, while some would rather drink a Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino through an intra-nasal straw than eat something so potently technicolored.
Me? I’m just happy to be here. I’ll slip past the hype and let the Tarts’ flavors decide their fates. Let’s see if Green Apple is as suckable as its namesake candy, or if it just, well, sucks. Continue reading →
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. Continue reading →
I’ve never considered bobbing for Pop-Tarts before, but after trying Kellogg’s new Caramel Apple Pop-Tarts, I’m ready to fill a 19th century wooden bucket with water and pastries and dive in headfirst.
But before I take my triumphant Olympian plunge, let’s set the stage.
After years of dominance, pumpkin spice is starting to lose its novelty. There are only so many things you can cram ginger and nutmeg into. So like an autumnal retelling of Star Wars, apple-flavored snacks have started a quiet rebellion against the Pumpkin Empire. And I like to think that Caramel Apple Pop-Tarts are their heroic Luke Skywalker.
Luke Apple Piewalker has quite the origin story, too. While these Tarts were only formally announced about two months ago, we first leaked an early release image of them way back in April. Back then, searching for “caramel apple pop-tarts” just made Google think you were drunk.
I wondered whether these neon-squiggled rectangles would ever see the light of day, but I’m happy to say that they have. And now they’ll get to see the warming light of my toaster, too. Continue reading →
