Tag Archives: honey

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: Kellogg’s Honey Nut Frosted Flakes

Kellogg's Honey Nut Frosted Flakes Review Box

As a wise little green friend once said:

“Always two there are; no more, no less.”

And while he may have been talking about an arcane order of insidiously apprenticed malevolence, I think the moral of that particular space opera applies to honey nut cereals, as well. See, Honey Nut Cheerios didn’t become America’s favorite cereal off alleged heart-healthiness alone.

No, Buzz’s magnum O-pus is far and away the most famous honey-nutted nectar on cereal shelves because it understands balance and simplicity like no other. The neutral-by-nature Cheerios base is basted with a simply satisfying glaze of golden, cozy honey and authentically ambrosial almond earthiness.

And that’s it: always two enriching and bewitching flavors. No more, no less.

This minimalist breakfast mantra was on my mind when cracking open Kellogg’s new Honey Nut Frosted Flakes. Tony’s take on a honey nut cereal, set to debut everywhere in early 2019, is clearly tiger-eyeing Cheerios’ lion share of the niche.

But can a cereal already so sweet really add a veneer of honey and nut without sugar-watering it down? It’s time to bee thorough. Continue reading

Classic Review: Paw Patrol Kix – Honey & Berry Berry

General Mills Paw Patrol Honey Berry Berry Kix Cereal Review Box

Growing up, I never ate Kix.

Sure, I ate plenty of knuckle sandwiches, but thankfully my school bullies were usually too stout for their ham-thighed roundhouses to reach my molars.

Oh, and I never ate Kix cereal, either. Why? Because in a sea of colorful boxes and bug-eyed cartoon sirens staring down at me, it was hard to justify choosing…lightly flavored corn puffs for my weekly breakfasts—especially with the phonetically similar and superiorly fruit-shaped Trix just a hop, skip and a fist-pump away.

Now years later, the typically un-personified Kix brand is now fronted by Paw Patrol, a show apparently beloved by today’s young’ns. I don’t know what the show is about, so I’m just going to tell myself it involves a canine Village People cover band.

Thankfully, General Mills sent me a couple boxes of the stuff, in both Honey and Berry Berry. So while I wait for some of this and next year’s exciting cereals to arrive, I figured I’d do some dark timeline-traveling and relive the childhood I’m probably glad I never had. Continue reading

Review: Nature’s Path Golden Turmeric Cereal

Nature's Path Golden Turmeric Cereal Review Box

I only know three things about turmeric:

1. It reminds me of elementary school (and two days ago) Neopets favorite Turmac Roll.

2. It’s in a lot of hip dishes that a man of my economic stature has no business even observing through any organ from the sinuses down.

3. My mom once bought a full bottle of it, and after realizing she didn’t know what to do with it, left it to hibernate for years behind the expired taco seasoning packets, like an auburn hermit.

And I guess I also know that Nature’s Path’s Golden Turmeric cereal is the first cereal of its kind. Combining thick, Tostitos Scoops-shaped flakes with turmeric, honey, cinnamon, and flakes of coconut, this smorgasbord of snappy spice promises to educate my palate like a benevolent Gordon Ramsay fresh out of the convent.

So without further ado, let’s see whether sugar, spice, and everything nice play nice here.

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Review: Quaker Peanut Butter & Honey Oatmeal

Quaker Peanut Butter & Honey Oatmeal Review Box

I love unconventional pairings.

Sure, peanut butter & honey might not be that strange, but compared to those square food pairs—PB&J, Chocolate & Peanut Butter, Chocolate Strawberry: you know I love you, but it’s been done, mate—PB&H belong more with other alt combos like Banana MapleRaisin Walnut & Honey, or Coconut & Caramel.

Hey, I guess Quaker Oats is pretty good at this. I predict if oatmeal flavor permeations are going to keep up this rate of release, we’ll see a flavor like this mutate into Peanut Butter & Pickle Oatmeal by 2020.

But until then, let’s dive into a piping hot bowl of freshly microwaved Honey Butters & Oats. Continue reading

Review: Kashi by Kids Cereals – Honey Cinnamon & Berry Crumble

Kashi by Kids Honey Cinnamon & berry Crumble Cereals Review

Children are powerful.

They have the power of mind control, just by releasing water from their eyes. They have the thermal potential to make an ice cream cone drip all over the place, just by looking at it. And they have the power to turn an entire car around, just by doing those first two things.

I know this power because I wielded it so many years ago. Although in my case, instead of drippy ice cream it was dropping an entire pizza slice crust side up onto my mother’s plush car floor mat. I think tomato plants have since grown from the stained point of impact.

Case in point, I’m not surprised Kashi harnessed the imagination potential of real kids to design their two newest healthy cereals: Honey Cinnamon and Berry Crumble. Given Kashi’s tendency toward piece homogeneity, I was surprised to see that each cereal contains two totally different cereal players: a flavor-stuffed pillow is unique to both, but Honey Cinnamon boasts tiny cinnamon snail shells, while Berry Crumble boasts indigo orbs.

Of course, it does take childlike whimsy to break corporate sameness, so if a little youthful thinking is what it would take to get, say, a Choco Taco shaped/flavored breakfast product, then I’m all for seeing Kellogg’s pick the developing brains of more cereal prodigies.

Tony the Tiger could play Kindergarten Cop, right?

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Review: Honeycomb Cereal (It’s Back! Original Flavor)

Post Honeycomb Cereal Original Flavor 2018 Cereal Review Box

You know the end of the movie, when the big bad has been defeated and the main, side, tertiary, and no-name characters (who will definitely get fan fiction lore) are all celebrating a fight/romance/exorcism well done?

That’s where we are—in the third act of Honeycomb’s story.

Here’s the IMDB-worthy synopsis for those who eat their breakfasts under the comfort of a shady rock:

Honeycomb cereal, good for years.
Lots of people, eat Honeycomb for years.
Post Foods, makes Honeycomb all natural.
Post Foods, thinks they know what people want.
Post Foods, is wrong.
Hundreds of people, mad about Honeycomb.
Hundreds of people, blame me, divine meddling, spam the word GARBAGE.
Post Foods, brings back Honeycomb
Cool, hip blogger, reviews Honeycomb again

Long story short, BIG REAL HONEY FLAVOR is back, baby, and Andre the Giant is fist-pumping in his grave. Now let’s see if all that buzz holds up. Continue reading

Review: Honey Oh’s Cereal

Honey Oh's Cereal Review Box

To paraphrase Heath Ledger’s Joker: “Release a new cereal, and no one panics. Tweak the recipe of an old cereal, and everyone loses their minds!”

Yes, these past couple years have seen a mass vocalization of irritated cereal fans, many of which seem to think teh very fabric of their remembered childhood is under attack by greedy, scheming cereal companies who are corrupting their favorite breakfasts and effectively erasing their personal history in the process.

While some cereal formula changes may be done to save cash, some, like Honeycomb and Trix, have merely been misguided attempts to make cereals all natural—which companies think consumers want. And though diehard fans shut down those last two changes with cries of “the naturalness of my cereal is none of your beeswax!” and “silly General Mills, Trix are for artificial colors more technicolored than Joseph’s dreamcoat!” other cereals, like Alpha-Bits and now Honey Oh’s remain metamorphosed into something new altogether.

This is all to say that cereal companies should probably keep their Tony-sized paws off the classics, and consumers should probably be more clear about what the heck they want out of their morning meals. But while that debate will doubtlessly roll on until my comments section is quarantined by the CDC, I finally found these newly formulated Honey Oh’s for review.

Formerly known as “Honey Graham Oh’s” or “Honey Graham Oh My Goodness They’re So Good But Leave My Mouth Torn To Shred’s,” these new rings dared to remove graham from one my own favorite cereals. I’ll remain un-opinionated until I try them, but there is one thing I’ll say for sure: Post better have shipped their leftover graham flour to the Teddy Grahams factory. Continue reading