Tag Archives: spooned & spotted

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

Spooned & Spotted (Germany): Cars 3 Cereal

Cars 3 Cereal

How ironic: a cereal about anthropomorphized, rapidly accelerating automobiles hits breakfast aisles overseas, just as the American cereal biz is slowing to a snail’s pace. And I don’t mean Turbo the snail, either. We all agreed to never talk about that movie again.

Sorry if I sound a little sour—the dog days of summer are just never the best for new cereals. Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry are just on the cusp of hitting major stores, and those dough-forsaken Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bites are still eluding me, but other than that, I have to resort to posting pictures of licensed movie cereals that I can’t even buy. Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted (Germany): Unicorn Froot Loops Cereal

Kellogg's German Unicorn Froot Loops Cereal Review Box

The unicorn virus…it’s spreading.

When the cotton candied Pepto-Bismol known as the Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino hit the U.S. earlier this year, kicking off a pink food pandemic that would infect everything from cupcakes to bagels, I thought it would be a purely American phenomenon. After all, it speaks to two of our country’s biggest passions: cryptozoology and colorful sugar.

(I’m still waiting for the Loch Ness Monster Frappuccino. Our underwater ally deserves to be submerged in whipped cream!)

But no, as Kellogg Germany’s new Unicorn Froot Loops prove, the eponymous horned horse has the ability to migrate across seas—despite lacking wings or gills. Maybe it bummed a ride off a pegasus. This limited edition cereal is, predictably, causing a buzz across the internet (and more than just the sugar rush kind), but I wanted to know how it actually tastes. So I sought out the help of the only cereal-loving German I know: Continue reading

Spooned & Spotted (UK): Special K Peach & Apricot Cereal

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW29BO9j0Fi/?taken-by=productsinstore

Peach is one of those cereal tastes we just don’t see enough. Rarer than other fruity flavors like coconut and banana, but more common than some of my nonexistent dream flavors like gingerbread, cheesecake, or zucchini bread (my imagination shoots for the stars), peach has seen just a couple cobbled-together cereals in its history. There have been a couple Honey Bunches varieties and a Quaker Real Medleys variety, but that’s about it.

Oh, and Special K Peach & Apricot, a cereal that appeared in the United Kingdom about 5 years ago and is now gracing shelves once more, thanks to the above journalistic photo kindly shared by Instagram friends @Productsinstore.

This cereal is far simpler than Special K’s recent U.S. debuts, which include clusters and yogurt clusters and whatever other sweet mix-ins it takes to convince Americans to put down the Cookie Crisp for a change. No, Special K Peach & Apricot only includes classic Special K whole wheat and barley flakes with two kinds of dried fruit: peaches and apricots (who would’ve guessed?)

I always like to share international cereal photos when it leaves me drooling half a world away. As someone who will likely never taste an apricot in his cereal bowl without the help of a Trader Joe’s run and a food dehydrator, I’m glad someone out there is getting to chomp on one of the only apricot cereals to ever exist. If you’ve tried it, let me know how it is in the comments.

In the words of Michael Scott: “Apricot. Made of real apes!”

Spooned & Spotted: Burger King Lucky Charms Shake

Burger King Lucky Charms Shake

In the war of cereals, The Burger King turns a blind eye.

The Burger King does not take sides.

The Burger King’s only sworn loyalty is to deliciousness.

See, after the meaty monarch released a delightful Froot Loops Shake just 2 months ago, I would have expected him to launch a whole line of Kellogg’s milkshakes and desserts, from fried Apple Jacks Pies to Frosted Mini-Whoppers. But no, the flame-grilled sovereign who blessed us with Mac & Cheetos has now welcomed General Mills into his fold of creamy, soft-serve folds.

The Lucky Charms Shake, spotted, bravely taste tested, and kindly submitted by reader John R., combines the King’s standard creamy ice cream and whipped cream topping with marshmallowy cereal syrup and a dusting of Lucky Charms. I don’t know what “marshmallowy cereal syrup” is, but I can only assume it was pumped straight from the Fountain of Youth.

I’ll toast my first Lucky Charms Shake to you, Ponce de León.

Despite how good this Shake sounds, John’s initial review is far from charmed. I know I’ll have to try it for myself to be sure, but I’ll be sure to have a box of Lucky Charms on hand in case I need emergency marshmallow reinforcements.

https://twitter.com/cerealouslynet/status/875138985655492614

Good thing this happened 😏.

Thanks again to John R. for the photos. If you have some cool cereal news of your own to share, send it over to our Submissions page. I’ll have plenty of time to answer it while waiting in my Burger King parking lot tent.

Spooned & Spotted: Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops Cereal

Neapolitan Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops: Strawberry, Vanilla, Chocolate

(Update: We reviewed Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops!)

Drink it in, folks: Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops, the first (American*) neapolitan cereal, is here.

Err, perhaps “drink it in” isn’t fitting enough. “Lick it in”? “Cone it in”? “Do everything but bite it in because you have sensitive teeth and a chronically frozen brain”?

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we can finally taste strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate all in the same cereal bowl without Frankenstein-ing some weird mix of Tiny Toast, Life, and crumbled-up Halloween Pop-Tarts (I know there are many chocolate cereals, but if you’re going to be a mad breakfast scientist, you might as well go borderline bonkers).

Spotted at Jewel-Osco and graciously shared by fellow snack scholar The Junk Food Aisle, Ice Cream Scoops Cocoa Puffs appropriately combine corn puffs bearing the three fruity, beany, and fudgy flavors of neapolitan ice cream. Vanilla and chocolate have crossed paths beneath Sonny’s bill before, but strawberry is a welcome newcomer. It’s so welcome that it makes me forget that last year’s greatest ice cream cereal (and simply greatest cereal), Cap’n Crunch’s Orange Creampop Crunch, has passed on to the great cosmic creamsicle in the sky.

Here’s hoping that if these Cocoa Puffs Ice Cream Scoops work out, we’ll get different frozen novelty flavors in the future. Superman Puffs, anyone?

Thanks again to Junk Food Aisle for sharing the scoop—literally. Got a freshly spotted flavor of your own to dish out? Spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.

*There has been a neapolitan cereal before…in New Zealand! As usual, Cereal Time time traveller Gabe Fonseca knows all about it.

Spooned & Spotted (Canada): Limited Edition Maple Cheerios Cereal

maple-cheerios-box

Ever wonder what would happen if a French Toast Crunch bread slice decided it wanted to be a doughnut instead?

Well wonder no longer: assuming you have a passport or Canadian citizenship. Because Maple Cheerios—baffling stylized as Cheerios Maple—has quietly dripped onto Canadian shelves as smoothly as syrup through a spigot. It’s a Special Edition flavor released to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, so stuff the waffle iron back in the pantry and enjoy a cake pan’s worth of this pancake-flavored stuff while you can. I know I’m going to do whatever it takes to get my sticky, Waffle Crisp-stained mitts on a box, whether that means negotiating, migrating, or mutating into a man-moose hybrid.

And speaking of Waffle Crisp, I have high hopes that these Cheerios will taste more authentically maple-y, since they are flavored with real maple syrup. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be stuffing flapjacks with these crunchy syrup circles in no time.

Massive thanks to our friends at Junk Food Canada for sharing the photo above. Maple Cheerios may not be as interesting as Birthday Cake Froot Loops, which are also hitting Canadian breakfast aisles as we speak, but hey: most of my birthday cakes involve maple syrup anyway.

(Most of my birthday cakes are pancakes.)

Got a cool cereal photo of your own to share? Spoon it over to cerealously.net@gmail.com for a chance to see it on the site.

Spooned & Spotted: Double Chocolate Krave with More Chocolate

Kellogg's Now More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave Cereal

I usually hate the Internet’s tendency to call any thing within a thing “thing-ception.” I love DiCaprio as much as the next guy, but this is pretty much my generation’s equivalent of unnecessarily affixing “-gate” to even the mildest snafu or ill-timed social media post from a pizza company.

That said, I think I’m perfectly justified in calling Kellogg’s new More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave “Chocolate-ception.” After all, Double Chocolate Krave was initially released as a more chocolaty version of original Krave. So a more chocolaty version of an already more chocolaty cereal seems so deliciously redundant that Xzibit is probably out there somewhere crying a single tear of joy without even knowing why.

Of course, that’s not going to stop me from plowing through boxes of this stuff—with added chocolate milk and Hershey’s syrup and sprinkles and a crumbled up cookie because why not? Even though I made fun of original More Chocolate Krave’s concept in my review, that stuff has completely ruined “regular chocolate” Krave for me. It just tastes so bland now without a plumper biscuit shell and roughly 20% more creamy chocolate filling.

So even though I look forward to losing myself in More Chocolate Double Chocolate Krave’s deepest limbo level, my heart still goes out to Krave S’Mores. See, Krave S’Mores isn’t mentioned on any of the new “More Chocolate” packaging, leading me to assume that it’s either being discontinued, or it’s just never getting this Doritos-esque x-treme chocolate infusion.

Or who knows, maybe Kellogg’s is still perfecting the technology for a “More Marshmallowy Krave S’Mores” cereal that stuffs a full Jet-Puffed mini ‘mallow into each piece.

Do you have a cool cereal photo to share (I spotted these at Meijer)? Feel free to pass it along on our submissions page, or just email us at cerealously.net@gmail.com. There’s a good chance your picture could be featured on the site.