Cinnabon Cereal

Name: Cinnabon Sweet Crunchy Cinnamon Roll Cereal
Variation: n/a
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: So I heard about this cereal before the end of last year, and I was excited to try it alongside Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls. I waited patiently, expecting to find it before Christmas, at the least. But the holiday came and went, and I finally posted my review of Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls on (literally!) the last day of the year. I didn't see Cinnabon Cereal on the shelves until the end of January. I was a little bit miffed. Rest assured, it won't affect my impression of the cereal, but that's why I've pushed this review back so far (even by my standards) in protest.

Apparently this isn't Cinnabon's first cereal rodeo (word is they brought it back by popular demand), but it's the first time I've ever had it, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. The "buns" are BIG - bigger than Cinnamon Toast Crunch Rolls. And very crunchy. I think they're a little bulky in your mouth, but they have a really good creamy slash cinnamon-y flavor. This has to be the best cereal imitation of cinnamon rolls I've had yet. Which is appropriate, because come on - it's Cinnabon! I wouldn't say that it "tastes like riding a magical cinnamon unicorn through a sparkling forest of yum" (as it does on the back of the box - which is a pretty color, by the way), but it is very good.

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Creamy slash cinnamon-y.

Frosted Flakes Pumpkin Spice

Name: Frosted Flakes Pumpkin Spice
Variation: Frosted Flakes
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: The box is a beautiful teal color - the picture doesn't do it justice (it's a shade greener in person). The cereal smells not just like pumpkin, but sweet like pie. Nevertheless, it's Frosted Flakes - with neither chocolate nor marshmallows, I'm gonna be hard-pressed to like it. I do enjoy having pumpkin pie... once a year. But I'm decidedly not a pumpkin spice fanatic. I feel like the first half of each bite is sweet and pumpkin-y, and then the second half just tastes like corn. If you like Frosted Flakes and/or pumpkin spice products, you might very well like this cereal. But it's not for me.

Rating: 🥣
Leftover Milk: Sweet and pumpkin-y.

Frosted Mini Wheats Pumpkin Pie Spice

Name: Frosted Mini Wheats Pumpkin Pie Spice
Variation: Frosted Mini Wheats
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: 'Tis the season! The "pumpkin pie spice" flavor is pleasantly sweet. I feel like I could definitely appreciate this cereal - if it weren't being delivered in the form of Frosted Mini Wheats (which I am not fond of). Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that lovers of Frosted Mini Wheats have a pumpkin spice version of their cereal. It fits in well with other versions I've tried - like Blueberry Muffin and Cinnamon Roll. But personally, I'd rather have a bowl of Pumpkin Spice Cheerios instead.

Rating: 🥣
Leftover Milk: Don't expect the sort of pumpkin spice milk Cheerios leaves you with.

2nd Anniversary Post

I hadn't anticipated making anniversary posts every year, but it's nice to check in and gauge the progress of my blog. By the way, how do you like my new banner? I kind of added it in without fanfare early this year. It celebrates the marble countertop and plain white cereal bowl that are featured in every review, while imitating the font and styling of the source material (not cereal related) that inspired this blog's title - one of my favorite anime series from the '90s, Serial Experiments Lain.

Year 1 Haul

After a full year of double weekend reviews, the workload (which usually swells around the holidays, with seasonal Halloween and Pumpkin Spice and Christmas cereals aplenty) finally seems to be slacking off, now that I'm seeing a lot of stuff I've already tried. It's noticeable enough that I've actually had time to pick up some of my old favorites between novelties, and in certain cases make good on my two bowl ratings and buy a second box of the novelties I've liked most.

It's to a point where I'm considering finally doing a series where I review normal cereals that are not limited edition novelties (as well as fulfill my promise to try all the myriad flavors of Cheerios). This may not be the primary purpose of this blog, but it's something I've had in the back of my mind that I wanted to do if and when the workload ever let up. It also frees me up to do some more independent experiments, mixing different cereals and the like, now that we're just about caught up on all the flashbacks I've been sitting on (just about).

Year 2 Haul

In any case, I'm considering returning to a one-review-per-week schedule (although I may end up eating those words), with the option of temporary expansion whenever necessary. To be fair, the two review format was originally supposed to be occasional only; I just got swamped with material I couldn't put out fast enough. The longterm goal for this blog, after producing a ton of back content for readers to sift through (over 150 cereals reviewed in just two years!), is to not necessarily have a regular posting schedule, but the flexibility of being able to see a new cereal on shelves, buy it, try it, and review it all within the span of about a week. I don't know if the workload will ever dwindle that much, but we'll see.

Thanks for joining me thus far, and I hope you'll stick around. It's been two great years already, and there's still more yet to come!

[Experiment] Fluffernutter Crunch

Description: For this experiment, I added generic cereal marshmallows to Peanut Butter Crunch to imitate the flavor of "fluffernutter" - a combination of peanut butter and marshmallow. I'm surprised I haven't seen this done before; cereals with marshmallows are ubiquitous. Then again, peanut butter isn't the most obvious choice for a base flavor, and peanut butter cereals themselves are not all that common (Peanut Butter Crunch may be the only one you can really count on). Come to think of it, I've never seen a variation of Cap'n Crunch that had marshmallows, so maybe Quaker Oats just doesn't like putting marshmallows in their cereal.

Anyway, it's a good combination. The marshmallows are soft and sweet and add a counterbalance to the crunchy peanut butter flavor. Sourcing the marshmallows (from a different cereal) was a chore, so making it yourself is not that easy, but I think it's a great idea. Cereal manufacturers take note!

Rating: 🥣🥣

[Experiment] Peanut Butter & Jelly Crunch

Description: Here's a fun idea that was hiding in plain sight - adding Crunch Berries to Peanut Butter Crunch... to make Peanut Butter & Jelly Crunch! I picked out the red and purple berries specifically, to represent strawberry and grape jam. Unfortunately, all the berries have the same flavor (I believe the consensus is strawberry); so there is room for improvement. Quaker Oats, are you listening? My instinct was to match the Peanut Butter and Crunch Berries 1:1, but surprisingly, the peanut butter flavor overpowered the Crunch Berries, so I think it's best to bias the mix toward the Crunch Berries. It's good! It can't replace the heartwarming feeling of biting into an actual PB&J sandwich, but it was a fun experiment to try!

Available in strawberry or grape! (Although not really...)

Rating: 🥣🥣

[Experiment] Autumn Krispies

Description: I noticed something interesting while I was documenting the different seasonal varieties of Rice Krispies. Notwithstanding the Valentine's Day version (which I was not expecting), and the Halloween version (which is an outlier), the summer, winter, and spring varieties all cycle through two of three different colors (adding them to plain "white" Krispies) - red, blue, and green. If it were up to me, I would leave red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July; pick out the white and just use red and green for Christmas; and add an Easter-y purple to the blue and green of spring. Then, you could also add that purple to the orange for Halloween. But I have an even better idea for an autumn-themed version of Rice Krispies, and it's inspired by the colors of fall foliage.

With and without "unturned" greens and pale "yellows".

I used a combination of Shocking Orange and Cocoa Krispies for the orange and brown, and separated out the reds and greens from Holiday Colors (in a painstaking effort I hope I'll never have to repeat). I used Cinnamon Sugar Krispies for the yellows, since they have a slightly darker tinge than regular Rice Krispies, which look too bright and white to pass for an autumn gold. Doesn't it look great? I think it would fit in perfectly with a Thanksgiving motif. I just wish it had a better flavor. Or any flavor, really.

Rating: 🥣

[Flashback] Apple Jacks Caramel

Notice: Flashback reviews have been written from memory, without having the cereal in front of me. I started taking pictures of notable cereal varieties several years before I decided to start a blog reviewing them. As such, details beyond whether I simply liked the cereal or not may be hazy, especially regarding the quality of the leftover milk. Whenever possible, I have made an effort to procure another box of the cereal for a proper review (even the ones I didn't like), but due to the ephemeral nature of many of these novelty cereals, this is not always possible.

Name: Apple Jacks Caramel
Variation: Apple Jacks
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: I regret not finding this cereal earlier (it would have made for a good comparison with Caramel Apple Toast Crunch), as by the time I got this box, the cereal tasted noticeably stale. As such, I cannot give it a proper review, but I wanted to document its existence in case I don't ever see it again. As far as I can tell, this flavor was released in the summer of 2020 (which was otherwise a fallow year for novelty cereals in my experience; but maybe that's because I was a shut-in throughout the height of the pandemic). I wish it were easier to track production dates and release schedules for these cereals, from a more authoritative source than hunting news articles and reviews. There should be a database somewhere...

Rating: (withheld)