Glazed Donut Holes - Blueberry

Name: Glazed Donut Holes - Blueberry
Variation: Glazed Donut Holes, Froot Loops
Manufacturer: Kellogg's

Review: This year, Kellogg's is adding a new flavor to their Glazed Donut Holes lineup, and it's such a natural fit, it's a wonder it wasn't released with the first wave! Being a fruity cereal, blueberry is a great choice for the Froot Loops banner. Now, you might recall that Froot Loops is a lemon-flavored cereal (somewhat surprisingly), but anything in the lemonade family seems appropriate to me. The pink box even accurately depicts the way blueberry lemonade turns red and not blue (again, somewhat surprisingly)!

The cereal smells very blueberry-y. In fact, I think it smells more strongly of blueberries than it tastes. Obviously, it's improved by adding fresh blueberries, which is a natural pairing. The puffs are glazed and crunchy, with a good mouthfeel, but the more bites I take, the plainer it tastes. I like donuts, but I don't know that I'm crazy about donut holes in particular. I don't hate this cereal, but would I buy it again? I doubt it. At this point, I think my enthusiasm for this lineup is pretty much played out.

Rating: 🥣
Leftover Milk: You do get blueberry milk at the end.

Mott's Apple Cinnamon

Name: Mott's Apple Cinnamon
Variation: n/a
Manufacturer: General Mills

Review: Mott's enters the cereal market! I have to wonder if this is General Mills' bid to compete with Kellogg's Apple Jacks. If so, they're going to have to try a little harder, because this cereal just isn't doing it. It's plain, it doesn't have a very strong apple flavor (who puts corn in their applesauce, anyway?), and it isn't sweet enough. There have been some good apple cinnamon cereals on the market - like Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, and even TMNT Mutant Mayhem. Mott's is the king of applesauce. So how did they mess this one up? Were they trying too hard to be "healthy"? Yet, despite being "made with apple puree", their cereal is "not intended to replace fruit in the diet". I did see, after picking up this box, that there is a Very Berry flavor available, so I hope it fares better. But in the meantime, if I want to dig into a bowl of Mott's, I'm just going to have some applesauce.

Rating: 🥣
Leftover Milk: Kinda plain, but flavored with cinnamon & apple.

Mystery Crunch

Name: Mystery Crunch
Variation: Cap'n Crunch
Manufacturer: Quaker Oats

Review: I'm not going to waste any time with a preamble, because I'm itching to dive into the mystery that is this new unidentified flavor of Cap'n Crunch. The box is a pleasing - but not very enlightening - shade of purple. The crunch pieces look a little pale. Upon first smell, my thought was marshmallow. The back of the box claims to offer some clues. On it, the Cap'n is depicted stranded on a tiny island. A volleyball with his dog's face drawn on it (I'm told this is a reference to the movie Cast Away) sits at his feet, next to a treasure chest. A scroll lists some possible flavors, with "coconut" crossed out, and "creamy" circled. The cereal does taste creamy. There is fruit scattered about - apples, an orange, strawberries, and cherries. Bananas are growing in a palm tree curling around which are the unmistakable flowers of the vanilla plant. Curiously, there is a crab in a leaky canoe sipping cola from a glass bottle. All is bathed in twilight, under a full moon.

If the literal red herring jumping out of the water is any indication, these clues yield more questions than answers. The box is labeled "Vol. 1" - does this mean that there are (or will be) other boxes with other clues? Or is there actually more than one different mystery flavor swirling about? That would be diabolical, but it could explain the contradicting clues. I would love for there to be a "pina colada" flavor of Cap'n Crunch - it would suit the brand's beachy vibe perfectly - but there are no pineapples depicted, and "coconut" is crossed off the list. Anyway, I don't think the cereal tastes particularly fruity - and the fruits scattered about aren't especially tropical, either. My best guess is cream soda. And the more of this cereal I eat, the more convinced I am of it. I'm even starting to detect a hint of a bubbly texture! Whatever it turns out to be, I can tell you that I like it (even though I don't normally like cream soda). And I've had fun probing this mystery.

Rating: 🥣🥣
Leftover Milk: Sweet and creamy.

[Experiment] Cinnamon Toast Crunch PB&J

Description: As a full-grown adult who keeps a blog dedicated to breakfast cereals, I have somewhat juvenile tastes (notwithstanding my appreciation for dark chocolate). So as soon as I thought of mixing Cinnamon Toast Crunch Strawberry and Peanut Butter to imitate peanut butter & jelly, I had to rush out to the store so I could try it. It doesn't really taste like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The flavors are there, but they're not as vibrant as you might hope. The peanut butter is mostly an aftertaste, and you don't really get bites of super sweet jelly. I don't feel like the "toast" flavor is receding into the background as much as it does with a real peanut butter & jelly sandwich. That said, it's still good. Both of these cereals are good on their own, and they taste good together. I think I set my sights a little high, but I definitely wouldn't say that this experiment was a failure.

Rating: 🥣🥣