Cereal Review: Fiber One 80 Calorie Chocolate

I consider myself to embody several catch phrases in life. “Too Cool for School,” obviously, as well as “Don’t Tread on Me.” But when it comes to me and cereal, I differ to the always appropriate I’M CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS.

It don’t just embrace my lunacy for the iconic chocolate cocoa-flavored cereal, I wear it on my sleeve. Actually, I wear it over my barely sprouting manly chest-hair, because the shirt-sleeve shirt I have bearing the slogan doesn’t have much in the way of sleeves. Never-the-mind, the important point in this ungodly image is that while Cocoa Puffs  may not be the epitome of  chocolate’s sumptuous and sweet qualities, it remains, and always will remain, pretty much totally freaking awesome.

I don’t consider Fiber One totally freaking awesome. Marginally cool would be a better description. Like that kid in high school who every once in a while said something hilarious but for the most part tried too hard, Fiber One has a track record of hitting it big amid mostly average products. Truth be told, I’ve always felt the cereal to be the weak-end of the Fiber One line, although I admit their Honey Clusters and Original Cereals often find their way into my pantry. The 80 Calorie version? Not so much. I gave it a 7.5 in a past review, but looking back, I can see I was far too generous. Having finished the box I originally reviewed, I found it rife with off-brany flavors and too little honey taste. Plus, the amount of Fiber in it, and every other Fiber One product, is pretty much eat at your own risk. I don’t care what they say about Americans and fiber. This stuff makes you fart more than a kid in a whoopee cushion store.

This juxtaposition of totally freaking awesome kids cereal and marginally cool, sometimes worth-it fart-inducing diet cereal takes on relevancy given the latest addition to the Fiber One Line, 80 Calorie Chocolate (Enter Hungry Girl readers going blah blah OMG this is so totally great. You know what’s also great? A Double Double from In-N-Out. ADMIT IT!) I snagged a box for a cool $2.00 at Walmart, and set out to determine whether this could be one of those marginally cool moments in Fiber One product development.

Long story short, it is. It actually pains me to say it given the fact that a serving of 80 Calorie Chocolate is a whopping 20 more calories than a serving of Cocoa Puffs, but aside from a slight fibrous aftertaste, it’s really quite similar to my all-time cocoa, deer-poop looking favorite. I point this out because if you’re fussing over 20 calories or extra five grams of sugar in Cocoa Puffs, this is not the blog for you. I also bring this up because if you like snacking on dry cereal with a sturdy crunch and bittersweet cocoa taste that has a mellow, familiar flavor (Cocoa Puffs) than Fiber One 80 Calorie Chocolate is the cereal for you, provided you’re not easily prone to tooting, and/or prefer to buy cereals without talking animal mascots.

Because I am prone to both tooting and much prefer animals to numbers, I’m inclined to stick with Cocoa Puffs for snacking. As I mentioned, 80 Calorie Chocolate is good, but it does have a slight aftertaste that I can only describe as fibrous, and which offsets the other alkaline elements which make Cocoa Puffs so good in that middle-of-the-road chocolate spectrum we all can enjoy. The aftertaste isn’t something that registers so much until you add milk, which robs the cereal of much of its chocolate flavor and leaves each piece bitter and off-tasting. The milk becomes a deep brown — too brown for its own good, if you ask me — and tastes strongly of diet cocoa. In other words, it tastes like cocoa powder and splenda. Indulgent, it is not. Still, I can’t get over how much I am enjoying this cereal as a snack. The slight glaze on each piece even adds an enjoyable mouthfeel Cocoa Puffs can’t claim. It’s really not suppose to work this way…

I give props to Fiber One. While it’s mediocre in milk, I prefer my cereal eating in the hand-to-face method, so this works for me. It’s really a solid cocoa option as a dry snack, and a real improvement over the honey version of the cereal. I think I’ll even be picking up a box in the future every so often. I just wish it wasn’t marketed as a diet cereal, because it’s really going to clash with the ethos of Whoops All Berries and Utz Potato chips in my grocery bag.

Fiber One 80 Calories Chocolate  (Nutrition)

• Price: $2.00 (Walmart)
• Rating (Dry): 7.5/10
• Rating (Milk): 3.0/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 55%

Peanut Butter Toast Crunch Reviewed

As the kind of verbose blogger who likes to break every single facet about every single item I put into my belly into painstaking — one might even say, molecular – detail, I’m naturally suspicious of concise, matter-of-fact comments. Like this one:

I’ve got them, they’re good.

The comment came from a well-known cereal expert in his own right, whose five simple words regarding the new Peanut Butter Toast Crunch seemed to hint at a “thank you for stating the obvious” response one would assume only natural when peanut butter combines with one of the world’s greatest cereals. Clearly you’d expect Peanut Butter Toast Crunch to be good, but why is it good, asks the curious reader? Is the peanut flavor roasted and natural tasting? Does the cereal maintain the integrity of crispness found in normal Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Is the balance of sweet and salty just what a peanut butter lover would and should enjoy, evoking both a visceral and emotional response that simultaneously touches the taste buds and evokes memories alike?

The answer is “yes” to all of the above, and having now tried Peanut Butter Toast Crunch, I’m inclined to not only agree with this esteemed cereal expert, but I’m inclined to admit that his five simple words summed up the cereal perfectly.

The first thing that hits you is the smell of Peanut Butter Toast Crunch. Wendell, that lovable plump French baker who adorns the box, may be holding a jar of generic looking peanut butter , but the smell suggests anything but cheap and processed. The depth of peanuty flavor comes across as bolder than almost any other peanut butter flavor cereal or snack I’ve had, including, I should add, peanut butter cookies. There is a Golden Graham hue going on here, but the crispy,cinnamon and sugar-coated ridges of the classic Cinnamon Toast Crunch squares are still there. So is my main man Wendell:

I started with a dry handful and immediately thought, “hey, these are pretty good,” but after allowing the flavors to develop as I chewed on, I started to realize how good the crunchy little morsels are. Not just “pretty good.” More than “really good.” They were, for lack of a more profound description, really, really freaking good.

Crunchy, sweet, salty, and cinnamon-ey, each handful develops into the kind of chewy and comforting taste and texture that is so beloved with a peanut butter and honey sandwich. There’s a real “stick your roof” effect that allows you to savor the depth of peanut butter flavor, which tastes as if it’s not only coating each piece of cereal, but as if it’s been baked in by skillful French hands (albeit stubby cartoon hands.)

I enjoyed Peanut Butter Toast Crunch in milk, but I didn’t love it. This is where “they’re good,” doesn’t reveal any deeper meaning, but more accurately depicts a slightly less peanut buttery sweetness that occurs to the pieces in milk. Sure, they still hold their crunch, while the texture turns into a mushy slurry that might bring the cereal closer to actual peanut butter, but I felt like even a 50/50 cut of skim milk and half-and-half wasn’t good enough to make the cereal preferable to snacking dry. The end-milk, accordingly, was good, but I would have prefered it a bit sweeter.

Prior to eating Peanut Butter Toast Crunch I would have ranked Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs cereal as my favorite peanut butter cereal, with Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch coming in a respectable second. Following the release of Peanut Butter Toast Crunch though, I’m apt to give Wendell at least the second spot. I stress at least because, when faced with equally priced versions of Reese’s Puffs and Peanut Butter Toast Crunch and only enough money to buy one of the boxes, I’ll borrow a lesson from one of my favorite Old Testiment figures. Drawing from the wisdom of King Solomon, I’d chop both boxes and half and combine them together, because I don’t think any cereal lover or peanut butter fiend could be made to make such a gut wrenching decision.

Nice job, Wendell. As far as I’m concerned, you have more than made amends for the nonsense you attempted to bake up with last year’s release of Frosted Toast Crunch. But please, for the love of all things sweet and salty, make an appearance in the commercial this time around!*

Peanut Butter Toast Crunch

• Price: $2.50 (Walmart)
• Ranking: 9.0/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100%

*As you may know, Peanut Butter Crunch was first introduced in 2005, although I, a sophomore in high school at the time, was likely in too much of a “I’m too cool for the world” mood to care. Marvo actually reviewed the cereal for TheImpulsiveBuy.com back in those days, although I can’t imagine the cereal he tasted then and what I hold in my cabinet now consist of the same formula.

Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats Crunch Brown Sugar

Have you seen or tried the latest version of Kellogg’s classic talking bite-sized wheat squares? They’re big on crunch, but I thought the flavor could have been more creative. To get the full scoop, head on over to my review of the newest Mini Wheats flavor over at The Impulsive Buy.

And if you’re looking for a good value hamburger (or just like geopolitical history), may I suggest checking out this review of McDonald’s new Grilled Onion Cheddar Burger?

New Cereal Review: Kashi Berry Fruitful

Chances are if you’ve spent anytime in a grocery store over the past week, you’ve probably seen a veritable smorgasbord of new products. From chips to frozen diet dinners to cereals, the passing from one year to the next finds companies pushing new products with all the kind of energy and enthusiasm of Tony Perkis’ pushing his diet system.

Mmmm. Skim Milk. Speaking of diet program, that’s exactly what many companies are pushing. New Year’s Resolutions almost always revolve around food (unfortunately, if you ask me), and they’re not just confined to the proverbial eating healthier. These days, it’s not enough to just eat something that someone says is good for you, but it’s apparently our civic duty to eat something that’s good for the planet and the people involved in making it.

Does it really? Because nothing says “chocolate decadence” like black beans.

I’m all for doing good for the planet and supporting hardworking people, but there are times when I how far we are supposed to go when it comes to doing our small part. I bring all this up because I was rudely mocked on a recent facebook post by an individual who found it humorous that I looked forward to a cereal (the new Cheerios Medley Crunch) that did not conform to non-Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) standards. Frankly, the only thing more annoying at this point in our country than arguing about politics is to argue about food politics, and how you can find fault with America’s favorite cereal is beyond me. If you want to embrace a secular religion of wheat grass and $5.99 organic, avocado oil fair-trade potato chips and put down everyone who likes “the regular crap” as disastrous, money-grubbing fiends; well, I can’t stop you. But please. Don’t act like I’ve leading to the downfall of western civilization because I enjoy actual sugar in my cereal and could care less whether it’s been modified. I’ve been eating this ‘crap’ for years, and I’ve yet to sprout into Godzilla, so I’m not losing any sleep over it.

That comment got me thinking, however, and led me to seek out a new cereal that apparently meets just about every standard for being as close to nature as possible.  I mean, if said cereal is affordable, and it tastes just as good as my mainstream favorites, then there’s no reason to think I can’t become a regular buyer, right?  Kashi’s new Berry Fruitful seems to be one of those cereals. It’s  organic, its non-GMO verified, and it packs six grams of fiber and protein in only 170 calories. I, however, could care less about the first two parts of that equation. I’m more interested to see if this copy-cat version of the popular Frosted Mini Wheats Touch of Fruit variety has the potential to be more than just a cereal for “organic aisle” people.

While I enjoy the GoLean varieties of Kashi cereal, I’ve found the company’s wheat biscuit flavors to be underwhelming in the past. They just seem to lack the enough sugar coverage to make the taste anything but boring and plain, while the biscuits themselves shed wheat layers faster than Beethoven sheds fur on a humid day.

As you can see, each biscuit has a cyclops like “eye” of injected purple jelly. It’s really quite scary to look at, and reminds me of the creepy SAL 3000 from the cartoon Recess (watch here.)  The amount of jelly in each biscuit is almost microscopic, while there’s no exterior sugar-coating for crunch (think Frosted Mini Wheats.) According to the ingredients on the box the filling consists of concord grape juice concentrate, apple powder, raspberry puree concentrate, and strawberry puree concentrate. I am reminded, in no uncertain terms, that each ingredient is organic.

Each biscuit certainly tastes organic. Meaning it tastes just like the stereotype; bland, underwhelming and plain. To be fair, I actually  enjoy the filling. It has this comforting grape jelly flavor that’s not overly sweet, with a pectin like consistency falling somewhere between fruit leather and actual jelly. The problem is that there’s just nowhere near enough of the filling to give the rest of the biscuit flavor. Evaporated Cain Juice might be listed as the second ingredient on the box, but as is so often the case with the corn-syrup/sugar fill-in, it’s hard to detect. Seriously Kashi. Why can’t you just use good old-fashioned plain sugar? Or even honey for all it’s worth! At least I would be able to taste it!

The biscuits take on milk quite easily and turn pleasantly mushy when you bite down on them, but the flavor of the filling itself doesn’t get any lift, nor do the relatively tasteless wheat layers. It’s not bad, but I chalk it up more to an equal cut of skim milk and half-and-half, which I swear will endear any cereal with a certain creamy taste.

Once again, Kashi’s attempts to recreate a more “wholesome” version of Frosted Mini Wheats have failed. At only 8 grams of sugar for a 55 gram serving, it runs at a sweetness of just over 4 grams/ounce. To put that in perspective, the cereal has about the same sweetness profile as Wheaties. But in terms of discernible sweetness it might be even less, as the dull taste of evaporated cane juice syrup tastes like it evaporated right out of the cereal. With a dull exterior wheat taste that doesn’t have a toasted or malty flavor, the biscuits can’t  even be saved by a sophisticated and slightly tart grape filling. It’s a shame, because that filling would have pushed these over the top had Kashi made several tweaks to their wheat biscuit template. As it is though, this is just another flavor that has too little sugar and to break the stereotypes about organic cereals, and too little innovation to be anything but berry disappointing.

 

Kashi Berry Fruitful

• Price: $2.50 (on sale at Weis Markets)
• Ranking: 4/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 0%

Honey Bunches of Oats Greek Honey Crunch

Happy New Year! It’s 2013, and a new batch of  food trends is upon us. We’ve seen cupcakes come and go, fried chicken and waffles run its course, and Greek Yogurt everything peak in 2012.

Oh wait, nevermind.

Post apparently didn’t get the memo that Greek Yogurt was so 2012, because the new Greek Honey Crunch variety of the popular Honey Bunches of Oats brand comes a year after the launch of Honey Bunches of Oats’ Fruit Blends. You might remember I thought the Fruit Blends were a bit underwhelming, and while I love me some Honey Bunches of Oats, I find myself rolling my eyes when it comes to adding Greek yogurt to the mix.

Seriously. I like thick and creamy Greek yogurt as much as anyone, but the foodie worship of the health food staple is almost as tiring as trying to keep up with the decrepid Greek economy. Can we just admit that Greek yogurt, like the Greek civilization itself, had its moment in the sun, but has now been supplanted by something else?

What makes this cereal unique, according to Post, is a dual yogurt granola cluster formula. Greek Yogurt granola and Greek “style” coated granola sit amidst the lightly sweetened whole grain flakes, with each serving coming in at 230 calories, 3.5 grams of fat (1 sat) and a whopping 33 grams of whole grains. The cereal also has 13 grams of sugar per serving.

We’re definitely looking at a granola-style cereal, with a high ratio of crunchy clusters and small toasted oat bits to larger flakes. The flakes, as they always are, display a prominent honey flavor. There’s something about the HBO flakes which is just superior to any other whole grain flake cereal. It’s as if they exhibit the perfect balance of crispness and sweetness, as well as toasted a symphony of grain flavors that other cereals just can’t match. With the granola, each bite of cereal feels complete, and like snacking on dry granola alone, one can down a few handfuls without even realizing it. It’s an especially dangerous but delicious scenario that’s hastened by the second helping of yogurt-covered oat clusters. The small Greek Yogurt clusters are sweet, crunchy, and have that pleasantly candy-like moutfeel about them. I enjoyed them, but wasn’t thrilled about the size. Man these buggers are small. While there are a few scattered Greek “style” monster-granola chunks, the granola bits covered completely by yogurt seem to come only in smaller iterations.

The cereal is much better dry than in milk. The more I eat cereal the more I’m convinced there’s a dividing line in terms of sugar grams and the ability to retain sweetness in milk. In this case, the 13 grams per 58 grams of cereal isn’t enough to really carry the honey flavor through the milk, while not enough sweetness is transferred to the milk to make the end-milk anything worth writing home about. I thought that both the flakes, as well as both kinds of granola clusters, lost their crunch when exposed to a moderate soak.

I really enjoyed dry-snacking on the new Honey Bunches of Oats Greek flavor, but I enjoyed it because, as Leandra so eloquently points out, HBO are “nearly the perfect cereal.” The flakes are great, the honey taste really does taste roasted, and there’s plenty of crunchy bunches to make every bite an adventure. But did the Greek Yogurt granola concept add anything? It didn’t taste like it. The yogurt clusters were good, but they tasted exactly like regular yogurt clusters in every other cereal, and what’s more, they were tiny in comparison to the yogurt clusters in, say, Basic 4. I admire HBO for developing a clean ingredient list which doesn’t feature any partially hydrogenated oils, but like most granola based cereals, the serving size seems meager when measured out.

If you like HBO, you’re going to like this cereal, but I’m not sure you’re going to be enamored with it. I, personally, prefer Honey Bunches of Oats with Cinammon Clusters. If you’re a true fan of Greek Yogurt, my guess is you’ll just be adding your favorite flavor of Honey Bunches of Oats to your favorite brand of Greek Yogurt.

Honey Bunches of Oats Greek Honey Crunch 

• Price: $3.00 (Walmart)
• Ranking: 7/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 0%

Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas Crunch

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in Afghanistan (in which case, the U.S. Army is coming for you) or you’re just a general Scrooge who lives in your own little world (in which case, stop reading my damn blog) you may have noticed Christmas is a week away. Obviously this means lots of great stuff. Jesus, for starters, with requisite shout-outs to the holiday cheer of presents, carols, and yes, lots and lots of food. Aside from buffets filled with honey glazed hams, Christmas cookies (cocoa crinkles, please), and – for our Jewish friends – delicious assortments of latkes, Christmas inspires another traditional treat; Captain Crunch’s Christmas Crunch.

Despite having a stocked cereal pantry, I decided that for $2.50 this cereal commanded my hard-earned dollar on a late November sweep of Walmart. First introduced during my 1988, the cereal was welcomed into the world in all it’s green and red festivity at the same time which I entered the planet. There is, however, no documentation of my eating this cereal during the lead-up to my first Christmas. There is also no evidence that Charles Dickens meant to include it in place of Figgy Pudding during while composing his classic Christmas Carol. Both circumstances, I should say, are a real damn shame.

I didn’t let either of these unfortunate facts deflect my excitement for letting my inner child rule the day in the vicarious form of some good old-fashioned, limited-time only junkfood cereal. Having been subjected to several ho-hum ‘adult’ Christmases in which both LEGOs and Star Wars action figures remained consciously absent from under the tree, you might say I’ve been waiting to let that kid out for quite some time. And, like eight-year old Adam proudly opening that amazing machine known as the Sega Genesis during a childhood Christmas, so I tore through the packaging on Christmas Crunch. I was met immediately by the fruity-ish yet inexplicably Christmasy smell of red and green crunchberry pieces, and proceeded to down my first few spoonfuls  with such excitement that I almost forgot to actually taste the cereal. Almost, because like all renditions of Cap’n Crunch, the cereal’s crunchy corn pieces refuse to dissolve into mush when in milk. You either love it or you hate it. I love it like I love the fact that Johnny Football won the Heisman.

The corn pieces are your standard if not delicious Cap’n Crunch nuggets of corn and oats. Sweet but with a touch of salt, I’ve always felt they fit the definition of crispy-crunchy as opposed to just crunchy, but regardless, they’re scrumptious thanks to a hint of brown sugar and coconut oil. Now, as for the Holiday shapes of red and green. It’s been said they do not exactly taste like traditional Crunchberries, but I disagree. They actually taste like Strawberry Crunchberries, which contain, as Leandra points out, a “vaguely fruity flavor.” Note that this is true for both the red and green pieces. Don’t ask me why the green pieces taste like strawberry crunchberries. It’s the same reason why some of the trees shapes are red and some of the Santa hat shapes are green. THEY JUST ARE. Call it a Christmas miracle, or attribute it to the magic of Santa Clause, but in either case, it’s best beyond our human understanding. And it’s best left that way.

The cereal is incredibly sweet to be sure — so sweet, in fact, that I’m think Kirby the Dentist-Elf would file a formal protest with Cap’n Santa Clause Crunch. Thing is, I’m confident the Cap’n isn’t actually Santa Clause. The borrow a phrase from Kevin McAlister in Home Alone, “he works for him.” While cereals which are overly sweet often get a bad rap, I feel like the taste of corn and hint of salt do bring some balance to the party. And of course, an overly sweet cereal is better than and cereal with not enough sweetness when it comes to producing end-milk. Thanks perhaps to that baked-in coconut oil fruitiness, the Christmas Crunch end-milk has that drink-the-bowl-with-two-hands quality about it.

Is Cap’n Crunch’s Christmas a better tasting cereal than Cap’n Crunch Crunchberries? Probably not, but that’s ok. The novelty alone of buying a Christmas Cereal is worth it, while the shapes make excellent decorating adornments should you decide to play White Christmas in your vanilla ice cream. I highly recommend this, and highly recommend Christmas Crunch as an essential part of any proper Holiday feast. Even if your Jewish.

Your Turn: Favorite Christmas food? Love the Cap’n as I do, it’s cookies for me. And how awesome would a Hanukkah cereal with dradle shapes and chocolate coin pieces be? Answer? Freaking awesome.

Cap’n Crunch Christmas Crunch

• Price: $2.50 (Walmart)
• Ranking: 8.5/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100%

Special K Cinnamon Pecan

Congratulations. You made it out of Thanksgiving alive. Whether you were subjected to the gossip and banter of the kid’s table or outlived the freezing lines of late-night Black Friday camp-outs, you’ve made it into December, and that’s a credit to your gastronomic gusto and eating prowess. Turkey, alcohol, stuffing, leftovers. Even an ad-hoc homemade cranberry sauce made on a mountaintop in Virginia when you forgot the sugar back home in Maryland. The sweetness you tasted? Oh. That was the Jet Puff mallows you melted down to make a syrup.

And you still saved room for pie.

 

Yes, pie. I myself made the traditional Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving, albeit one made with a damaged pie crust set as a base above a baking pan. Call it a gingery and cinnamon take on brownies, if you must, but I call it a yummy way to start the season in which the traditionally round, flaky crusts encase a plethora of sweet and rich fillings. Pumpkin. Apple. Lemon Meringue. Pecan.

Ah, pecans. The richest, sweetest, heck, the most expensive nuts there are, pecans have long captured my attention. Thankfully, I don’t need to sit around a table of annoying relatives and confess my thankfulness to get a taste of pecans. The cereal world is more than happy to indulge my epicurean curiosity for the autumnal dessert staple.

A word to the sugary and sweet; I’m not much of a fan of Special K products. Ok, so their breakfast sandwiches were better than tolerable, but aside from buying the faux Chocolate cereal known as “Choclatey Delight” for my mom, I shun their products like a sumo wrestler shuns a salad bar. Nevertheless, I’ve heard good things of Special K’s Cinnamon Pecan cereal, and unable to locate the Pecan Clusters version of Honey Bunches of Oats (now apparently discontinued) I decided to stoop to the classic ‘low calorie’ cereal choice.

(It’s at this point that I must subject you to an aside about how I hate the ethos inspired by Special K product. It may be an ethos of ‘losing weight’ under a guise of great tasting products, but it assigns the worth of said product to it’s value in helping one to lose weight as the only thing the product line has going for it. In that respect, it limits what the cereal can be to others, and reduces its own value and the value of the target demographic to one of calories, the scale, and some promise that losing weight makes a woman (and only a woman) happy. The entire premise, if you ask me, is highly akin to modern feminism’s fixation on sex and what it likes to call ‘reproductive rights’ as a manner of worth for women. It is, in effect, a limiting characteristic which denies a person, or a cereal, its full potential. My sister, mind you, is far more than just body parts and hormones, just as I, as a male, am also more than those things. So much like how any given human being is more dynamic and has more going on for themselves than just their reproductive organs or carnal desires, so Special K cereals are more than just a low-calories cereal which will help women reach some magical number that will suddenly make their life perfect. God forbid any person, regardless of age, sex, weight, etc. can enjoy it for its taste and/or affordability. Don’t like my analogy? Tough.)

Back to the box (although not the boring back-of-the-box lecture about the Special K diet.) I have to admit my expectations were not high for a pecan flavored cereal with all of 110 calories per serving. Pecans have a very high and rich oil content – making 110 calories more or less the equivalent of a mere half ounce of pecans. Still, low and behold “pecans” showed up on the ingredient list, and after breaking open the box, I can confirm Special K wasn’t telling tales out of school. Behold:

What we have here are three elements to the cereal makeup – flakes, glazed flakes, and pecan pieces. Starting with a dry snack run, I can’t say I am very impressed with the regular flakes. To their credit, they’re not to be counted with the insipid rice flakes of the plain Special K flavor. These flakes have a distinctive wheaty taste a shade more restrained than Wheaties, yet they also strike me as just as needed a bit more sugar. That said, the glazed flakes, which have a shiny coating of syrup and cinnamon, are very good. The cinnamon taste is exceptionally spicy, while the smooth mouthfeel makes for a really good burst in the middle of the roughly 4:1 regular flakes to glazed flake ratio. The last component is the Pecans. A single, blind pour that yielded 30 grams (a serving) of cereal also yielded two grams, or approximately five small pieces, of pecans. I tasted one alone and it was everything you’d want it to be. Full of flavor and oily, it was smoky and rich, buttery and earthy-sweet. Eaten with a small handful of flakes, the flavor is not as intense, but it still stands out to bind all the components with a nutty aftertaste.

I was slightly less impressed with the ability of the pecans to bind the taste of the flakes together when I added milk. The cinnamon flavor was no longer as prominent, and despite a not objectionable wheat and bran taste, I picked up less on the rich and earthy flavors of the pecans and very little of the malt flavoring. This is where I felt the cereals 7 grams of sugar failed. Had all the flakes been given a glazed brown sugar syrup and malt coating the cereal’s sweetness would have likely stood up better in milk, but as it was, the best thing I can say about the flakes in milk is that they avoid the airy crisp that the Regular Special K cereal is famous for. Not great, but definitely not objectionable.

If Special K Cinnamon Pecan was banking only on its Cinnamon flavor, I’d say it’s the classic case of a cereal trying to walk the ‘healthy’ line and coming up a few grams of sugar too short. However, the addition of real pecan pieces, even in a small amount, makes up for its sweetness deficiencies, and create a complete and richly spicy bite when eaten as a snack. While I can’t say it’ll make the normal rotation, it does garner points for being one of the few mainstream cereals to utilize the expensive nut, and, in my opinion, one of the few Special K products worth a try. Just don’t bank on it to replace that Holiday pecan pie—especially if you have a southern grandmother.

Special K Cinnamon Pecan (Nutrition and Website)

• Price: $2.50 (on sale at Safeway)
• Ranking: 7/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 50%

Apple Cinnamon Cheerios

If there’s one thing I dislike about cereal, it’s that it’s hardly seasonal. Count Chocula and Christmas Crunch with their timely box art and release dates be damned, I’m talking about flavors here, people! With the full force of autumn gripping us, there is an intrinsic need to satiate that craving for fall produce and the warming effects of cinnamon and nutmeg. But for as awesome as a cereal like Roasted Butternut Squash with maple syrup and ginger sounds, there are few seasonally appropriate flavors featuring fall’s classic flavors.

Or are there?

I think we can all agree that if there exists a quintessential autumn cereal, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios belongs in the discussion. There are other apple and cinnamon flavored cereals, of course, and even some Apple Cinnamon flavored cereals. But the classic combination of flavors seems no more wholesome or complete then in the familiar oat shaped O’s that only Cheerios can bring us, and has been bringing us without interruption for over two decades . Loving autumn above all seasons, and cereal above many, many snacks, I guess you could say that it’s ironic — if not pathetic – that the last time I ate Apple Cinnamon Cheerios was years ago. With the leaves falling faster and the getting slimmer, however, I felt it high-time to see if the classic cereal deserves its iconic image.

Did You Know? Apple Cinnamon Cheerios was the third flavor of Cheerios to be released, first hitting shelves in 1988. Cheerios debuted in 1941, with Honey Nut Cheerios coming out in 1979.

I think it goes without saying we all have our favorite flavor of Cheerios, with many of us perhaps even subscribing to a Cheerio Cognition Theory which states the first kind of Cheerio we eat will always be our favorite. For me, it’s Honey Nut hands down. I love the glaze. I love the honey taste. I even love the fact that it gets its own mascot. Still, I’ll be the first to admit I don’t give the other flavors of Cheerios enough of a chance.

Case in point, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. I poured myself a bowl amidst the perfect setting. A crisp and cool fall evening may not scream breakfast table to you, but the sweet cinnamon taste and hearty oat flavors of the O’s don’t discriminate. I’m immediately struck by the cinnamon flavor. It’s clean and warming, as opposed to rich  and heavy (Cinnamon Toast Crunch) or harsh and overly earthy (Kashi GoLean Cinnamon Crumble). The thing about the flavor is that it seems to transcend just cinnamon alone. There are brown sugar notes as well, and I swear a whole host of those classic fall spices like cloves and ginger.

It’s a bold flavor, but it’s not an overhwelming sensation to overtake the apple flavor, nor loud enough to detract from the sweetness or hearty oat flavor of the O’s themselves. There’s something about the sweet start and slightly astringent finish of the flavor that goes extremely well with the oat base, which unlike the Apple Cinnamon Version of Chex, doesn’t suffer from any lack of baked-in flavor.

Pouring some milk over the cereal (a third cup skim mixed with two tablespoons Half-and-Half, for body and flavor) I like how the oats absorb the milk while still staying crunchy enough to resist falling apart. The sweetness takes on a wonderfully mellow flavor that accentuates the milk’s flavor. It’s almost like warm apple cobbler of ice cream in terms of taste, leaving a delicious end-milk with the perfect amount of sweetness and spice.

Something tells me I’m an idiot for having gone so long without reminding myself of how good Apple Cinnamon Cheerios are. Eating the cereal both plain and without milk, I really can’t find anything I dislike about it. It comes off as hearty and full flavored, with enough snackability to also make a great base for trail mix bags. I think, if there is one flaw, it’s that of most flavors of Cheerios — namely, there’s only one textural note. Still, given how Honey Bunches of Oats with Apple Bunches no longer exists, and how the Cheerios with Oats Clusters seems to have been taken off the market, I think it’s safe to say Apple Cinnamon Cheerios is the definitive source of fall flavors in cereal form.

Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (Website and Nutrition Info)

• Price: $1.67 (on sale at Safeway)
• Ranking: 8.5/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100% (next year)

Count Chocula

It’s that time of the year. Halloween. It’s coming. And while you anxiously await the first day of November in which you make your annual sojourn to Walmart to buy vastly discounted candy, you’ll have to spend the next two weeks settling for a cornucopia of full price scary-themed products.

For the cereal eater, October offers a chance to reconnect — or in some cases to try for the first time — the Monsters. Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry might not strike R rated horror movie fear into you, but like the heart racing cliff hanger in an actual monster movie, the first sight of the Monsters in stores leaves me on the edge of my seat every year.

Count Chocula, the progenitor of the trilogy if Halloween themed cereals, was first released in 1971, but it took me until the ripe old age of 22 to actually try it. Corn and marshmallow based, it’s known for being the cholatey foil to Lucky Charms, graced by the dentally challenged Count himself. Seriously, I haven’t seen a  one-tooth overbite like that since Conkers.

If limited edition doesn’t convince you to pick up a box, I’m assuming the seemingly unconquerable duo of chocolate and marshmallows will get you to Yet with similar cereals like Chocolate Lucky Charms now on the market year round, does Count Chocula really deserve its place as a must-buy each fall?

For me, the answer is still ‘yes.’ I start out as I always do — with a plain bowl for snacking. The standard cocoa and corn pieces are supposed to look like ghouls or goblins or something scary (bats?), but if you ask me they show a striking resemblance to the bad guys you stomp on in Mario. I go Yoshi on these guys and scoop them up onto my tongue, noticing a cocoa flavor with a medium yet hollow crunch. The cocoa flavor is moderate — not as strong as Cocoa Puffs , and by no means as rich as Krave or Mini Wheats Little Bites – but it’s respectable when eaten alone, and benefits from the sweet finish of the marshmallows, which seem to have a bit of vanilla flavor. I think the ‘mallows are supposed to represent ghosts. I actually enjoy them more than any other cereal marshmallow I’ve had, including Lucky Charms. As a snack, they serve to bind the cocoa crunch with a sweeter finish, and lend enough textural and flavor contrast to avoid completely mindness snacking.

If the combination of chocolate and marshmallows works dry, it dominates in milk. Even in skim milk, the cocoa flavor diffuses into the drink, leaving a sweet finish the end milk. The crunch remains strong even after a long soak, while the marshmallows take on a wonderful mouthfeel with a crisp vanilla flavor. While the cocoa corn pieces lose much of their cocoa flavor in milk, they remains sweet enough to keep things interesting.

There’s a reason Count Chocula comes back every year, and it’s not just because people like me enjoy reading the cartoons on the back of the box. If Swiss Miss has taught us anything, it’s that you just can’t go wrong with cocoa and marshmallows, especially when dairy is involved. What separates Count Chocula from, say Chocolate Lucky Charms, is the simple fact that Chocolate Lucky Charms’ marshmallows lack the dynamic vanilla and cocoa sweetness that the Count’s hold. While I’m not ready to proclaim chocolate Count Chocula as one of my must-have cereals to stock up on, it does warrant a yearly purchase for sure. Now, if only they could find some way to work in Candy Corn flavors, that would be truly epic.

Count Chocula

• Price: $2.50 (on sale at Safeway)
• Ranking: 8/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100% (next year)

Apple Jacks

Ah, autumn. Let us, for a moment, breathe it in.

Source: Crystal Ball Run

Great, isn’t it? With the the arrival of cooler air and multicolored leaves comes the weekly respite of college football games and the annual opportunities to watch grown men lay a shellacking on each other.

Can I get an “F-yea, America”?

I make no qualms about how fall is my favorite season. It’s not just about the football though, or the natural serenity of the autumnal landscape. Let’s be real here; with the fall comes some great, great foods. True, the bounty of summer produce — including those juicy sweet tomatoes – comes to an end, but a bounty of crisp, tart, and refreshing apples is right behind them.

Perhaps the iconic American fruit, Apples haven’t been immune to cereal imitators. Apple Cinnamon Cheerios has been of shelves for years, while other attempts to copy the classic flavor combination, like Chex’s Apple Cinnamon flavor, have come and gone. Many have even managed to taste mildly like an actual Apple, although when push comes to shove with Apple cereals, none can match that astringent and cool crisp of a Fuji or Empire.

Can some one explain what the bottom “thing” is?

Apple Jacks has never tried to though, and that’s one thing I’ve always admired about the cereal. Simple, straightforward, and one-note, Apple Jacks was the “cool” cereal to buy growing up. “We eat what we like,” said those kids in the baggy jeans and wavy hair, as that goofy father figure stared dumbfounded at their apparent lack of taste. “But it doesn’t even taste like Apples,” the dad would say. Pssh, who cares? 

Thing is, Apple Jacks does taste like apples. Kind of.

I spotted Apple Jacks on the cheap recently and couldn’t resist the fall flavors — even though the temperature in central Maryland was still registering above 90. Still, I felt it was time to revisit this classic. Pouring a half serving of the cereal to eat dry, I immediately noticed the crunch and sweetness. The crunch is light — say a 5 out of 10, and not as hearty as I remembered it — while the sweetness has a burst of cinnamon flavor. It’s sweet, very sweet, but there’s a nice and not overbearing tart flavor to it. It’s not the flavor of a fresh apple, but it is the flavor of a dried apples, albeit one with added sugar. It makes sense when you think about it, given that the cereal contains both dried apples and apple juice concentrate, but it also doesn’t make sense, given that the leading grain used to make the cereal is corn. Clearly, oat-based cereals lend themselves better to the Apple flavor, balancing the sweetness and tartness better than the more insipid blank canvas of corn flour.

I never ate Apple Jacks in milk as a kid, but overall I thought they had a good showing even when I sampled the rings in skim milk. The rings absorb a moderate amount of milk, with diffusion taking place so that the milk takes on a sweet and not overwhelmingly cinnamon flavor. Although the end milk flavor is mild and not overly spicy,  the sweetness was outstanding, and did much to lift up the otherwise bland liquid.

I like Apple Jacks, but I don’t love it. It’s right up there with Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, but it’s also entirely one note and not quite as crunchy, lacking enough textural and flavor contrasts to keep each bowl new and exciting. That being said, it can be ‘hacked’ for the ultimate in autumnal cereal experiences. I first discovered the Apple Jacks-Granola hack during my freshman year of college. Using the naturally crunchy and brown-sugar cinnamon properties of granola (not to mention the affinity of raisins for apples) a spoonful (oh hell, a ladle) of granola can go along way towards making Apple Jacks truly great. If, that is, you’re into the sugar rush. But hey, I am. And you know what they say.

Why do we eat Apple Jacks?

‘Cause we eat what we like.

Apple Jacks

• Price: $2.00 (on sale at Safeway)
• Ranking: 7/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 40%