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%

As Luck Would Have It…

Saturday is a special day for me. As the start of the 2012 college football season (well, technically, the Saturday start) it marks my annual right of coach potatoness. This year will be a bit more special than most years, however. Not only because my new job has inspired within me a desire for some genuine relaxation on the weekends, but because my favorite college football team, the Navy Midshipmen, will kick off from Dublin, Ireland against Notre Dame.

This is great for a number of reasons, chief among them the time difference. I speak of course to the fact that a game played in England on a Saturday evening means a game watched in America on a Saturday morning.

And what, fellow children of the 1990s, says TV on a Saturday morning better than cereal?

The choice of said cereal to consume while vegging out in front of a Saturday morning football game from Ireland is really a no-brainer. Copious amounts of sugar, all the better to recapture the childhood experience of One Saturday Morning cartoons, is a must. So to can be said for an enjoyable cereal mascot. And while Tony the Tiger’s athletic achievements make him a strong candidate, the setting points me to one and only one choice; Lucky Charms.

How have we not discussed this bastion of all things right with our childhoods before today? Well, better late than never. As many of you know, I have many gripes with the world, with one those gripes being the (in my mind) inexcusable crusade of, uh, certain people, to attempt to demonize large companies which manufacture breakfast cereals with (gasp!) more than a tablespoon of sugar per serving. Obviously, many kids and adult cereals fall within this spectrum, but perhaps no cereals have born more of a brunt of this attack than Lucky Charms. Perhaps it’s because of the marshmallows. Perhaps it’s because of the always enjoyable commercials. Maybe it’s just a subconscious prejudice against the obviously Roman Catholic Lucky Charms Leprechaun (who, by the way, goes by L.C. or ‘Lucky’). For whatever reason, Lucky Charms has been made the villain by those who blame the childhood obesity problem in this country on big cereal, and that’s just wrong. I ate this ‘crap’ every day right from the box when I was a kid, and still ran hitch routs into double coverage during tackle football at Recess. Was I Alex Teich shredding Notre Dame’s defense? Not exactly, but I was close.

Now, back to the issue of Lucky Charms representing something with the capability of bringing about the downfall of civilization. Maybe, if Lucky Charm’s marshmallows weren’t made up of stars and other magical shapes (more on this later) and instead featured little images of Joseph Stalin or Soviet Tanks, than we could proclaim them truly evil. Until that day though, they’ll be what they have always been. And that’s magically freaking delicious.

Office space. Do not judge me, mi amigos.

My soapbox of food politics aside for a moment, I feel as though a further examination of WHY Lucky Charms works is in order. Let us begin, as we always do, with a dry snacking rundown.

There have been times in my life where I’d favor my handfuls towards the oat pieces. There have been times when I’d go marshmallow crazy. These days, I’ve come to understand that each contributes something special, and that only a 50/50 handful can yield the truly magically delicious taste. The oats — -crispy-crunchy, oatey, sweet but not cloying – are best enjoyed in a slow chew with the marshmallows. ‘Mallows, it can be said, add a certain and unique binding property when exposed to saliva. At first slighty crunchy, they bind and blend together all textures and flavors they encounter once given the benefits of the first stage of mechanical digestion (ie. Chewing). What comes together is thus a sweet yet oddly hearty agglomeration of oats, sugar, dextrose and corn syrup, with the latter three dissolving in a transformative rainbow of perceptive sweetness. Hearts, Stars, and Horseshoes — Damn! son – for a serial cereal snacker, it’s as curiously satisfying in the way a fine chocolate or cheese is.

As luck would have it, my tastes have evolved enough in recent years to the point where I can now enjoy cereal with milk, as opposed to just a dry snack. It’s a good thing, too, because Lucky Charms are excellent in milk (like I need to tell you…) It’s not just that is leaves a sweet yet surprisingly hearty end milk (stained green, I should add) but that the textural properties of the marshmallows create a unique flavor experience.

It starts with the mouthfeel of the marshmallows. They’re smooth with a vicious surface, like a licked popsicle, actually. A light and sugary taste, verging somewhere between meringue and whipped light cream, literally hangs on your tongue, while the final bite of the ‘mallow still yields enough resistance to meet the definition of crunchy. As for the flavor, it’s sweet of course, but with a cotton-candy aftertaste that is found nowhere else in cerealdom, to my knowledge. The best part is you don’t even have to stand in line at the fair behind whiney kids and to the aroma of cow poop to get the full effect of the taste.

In terms of cereal X-factors, Lucky has it all. Boxes of Lucky Charms throughout history have come with mazes, toys in the box, and heck, even labels telling me I’m getting more whole grains than any other ingredient. The marshmallows come in eight distinct shapes (can you name them?) all of which were represented in a random, 27-gram pour (how’s that for luck?). The commercials are, as I’ve stated, quite excellent, although I tend to favor those which have featured the song naming all the ‘mallow shapes.

Lucky Charms is hard to beat. It’s iconic, to say the least, but when you break it down, it’s more than just sugary nonsense. Are there drawbacks? Well, the oats are a biter grainier than say, Malt-o-Meal’s excellent Marshmallow Matey’s, but I’d content the marshmallows are better. As for Marshmallow and oat cereals on a whole, there are established textural and flavor components which make the combination great, and far from the liquid poisen some claim it is. I say let the kids keep their Lucky Charms and Marshmallow Matey’s. Come this Saturday I know I’ll be enjoying a bowl in front a live football game from Ireland, hoping some of those marshmallow shapes serve as harbinger for a lucky — or just damn good — upset on the gridiron.

Beat Notre Dame!

Lucky Charms (Original)

• Price: $2.99 (21 oz. box on clearance at Safeway)
• Ranking: 9/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100%

Cheerios

This is a review of Cheerios. Not Frosted nor Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. Not Chocolate Cheerios. Not the forgotten Strawberry Banana Berry Burst Cheerios, nor the bygone cult classic, Team Cheerios.

Just Cheerios. The original yellow box. The toasted oat spheres no mom would ever go without packing in a sandwich bag for a toddler who has to sit through church, or, God forbid, some kind of “recital.” The kind of cereal that’s so healthy it has spawned studies and debates about its marketing promises to lower cholesterol. The cereal, I dare say, which every grocery store upon these golden shores sells.

But is Cheerios actually any good?

My personal history with Cheerios doesn’t go back to the days of Rugratism, unless you include sophomore year of college as a temporary return to that phase (in which case, you may actually have a valid point). Mostly exposed to Honey Nut, Frosted, and the occasional Multigrain Cheerio excursion during my youth, I remember switching over to plain Cheerios while on a semester long ROTC inspired “diet” which made me the eating equivalent to a 16th century monk (see: absolutely no fun allowed.) This was in stark contrast to my original ROTC inspired diet of freshmen year, which for breakfast saw me consume an extra-large bowl of Apple Jacks with Granola (to keep it healthy), a whole wheat bagel, oatmeal, yogurt, and usually two or three bananas.

Note: The cereal that should be given to actual ‘Rugrats’

Ironically, my physical; fitness during that freshman campaign far exceeded that of my sophomore year. But that’s another story for another day.

Back to Cheerios. The point is that the one period in my life in which I ate it, I was doing so to be healthy. More a chore than anything else, even then I ate it with fruit, or yogurt, or the occasional “Honey Nut Cut” of 50/50 Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios. Never, ever on its own.

Until recently.

There’s something special about Cheerios poured into ice cold milk*. The O’s crackle. They snap. They pop. More so than most cereals, I’m sure. You can see the bubbles from the milk breaking the surface at what could almost pass for a simmer, with the dynamic dance of milk slowly filtering into toasted oats. As a writer, the living sense of the bowl amazes me. The romantic poet in me, sitting outside on a shady summer afternoon, whispers that it can only be a harbinger of a transcendental cereal experience to come.

It’s not. As my spoon lifts the singing O’s into my mouth, I’m struck by the immense lack of taste. I’m not just talking about sweetness. There is, I think, very little discernible oat flavor. For all the marketing buzz words reflecting some variation of “wholesome,” I don’t pick up any hearty or toasted whole grain taste. It tastes, I hate to admit, like nothing.

The texture, as you well know, borders on mushy when allowed to soak in milk. With no sugar glaze nor protective barrier to stop the flow of liquid into the oats, they degenerate into a mess of insipid rings. Having never eaten cardboard, I can’t say that the grainy-mushy-tasteless texture reminds me of eating cardboard. But I imagine it does.

I’m disappointed, to say the least. But all is not lost. While Cheerios has never adopted a mascot like the Bee of its Honey Nut offspring, the box provides enough reading material to keep me interested. Recently, Cheerios has partnered with the USO to provide a cut-out postcard on boxes that can be sent to families of military members around the world. For each postcard sent, Cheerios will send a buck to the USO, which aids in providing support for not only armed forces members, but their families.

That’s a cause I can get behind, regardless of taste. As for that taste, however, I just don’t understand it. Perhaps it has to be hardwired into our minds as children who are saved from boredom in those little snack bags, but with its delicate crunch and very mild oat flavor, Cheerios just don’t hold any appeal for me in milk or outside of milk. Nevertheless, as a more affordable “canvas” cereal than many of the Organic and Natural brands offer, I can see how Cheerios still offers something undeniably good for you that can be customized your way, with any number of possibilities for fruit or other mix-ins. My favorite way to eat Cheerios? For the time being, I think it’ll be in a 4:1 ratio of the “Honey Nut Cut”, with the Honey Nut playing the former leading role.

• Price: $1.99 (18 oz. box on sale at Mars)
• Ranking: 4/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 10% (for the USO charity’s sake)

Food for Thought: Any Original Cheerios lovers out there? What’s your favorite way to geek the O’s out? Which Cheerios flavor do you like best?

*For testing purposes, I used SkimPlus milk, which, despite claiming to have the richness of full fat milk, does not.

Cereal Throwdown: Blueberry Edition

One day, when I’m the head of a conglomerate of cereal and ice cream companies, my first order of business will be to increase the amount of underrated fruit flavors in cereal. Aside from prohibiting subsequent “Honey Nut” flavors and setting limits on the amount of Chex and Cheerios flavors produced, I’ll make sure to give Blueberry its proper seat at the breakfast table.

Maybe it’s because summer has finally arrived, or maybe it’s just because I’ve grown bored with cereals featuring maple or chocolate, but I’ve been on a real blueberry kick as of late. Problem is, Blueberry tends to be one of those flavors (much like Banana) that can never truly be copied in a packaged box, with attempts often coming out as cloying and artificial at best, and downright objectionable at worst.

Not that companies don’t try, and not that I’m going to give up on blueberry flavored cereals entirely. By some rare convergence of market forces, I even managed to find myself looking at three distinct blueberry cereals in my family’s pantry. Struck by this occurrence, I decided this bounty was bequeathed for one reason and one reason only.

Yes friends, a throwdown. Let’s get to it.

Blueberry Muffins Tops (Malt-O-Meal)

A cereal with cult like status for college age penny pinchers who frequently find it on the shelves of Super Walmarts, BMT is your standard Cinnamon Toast Crunch-type cereal with a twist. That twist is a beyond cloying blueberry sweetness matched only by a heavy coating of sugar crystals and tiny specks of blue. Each piece has an oily sheen and a crisp-fried mouthfeel, but the taste is classic blueberry muffin, albeit in the Hostess bakery sense. The exterior sugar coating is thick and almost sticky, making snackability  difficult if you should find yourself in a public place. But that sugary coating? Lets just say it would get the kids from Heavyweights expelled from Camp Hope. Surprisingly, the multigrain element does come through when you get past the initial sweetness, as does a strong blueberry flavor that isn’t so drowned out by thirst-inducing sugar rush. Still, one won’t find any sour or astringent notes, and the serving size equates to a very, very small amount of squares. In milk it has a tendency to take on liquid like the Titanic, but a dissemination of the surface oil leads to a cut in the sugar rush and an enjoyable chew.

• X-Factors: Buying in bulk at Super Walmart. Resealable bag.  DOES NOT GO BAD. Still made with hydrogenated oils.
• Best If You Want…The most insane sugar rush in a cereal you could ever imagine. Also, a Hostess blueberry muffin.
• Could use some…Milk. And lots of it. With so much sugar this stuff just makes you thirsty. Also, a single serving container. A simple “bowl” can get out of control, really, really quickly.

Special K Blueberry (Kelloggs)

It took me a while to finally convince my mom to let a non Chocolate Special K into the household, but as a snack cereal, I wasn’t overly impressed with the blueberry edition of the lineup. Not only does the cereal box scream an an ethos of “fit into that bikini by eating bland Special K!” but it contains no mazes or other fun cartoon characters. The base itself is somewhere between crispy and crunchy, but the rice element is bland and the flavor is a mild generic berry more than anything else. It’s not all bad news though. The little blueberry oat clusters have a needed crunch and malted sweetness, but like all cluster cereals they tend to sink to the bottom of the box. I toughed out a bowl in milk (skim milk, to keep with the Special K ethos) but aside from a light blue color, the end milk just tastes like the insipid water it is. The flakes disintegrate too easily in milk, and while the berry flavor is actually less masked by the multigrain base, it’s not enough to excite me. Unless, maybe, I was on a perpetual Special K challange, and had visions of myself fitting into that bikini this summer.

• X-Factors: Blueberry oat clusters. Moderate amount of sugar (8 grams).  
• Best If You Want…to lose weight while enjoying a mild blueberry flavor with, I’m presuming, a half cup of skim milk and a Lifetime movie.*
• Could use some…actual dried blueberries. A cup of heavy cream to wash it down with.

Frosted Mini Wheats Blueberry Muffin (Kelloggs)

For all the praise I’ve sung for the Little Bites this was actually the first time I went with any of the fruit flavored Mini Wheat flavors. As a snack I don’t think you can best the structure. The pieces are solid and have a nice glaze that’s very sweet, but the catacombs of wheat on the interior also have dots of blue that give a more subtle backnote of blueberry flavor, especially in milk. I’d say the flavor is more blueberry muffin than blueberry, and just a tad less sweet than Malt-o-Meal’s version. The flavor won’t give you any sour or tart notes, but it does strike me as a little higher class than Malt-o-Meal’s rendition. In milk the sugared coating takes on a sumptuous mouthfeel, while the wheat squares slowly disintegrate in layers, giving you different levels of a soggy crunch with backnotes of berry. The end milk is sweet and drinkable, and like Doug Heffernan looking down on his last spoonful of pudding, I find myself becoming sad as my food ends. That’s ok though, because the end-dust is like a crunchy version of a blueberry pixie stick.

• X-Factors: Talking Mini Wheat cartoon characters. Crunchy sugar coating. Respectable nutrition. Addicting end dust. Solid commercials.
• Best If You Want…Need a discreet blueberry muffin fix without sending yourself into a sugar shock.
• Could use some…Sugared blueberry coating on the naked side. Blueberry “goo” in the middle.

Winner: Mini Wheats Little Bites

Who are we kidding? When it comes to blueberry cereal, I’m of the mindset that you’re better going with the mass-produced, cloying taste of soybean oil and glycerin than anything remotely tasting like an actual tart and plump blueberry. But where Malt-O-Meal’s Blueberry Muffin Tops is way-over-the-top, Kellogg’s Mini Wheat version is just over-the-top, and has the benefit of being both a great and portable snack, and a “proper” spoon and bowl cereal.

Your Turn: Anyone got any favorite blueberry flavored cereals out there? And to the eternal question: which Mini Wheats and/or Special K cereal do you like the best?

*I’m not discriminating. Substitute an entire box of Waffle Crisp and an old college football game, and you’ve got my life.

Cereal Review: Cinnamon Corn Pops

My relationship with Corn Pops is one of estrangement. A perennial staple of the single serving pouches you get at hotel buffets, Corn Pops is one of those cereals I make sure to load up on whenever I’m fortunate enough to hit up a Marriott. Yet I cannot recall one case in which my family has ever bought it, and to my knowledge, my only encounter with the sweet, glazed kernels of popped-corn and sugar has only come after a restless morning filled with free refills of hotel coffee and limp turkey bacon.

Earlier this year I saw an interesting post from my buddy Marvo about a Canadian spinoff of Corn Pops that had been cinnamatized, but at the time I thought nothing of it. We Americans have more than our share of cinnamon cereals, and it wasn’t like I was going to be going to Canada anytime soon anyways.

But when my friend Melissa offered to include new Cinnamon Corn Pops in a package of international friendship, I couldn’t say no. At worst the combination of cinnamon and sugar proves impossible to dislike, and at best, it’s one of life’s simple pleasures that can grace my cereal bowl any day.

Right off the bat, points for the cartoon on the back of the box. Depicting a corn pop dude with a cinnamon stick, it explains — in perfect English AND French, mind you — how exactly the amalgamation of cinnamon, sugar, and corn came to be. While I wouldn’t say it has led me to master the French language, it clearly provides me with more or less everything I need to know to survive if kidnapped by French chefs.

The first thing I noticed about these Corn Pops is that they’re structurally different from the American version. American corn pops are almost bean like in shape, with a noticeably glaze that leaves a sort-of-but-not-really sense of stickiness to your fingers. These Corn Pops are a bit bigger, much more like Kix. Actually, I’m fairly sure they are Kix, except with that characteristic Corn Pops aftertaste of, well, corn.

The cinnamon and sugar-coating is definitely apparent, and its taste puts it in the upper echelon of cinnamon sugar cereals. Not over-the-top like Cinnamon Toast Crunch, mind you, but bolder in the ratio of Cinnamon to sugar than you’d expect from a sugary kids cereal. There’s a real spice to it, and a depth which lingers even with the corn aftertaste. I’m very much sold on the super crunchy balls of cinnamon and sugar, and even find myself enjoying them in milk. Walking the tightrope between milk absorption and sugar dissolution, the pops remain both tasty in milk while leaving enough of their coating behind to provide for a worthy end-milk.

Not much to complain about with this cereal, even though I was initially bummed to find no sticky molasses “glaze.” Given how it performs in milk it’s tempting to work it into a morning bowl rotation, but it’s just too addicting to stop snacking on straight from the box. Dare I say I like this almost as much as French Toast Crunch, and I think it makes a strong contender for the best snacking cinnamon-sugar cereal on the market. Of course, that would be the Canadian market. Until then, I guess I’ll have to settle for another cinnamon flavored cereal.

Anyone got a Cinnamon cereal favorite? I’ve heard good things about Cinnamon Burst Cheerios, but aside from Cinnamon Toast Crunch, haven’t had too many “strictly cinnamon” cereals. Any standbys I should check out here on the American market?

Cinnamon Corn Pops

•  Price: N/A (International goodwill via Melissa)
• Ranking: 8.5/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 0% if not introduced to USA

Cereal Throwdown: Nesquik vs. Cocoa Puffs

When it comes to cereal featuring maple flavor, I’m more than happy to acquiesce to the claims of Canadian maple syrup. I’ve written extensively on the condition inspired by French Toast Crunch, and would ascribe any superiority it has over American counterparts (not including Waffle Crisp) to Quebec’s claim as the world’s leading producer of the deeply sweet syrup.  

Cocoa is a different story. Especially when it comes to cocoa featuring a cartoon character. For this I must differ to a bird of a different feather. A Cuckoo, to be more precise.

Little did I know there is a Canadian animal with the effrontery to challenge Sonny’s claim as the world’s greatest cocoa-inspired cereal. With balling skills equal to that of a Harlem globetrotter, the bunny (and no, he is not a rabbit) representing Canada’s Nesquik cereal would at first appear a charlatan of the U.S. of A’s iconic Cocoa Puffs. But is that really the case? Or have we American been lead into a fallacious conclusion about the nature of Cocoa Puffs, succumbing to the kind of insipid and dull taste that would hardly associate with going “cuckoo?”

I set out to glean the true master of cocoa taste, and to match Canada’s best with America’s enduring in a border showdown not seen since the fiercely contested 2010 Olympic Hockey Final.

To do this, I enlisted the help of some family and friends in setting up a blind taste test for me to try both cereals dry, and to pick out which one I liked best. I then attempted to identify which was which, and later I tasted both in milk (non-blind taste test.) The results after the jump…