Sour Patch Kids is Odd? Chicken and Waffles Cereal Says Hold My Milk!

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Post Cereals is taking the charge is offering some of the most head-scratching cereals to the market. After the buzz and release of its Sour Patch Kids cereal, it is now planning to take another meal favorite of mine and squeeze it into a box of carbs and sugary goodness.

Thanks to Instagram users Dan J. and Canadian Candy Hunters for sharing this photo of Post & Honey Bunches of Oats’ Chicken & Waffles Cereal.

The cereal is apparently already available in Canada, and rumor has it that on March 7, 2019, which happens to be National Cereal Day, Post and Honey Bunches of Oats will release Chicken & Waffles cereal (no chickens were harmed in the making of this cereal) will be unleashed on the United States.

Here’s what’s stated on the box: “Honey Bunches of Oats is celebrating cereal day by bringing your favorite brunch into your cereal bowl. Sweet and savory unite in a flavor intense cereal that combines chicken & waffles flavored goodness for a unique breakfast experience!”

My question is, should people go all Buddy the Elf and drizzle the cereal with maple syrup? 

How do you feel about a Chicken & Waffles cereal? Is this going too far, or do more brunch favorites need to be made into cereal?

A Seasonal Cereal for All Year

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Sure, it’s a little past the Christmas holiday, but flavor doesn’t recognize holidays. This past holiday season, General Mills gave cereal consumers the gift of Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, and we couldn’t be happier. It’s like getting socks and underwear each Christmas: it’s consistently good. General Mills had debuted the cereal in 2014 and it reappeared in 2015, but then the cereal company decided not to release it in 2016 or 2017. After numerous visits with mall Santas, our voices were heard and we got our cereal back in 2018.

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch comes in a family-sized box, as well as a smaller serving, depending on where you find it. For example, Walmart carries the family-sized version, while Target has the smaller box. Now that we have all the basics out of the way, let’s dig in to this review.

Aesthetics

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch gets four spoons. The packaging has been somewhat consistent since its 2014 debut, with bits of cereal wearing festive hats, while nested in a stocking. (wow, just typing that sentence makes it sound like you’re on a bad trip.) Plus, there’s some fun games on the back of the box, if you feel so inclined. The cereal itself looks like what you’re used to with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but instead with a dusting of sugar instead of cinnamon, obviously. If you haven’t caught on yet, the theme of Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch when it comes to this category is “consistency.”

Snackability 

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch shines in this category and receives the elusive five-spoon rating from me. In my opinion this cereal is one of the better ones eaten dry. I, myself, eat more of it that way than with milk. Every bite is as sweet and fulfilling as receiving that annual Christmas card from nana. The texture of the cereal is pleasant and the sweet dusting is much more pleasant over time than the cinnamon from Cinnamon Toast Crunch. This is one of those cereals you could take along on road trips, hikes, etc and feel full and slightly unhealthy eating. Just think of it as eating puppy chow (that snack that people make with Chex, powdered sugar and chocolate), minus the heavy dose of powdered sugar and chocolate.

Structural Integrity

If there is a downfall to this cereal, it’s the structural integrity component. Once you unleash the tiny morsels of sugary goodness into the bowl and pour milk over it (yes, if you pour milk first and then add cereal, you are a savage), the time you have to eat the cereal before it turns into soggy goop is as limited as this cereal on the holiday. The first two bites of it are delicious, but after that, the texture begins to subside, so does the sweet flavor, so all you’re left with is a soggy bowl of failure squares.

Cereal Concept

There are a lot of variations of “Toast Crunch” cereal, including this beloved Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch. There’s the OG Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch, French Toast Crunch, Blueberry Toast Crunch, Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros and Strawberry Toast Crunch. So, I give credit to General Mills for taking its beloved CT Crunch and expanding the line. I think the idea of making Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and releasing it only during the Christmas season is a great idea (as long as they release it every year from now on).

Flavor

If you’ve made it this far in the review, you already know that I’m a fan of the flavor of this sweet treat known as Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch. It’s sweet, but not overbearing to me. Unlike the last cereal I reviewed, Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch is one that I can eat two bowls of and not feel ashamed. Each piece is like a square, sugary version of Bugels, which shouldn’t come as a surprised since General Mills produces both products. Once your mind moves past the fact the cereal looks like it should be Cinnamon Toast Crunch, your mouth will thank you that it’s something better.

Final Thoughts

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch is one of my personal favorites among relatively new-flavored cereals. While I didn’t mind Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and I know lots of people love it, the cinnamon flavor was too much for me after a while. With this iteration of Toast Crunch, the flavor doesn’t bite as hard as CT Crunch, allowing it to be versatile for me in a bowl with milk or in my hand as I walk out the door to work. I will say that there is a little bit of an after taste, so you may need to drink coffee or juice or whatever you prefer afterward.

Perhaps the best thing working in this cereal’s favor right now is that because the Christmas holiday is past, boxes of this cereal are on clearance at stores. Now is as good of a time as ever to try Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, if you’ve never have before.

Let me know in the comment section below if you’ve tried Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch yet, or if this is a cereal that you would try. I’m interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

 

 

 

What Milk is Best for Cereal?

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Info from MilkLife.com

Today, I’m tackling an age-old question: what type of milk is best for cereal? Pardon the pun, but to spoil the rest of the blog, my answer to this is, “it’s the consumer’s choice.”

Yes, you’ll hear from the whole milk backers who will say anything less isn’t milk. There are those who oppose and say that whole milk is just too thick. A good compromise for that segment of the population is probably 2% milk. I grew up in a household where it was 2% or nothing. I never really questioned it, and it didn’t impact the way I ate my Super Mario Bros. and Zelda cereal.

Somewhere along the line, as I began to age, I transitioned to 1% milk. Yes, I’m a 1-percenter. *hangs head in shame* I wish I could offer a better reasoning behind this, but I think I switched to 1% because it was slightly cheaper. To this day, I still use 1%, although I’m not opposed to using 2% or whole milk.

Then there are the skim milk drinkers and users. I wish I could say something nice about skim milk, but to me it just looks like dirty dishwasher water. But hey, you do you. If you want to put pale water over cereal, have at it.

So the answer to “what milk is best for cereal” is it all depends on your preference, but just don’t use water. If you use water on cereal, you don’t deserve cereal.

What type of milk do you use on cereal and why? Sound off in the comment section.

Sour Then Sweet or Just a Bad Treat?

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When it was announced that Post Cereals was releasing a Sour Patch Kids cereal, the news was met with mixed reviews, rightfully so. I’m a big fan of Sour Patch Kids candy, but the thought of sour-flavored candy and milk? The potential for sour-tasting milk just sounds like a bad idea.

Sour Patch Kids cereal released Dec. 26, 2018, exclusively at Walmart. A wider release is expected at a yet-to-be determined date in 2019. The 18-oz box of cereal retails for just under $4, after tax. Upon opening the box and bag of cereal, your nose is immediately met with notes of regret. One whiff and you can smell a tart/sour scent. Now onto the review/rating system (if you need further explanation of my system, check out my previous blog post)

Aesthetics

Sour Patch Kids cereal gets 3 spoons from me for its appearance. The packaging is fun and is easily recognizable to the brand. Also, to fit with the “Sour Then Sweet” whimsical behavior of the Sour Patch Kids, they include a mad libs activity on the back of the box. The cereal itself looks nothing like the candy and really doesn’t look like anything, except a bowl full of multi-colored sea monkeys before you add water. In essence, the cereal has the same color and dusting of sweet flavor on it like you would see from Fruit Loops.

Snackability 

When eating the cereal dry, the tart flavor is definitely noticeable. For me, it almost always creates that little pocket of saliva in the back of your mouth because of that flavoring. Therefore, I don’t think I could recommend eating handful of this cereal dry as a snack during the car ride to nana and pop-pop’s house, unless you are prepared to start drooling uncontrollably.

Structural Integrity

The cereal actually holds up well, after sitting in milk for a bit. Some cereals you feel like you have to beat the clock and eat as fast as possible, otherwise it loses its crunch. However, Sour Patch Kids cereal seems to maintain the crunch. Maybe it’s due to the shape of the cereal and how its a little more compact.

Cereal Concept

It’s no surprise anymore that companies like to one up each other with who can do the most outrageous thing with mixing flavors with random foods.  (e.g. Taco Bell, Lays Potato Chips, etc.) In the history of the cereal, there are always been cereals inspired by other snacks or treats, such as Oreo O’s, S’mores, Nutter Butter and many more. While the idea of making this Sour Patch Kids was good in the sense of being a polarizing topic that generated a lot of buzz, it’s hardly a new idea in general. I give them credit for engineering a cereal based off the candy though, since a bowl of actual Sour Patch Kids in milk would just be awful. After typing that, I feel like I have to advise you not to go out and try that. If you do then that’s on you.

Flavor

Sour Patch Kids’ tagline is “Sour Then Sweet” but the cereal version of it is more “Sweet Then Sour.” Once adding milk to the cereal, it does seem to dilute the sour/tart flavor a little that compared to eating the cereal dry. Some may liken the cereal to puffy Fruity Pebbles and I could see that correlation. However, to me, each spoonful of this cereal seems like I’m eating odd-shaped Fruit Loops with a little tart to them. The good news is that the milk does not have a tart/sour taste from the cereal, so if you enjoy drinking the cereal milk then you should be okay. Also, much like Fruit Loops and Fruity Pebbles, just because each piece of cereal is a different color, it doesn’t mean they taste any different, unlike the Sour Patch Kids candy itself.

Final Thoughts

Sour Patch Kids cereal is a fun cereal, especially if you enjoy trying “out there” food ideas. Is it as gross as some may think? Personally, I don’t think so, but everyone’s taste buds are different. I usually judge how much I like the cereal based on how many bowls of it I could eat in one sitting. For Sour Patch Kids cereal, I can’t eat more than one bowl of it for breakfast. The tart/sour flavor is just too much beyond that one bowl for me. However, don’t let that deter you from the cereal. If you’re adventurous or like Sour Patch Kids candy, or your kids do, then give this cereal a whirl. If nothing else, you can boast to friends that you ate it and survived to tell about it. Now, let’s all hope there is never a black licorice cereal.

What are your thoughts on Sour Patch Kids cereal? Have you tried it or would you try it?

 

 

 

Review Rating System

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Every good review needs a rating system, and when it comes to cereal I have derived my own. Each cereal I try will be reviewed in a few different categories and given ratings of 1 to 5 spoons, with 5 being the best. In addition, to the categories I will use to rate the cereals on, I will also give a final verdict about the cereal.

What are the categories I will be rating? Great question, thanks for asking, and no nutritional value will not be a part of this. We all know none of this is exactly “healthy” for us. However, it’s all good in moderation. 😉  Here are the categories:

  • Aesthetics
    • Everything from packaging to how the cereal itself looks
  • Snackability 
    • How good is the cereal eaten dry as a snack?
  • Structural Integrity
    • How well does the cereal hold up once milk has been added?
  • Cereal Concept
    • How creative is this cereal? Is it something new, or does it seem like the same cereal but in different packaging and shapes?
  • Flavor
    • Simply put: is this stuff any good?

 

Let’s Dig In!

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It was only a matter of time, right?

As far back as I can remember, cereal has always been a part of my life. As a kid, I viewed it was “candy” for breakfast. (this could help explain why I was such a husky child). I was a cereal brand’s target audience: a sucker for bright colors, sweet treats and cartoon characters.

Fast forward a few decades later, and apparently not much has changed. Even as an adult, I find myself gravitating to the next cereal gimmick, while still indulging in the classics such as Honey Nut Cheerios, Cap n’ Crunch, Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, etc.

I’ve finally decided it was time to take the next step and start a blog that involves one of my favorite things–cereal. In this blog, I want to share news, random thoughts and, most importantly, my taste-test reviews of the latest (and strangest) cereals, so you can spare your taste buds of any unnecessary torture. I hope you finish each of the future blog posts informed and entertained. Thanks for reading!

-Joe