Cereal Review : Minions Cereal

Posted by robbposch on June 8, 2015
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Seeing a “Minions” cereal on the shelf just made me think, “Wow, it took that long?”  Timing it with the upcoming movie makes sense, but since the characters have blown up so big and long since escaped being tied with the Despicable Me license, it seemed like Universal would have wanted to milk that cash cow a while back.

As of now, I like the Minions.  They’re harmless, funny, and the humor harkens back to old slapstick more than modern Dreamworks humor.  Shrek’s humor always had that not-subtle coating of cynicism and mean-spiritedness, something that made it age very poorly for me.  But old school slapstick is timeless.

And the fact that these characters literally speak gibberish is fantastic.  I’m actually disappointed the upcoming movie has human characters.  I would have loved to have seen how far they could take a movie with no dialogue, and survived solely on the lunacy of the characters.  Like the first half of Wall-E on amphetamines.

I’m not too thrilled with those Minions memes on Facebook, though.  Those can go away as soon as possible.

01

It was surprising that the cereal didn’t involve marshmallows in some capacity.  Though I was grateful for the respite, given the terribleness of the last two marshmallow-containing movie tie-in cereals I’d had.

Instead, Minions cereal goes with a square cereal piece with Minion designs on them.  Whether the cereal pieces would be more Golden Graham or Cinnamon Toast Crunch was yet to be determined, but it looked like CTC was the front runner.

The box design is good enough – it gives you a giant Minion design and shows some of the cereal, so it gets the point across.  Other than that, there’s not too much on the box worth noting.  Oh, wait…

Ugh.  Oh, no.

Banana flavored?

Well, this is discouraging.  The presence of “berry” in the flavor didn’t do much to lift my spirits.  Oh well – on with the show.

Thankfully, upon opening the box, the banana smell was not overwhelming.  It was barely present, surprisingly.  Banana doesn’t tend to be a subtle flavor or scent, so I had a small glimmer of hope.  Just a small one, though – this is still banana we’re talking about.

02

Speaking of “barely present”, the Minion designs on the cereal are… unimpressive.

I mustered up all the courage I could, and took a bite.  And the flavor is… pretty good?  Wait, what?

This is a cereal based on hyperactive weirdos, with a flavor that tends to punch you in the face with its assertiveness, and the end result is a relatively restrained usage of banana?  Color me surprised.

03

The banana flavor is more akin to banana bread than the “BANANA!” flavor you tend to get in candy, ice cream, and other banana-flavored foods.  The “berry” aspect is there as well, but it is also not a strong flavor.

The end result is Cinnamon Toast Crunch with some back-end flavors of banana bread and some mysterious berry flavor.  Oddly enough, the berry aspect of the taste is the worst part.  It’s not bad, it’s just kind of pointless.

Given my fears, I’m as surprised as anyone that I not only finished the bowl, but actually enjoyed it.  Well, enjoyed it enough.  I’ll probably finish the box, but that’d be it for me.  For a banana-flavored cereal, the fact that it’s as good as it is – shocking, really.

[insert seal of approval here]

(Approval given mainly due to how impressed I am that they made this cereal so edible in spite of the uphill battle it faced)

Ice Cream Review : Watermelon Bomb Pop

Posted by robbposch on June 3, 2015
Posted in: Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

This isn’t, apparently, a groundbreaking review of a new product.  From what I can see, this came out about last year or so.  But I’ve only recently begun seeing it near me, so for my purposes, it’s new.  And that’s what counts.

I’m not going to get into the mythical properties of the Ice Cream Man.  There’s too much to say on the topic, too much emotional gushing, and just too much nostalgia for me to properly do it justice in an introductory section.  But I will briefly touch on my Ice Cream Man.  My current, insane, Ice Cream Man.

You will know he is in the area when you start to hear Christmas music in the summer.  If you flag him down, you will see the wonderful assortment of products he has to offer – colorful product sheets stuck on the side of the truck.  He will, however, not actually have any of these things for sale.

If you ask for a Batman pop, he won’t have it.  If you ask him for a dozen other things shown on the truck, those won’t be available, either.  He will then say the five or so random bars he has on the truck – presumably, the things he found in his house’s freezer earlier that day.

A few years back, he randomly had one thing that looked good – a Watermelon Bomb Pop.

01

This intrigued me, since Bomb Pops are awesome, watermelon flavoring is awesome, and it looked like a pop-shaped version of a Wattamelon Roll.

I will not delve into the sadness of my Wattamelon Roll absence, as it has been covered before.  But still, I am sad.  All the time.

The Bomb Pop turned out to be awesome, and I looked forward to the Ice Cream Man coming back around, to purchase a bunch more.  However, he never had any more for sale.  Instead, I was probably offered a Target-brand Chocolate Eclair or peanut butter Frosty Paws.

I contacted Blue Bunny back in 2012, but was told that this product could only be purchased through vendors, and couldn’t be bought directly, and was not available in stores.

Then, a few weeks back, I saw the retail version in stores, and was joyous.

02

Bomb Pops now come in a few varieties, but those other varieties don’t matter because what’s important is that Watermelon is sold in stores.

03

One big difference between the Bomb Pop and the Wattamelon Roll is that the Bomb Pop is dairy free.  The pop isn’t sherbet, and the chips aren’t chocolate.  The chips are this weird, compressed blackness, made up basically of oil and sugar.  They don’t really taste like anything, but it’s okay.

The chips give some bite to the pop, and makes it look more like watermelon.  So I don’t particularly care what sort of witchcraft and chemicals went into making them.

I don’t want to insult either company with my comparisons.  As is well known, Wattamelon Rolls are literally the greatest creation in mankind’s history.  So the Bomb Pops have a lot to live up to.  I make the comparisons to show that the Bomb Pops prove to be a worthy substitute, since I can’t buy the Friendly’s goodness.

Or, to put it in a classier way – the Watermelon Bomb Pops are the methadone for my Wattamelon Roll withdrawals.  Just slightly less effective.

So go out and buy these – they’re awesome.

[insert seal of approval here]

Cereal Review : Marvel Avengers Cereal

Posted by robbposch on April 10, 2015
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

When Disney bought Marvel, there was a lot of concern.  It was mostly stupid concerns, usually akin to “Now Mickey Mouse is going to become a part of the Avengers LOLOL aren’t I original?”  But there were some genuine issues raised over Disney’s handling of Marvel licenses, especially in the cinematic realm.

 

I wasn’t worried about any of this.  Until now.  Thanks to Disney and Marvel’s synergy, the new Avengers cereal sucks.

 

01

 

I wouldn’t have expected Avengers cereal to be some ground breaking cereal, with all sorts of new marshmallow technology, or anything.  But I would have hoped it wouldn’t literally be the same cereal as Frozen’s cereal, with a few marshmallow dye changes.

 

Since you most likely already forgot, I hated the Frozen cereal.  The one saving grace that cereal had was a truly nice looking box.  Avengers doesn’t even have that – it’s perfectly serviceable for what it is, but it’s nothing particularly good.

 

The box also specifies it’s a “Hero Edition”.  One would assume that a Villain Edition can’t be far behind, but I don’t know how popular a weird-looking Ultron Prime box would be.  If they fill the box with his much better looking drones, then that could work.

 

It’s also possible they’re saving the Villain Edition for later on, in case they put a villain on the box that’s meant to be a surprise in the movie.  In any case, I won’t be buying the Villain Edition.

 

03

 

The marshmallows in Avengers cereal are pretty good looking.  I assume they’re meant to symbolize various members’ uniform colors.  But the odd shades of the marshmallows hinder this comparison.  Though I wouldn’t mind seeing Avengers 3 with Captain America in a teal and magenta uniform, or a pink and yellow Iron Man.

 

If you think of the marshmallows as round Bonkers candies, they look more appealing.

 

Other than the marshmallow color change (and removing the diamond-shaped marshmallows), this is Frozen cereal.  Same cheap cereal pieces with the weird and vaguely unpleasant fake vanilla aftertaste.

 

02

 

On the bright side, if you stick with it like Calvin eating Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs to get his beanie, you can eventually get a free movie ticket.  The movie ticket requires six boxes of Avengers cereal, unlike Calvin’s four boxes – so he got the better deal.  But for about $18, you can get six boxes of cereal and a ticket to see the movie.

 

That’s probably a pretty legit deal if you have a kid who will eat anything with Iron Man on it, or you are a fan of bad cereals.

 

[no seal of approval]

Soda Review : Mountain Dew’s Dew Shine

Posted by robbposch on April 1, 2015
Posted in: Soda Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Since nothing screams “High Class” like Mountain Dew, Pepsi has decided to step up their game and make the Dew even more fancy.

 

01

 

When Mountain Dew’s Dew Shine was announced, the term “craft soda” kept getting thrown around.    I figured calling it a craft soda was an easy term to use, for a soda that will surely be made in smaller batches and with slightly higher quality ingredients than usual.  Or, very likely, it’s being called a craft soda because it comes in a nicer bottle.

 

I don’t think this particularly qualifies as a craft soda, since personally I wouldn’t consider a product from a gigantic beverage company to be “craft”.  But maybe it is, I don’t actually know.  Or care, really.  I’m happy enough to call it that because that’s easier that coming up with a better term myself.

 

There will be two things you notice right off the bat.  First, the Dew’s trademark Nickelodeon slime coloring is absent.  The second – more alarming – thing you will notice is how terrible the name is.  Unless Pepsi is going out of their way to make juvenile jokes, it’s an unfortunate result that the majority of the name is pronounced as “douche”.  Maybe Pepsi got the idea for the name watching Beavis and Butthead when Beavis mentioned that “I do shine my pants.”

 

Name aside, the bottle design is nice, implementing the Throwback aesthetic.  Just… thrown back even more.

 

02

 

Dew Shine’s new, clear color will bring obvious comparisons to Crystal Pepsi.  However in this case, Dew Shine seems to simply be an attempt to improve the quality of Mountain Dew, including removing the “stigma” of the fake coloring.  As opposed to whatever was going on with Crystal Pepsi.

 

Taste-wise, Dew Shine is… okay.  It removes the fake “citrus” (in heavy quotation marks) of Mountain Dew, and replaces it with more of an actual citrus flavor.  Though I mostly just get lemon.  The allure of “real sugar” isn’t attractive to me for Mountain Dew.  I never found Mountain Dew Throwback as successful as Pepsi Throwback, because I didn’t think the “real sugar” had as much impact on the Dew recipe.

 

03

 

Pepsi succeeded in making what they were trying to make – a soda that tastes like Mountain Dew, but not exactly.  Is it better?  I don’t think so.  But I think I’m too attached to loving chemical sweeteners and artificial coloring.

 

It’s enjoyable, and arguably a good soda, but I won’t be buying it again.  I think I’m just too low class for this.

Cookie Review : Cadbury Creme Egg Cookies

Posted by robbposch on March 5, 2015
Posted in: Candy, Food, Food Review, Holidays. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

 

As I have previously mentioned, I’m not a fan of Cadbury Creme Eggs.  I used to be – in fact, I loved them.  At least, I think I did.  I’m assuming I was just enamored of the novelty of a chocolate and liquid sugar-filled egg.  It rarely ever actually looked like an egg white and yolk, but they were at least trying.

 

Don’t get me wrong – I’m still a huge sucker for novelty, especially when it comes to food.  But the flavor and “peak of flu season” mucus-like consistency of the filling is just too much to bear.

 

01

 

When I saw Cadbury Creme Egg Cookies on the shelf, my first thought was, “Oh.”  I think that was the appropriate reaction.  The packaging describes the cookies in two different ways.  I will let you decide which description you feel is more effective:

 

“Cookies with a white and yellow fondant filling and a delicious Cadbury coating”

 

“Cookies with a white and yellow fondant filling covered in a milk chocolate and vegetable fat coating”

 

I’m assuming John Q. Cadbury V came up with the latter, and the design team was too worried for their jobs to not use it.  Personally, I like the second description – the use of the term “fat” in a product description has an admirable level of “screw it”.

 

02

 

The cookies look about what you’d expect them to.  Moving on.

 

03

 

Cadbury was able to do a pretty legit job of centering the yolk on the cookie.  I was expecting it to just have yolk haphazardly strewn throughout the filling.

 

But regarding the yolk – I’m assuming Cadbury is saying bunny eggs have bright orange yolks?  And if so, why is the Creme Egg logo always placed on a yellow splatter?  I find the orange yolk intensely off-putting.  I don’t know why I would find the concept of a yellow yolk in my cookie better, but I do.

 

The cookie part itself is dark brown, but it tastes like shortbread.  This is the best part of the overall cookie.  But given my dislike for the Creme Egg filling, I was surprised to find myself enjoying the whole thing.

 

There is just enough Creme Egg slime to give you some of the flavor and softer texture, but not enough to initiate my gag reflex.  The chocolate coating is okay, but nothing special.  I think this batch needed more vegetable fat.

 

Not surprisingly, there are points where the sweetness is almost overwhelming.  Eating one of the cookies is a bizarre wave of sweetness ebbs and flows.  You immediately are hit with the Creme sweetness, then it dials back for the more subdued shortbread sweetness, then the Creme comes back all “I’M NOT DONE YET!”  It would have been nicer if the cookie went out on a more reasonable note, but I guess it’s not terribly surprising.

 

Overall, the Creme Egg Cookie is quite good.  I don’t see myself having more than one a day, but before having any I’d assume I’d never want to eat more than one full stop.  So that’s a victory for it.  And given that this is a chocolate covered cookie injected with Creme Egg filling, the nutrition stats aren’t off the charts.  Two cookies for 150 calories – you could have the entire package of six for 450 calories.  Not a dietary delight, but for an Easter pigout, there’s worse routes to take.

 

So if you like Creme Eggs, you’ll probably love these.  And if you don’t, they’re still worth a try.

 

04

Cereal Review: French Toast Crunch

Posted by robbposch on January 7, 2015
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I have been addicted to cereal since the age of whatever age you are when you start chewing solid food.  Even as a kid I tried to get every new cereal possible, but apparently I missed the hype of French Toast Crunch when it was originally out.

 

Since Cinnamon Toast Crunch has always been one of my favorites, I can’t imagine not having French Toast Crunch.  However, I can’t ever remember having an opinion on it.  I didn’t like Waffle Crisp or Eggo Cereal – so maybe I just lumped French Toast Crunch in with the other syrupy cereals.

 

That exciting personal anecdote serves to reintroduce us to French Toast Crunch.

 

01

 

Like with Surge, it seems that companies are realizing that the internet’s loud and annoying voice sometimes indicates an actual void for a product – not just our usual desire for our stupid opinions be heard by any means necessary.

 

Since I was never into French Toast Crunch originally, the apparent clamoring for its re-release was something I was only mildly aware of, but obviously didn’t partake in.  My “Please re-release this!” efforts have been focused more on other items, including Bonkers and Crispy Wheats ‘n’ Raisins cereal.  Bonkers actually are making a return, which will be amazing.  Crispy Wheats ‘n’ Raisins, not so much yet.

 

The packaging for French Toast Crunch is nice in its simplicity.  A bold red box with basically just a logo and the cereal pieces on a spoon gives the box a retro charm without seeming pandering.  No matter how old I get, I don’t think I will ever tire of Cinnamon Toast Crunch  and its offshoots’ logos, with the variety of simply-colored letters.

 

This box design is almost identical to one of French Toast Crunch’s older designs, but with the “You asked, it’s back!” proclamation taking the place of Wendell the baker.

 

General Mills might be using this design to distance themselves from Wendell, due to the growing belief that he killed Bob and Quienno, the other two bakers, in order to have the spotlight to himself.

 

02

 

I’m very happy that General Mills went with the red box, instead of this other version it used to have.  This version is actually more in line with the aesthetics of the current Cinnamon Toast Crunch box, but if you’re going to bring back an old product, you might as well make that as obvious as possible.  Also, the red box is just so much more awesome.

 

The back of the box is something I’ll get to at the end, so as not to break up the cereal discussion.

 

03

 

Since I don’t remember actually eating French Toast Crunch, I don’t remember the cereal pieces.  Or, to be more accurate – I don’t remember how freaking awesome these cereal pieces are.  French Toast Crunch could have been a lazy cereal piece – give people a vaguely slice of bread-shaped piece, and that’d be good enough.  Instead, General Mills goes all out – the pieces are distinctly bread-shaped, it has a crust, it has visible cinnamon, and the cereal piece’s coloring makes it look like French toast soaked in syrup.

 

Cereal pieces are often underwhelming, and are rarely flat-out impressive.  French Toast Crunch’s cereal pieces deserve an award for accuracy.

 

The visuals are a great start, but more important is the taste.  And French Toast Crunch is good.  I know I will let some long time fans of the cereal down by not being over the moon about it.  But I’ve never been a syrup-cereal guy, so the fact that I enjoy this says a lot for the cereal.

 

French Toast Crunch is enjoyable, to be sure – the pieces have a nice crispy yet airy and slightly chewy texture.  Best of all is the fact that the sweetness isn’t at violent levels.  An artificially-sweetened cereal meant to taste like a very sweet breakfast food could be disastrous.  Instead, French Toast Crunch is relatively restrained, and has a very appropriate level of sweetness.

 

So while French Toast Crunch won’t rank as one of my favorite cereals, it is quite good.  I’m happy that fans of the cereal have it back, and I’m happy that a once-extinct cereal has returned.  That bodes well for other potential cereal returns.  Well played, internet.

 

[insert seal of approval here]

 

As mentioned above, the box’s design is very well done – until you flip it to the back.  On the back of the box, you will find one of those stupid “Only 90’s kids will get this!”-type quizzes.

 

04

 

So, for the sake of a thorough French Toast Crunch review, I will take this quiz.

 

You played grunge or hip hop jams on your boom box.

Fun Fact: This is literally the stereo I used to listen to “Nevermind” with, because I had to hide it from my disapproving parents:

05

I guess I’ll count that one for me.

You remember gas being under a dollar.

Fair enough.

You insisted that people “Talk to the hand”.

No.

You had clothes that were either baggy, backward, or neon.

Guilty on all three counts.  Though wearing backwards clothes is absolutely acceptable on National Kris Kross Day, a holiday to pay tribute to an important part of our nation’s history.

You secretly prepared for Y2K.

I didn’t, but my parents did.

You went to the video store to rent VHS tapes.

That seems like a gimme, but sure.

You knew the Macarena dance by heart.

Nope.

You tight-rolled your jeans.

I have no idea what this even means.

You practiced doing the “Running Man” in the mirror.

No.

You had a poster of your favorite boy band on the wall.

I had a metal army tin originally meant to hold ammo that I filled with New Kids on the Block cards.  But no poster.

You played video games at home more than the arcade.

Eventually, this was probably true.

You used the term “Chillin’ at my crib”.

No.

You frosted your hair.

Dyed blue, yes. Frosted, no.

You totally ate French Toast Crunch for breakfast.

Nope.

You occasionally threw the word “NOT” at the end of a sentence.

This is true – NOT.  But seriously, I never did this.

 

So according to the score chart, my 90’s-ness ranks as “Don’t Go There”.  Oh well.

Cereal Review: Disney’s Frozen Cereal & Froot Loops Bloopers

Posted by robbposch on December 30, 2014
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

After letting the movie go through the indie circuit for a while, Disney has finally decided to release a little marketing effort for Frozen.

 

In case you haven’t heard of it, Frozen is a small little movie from Disney.  The studio has its fingers crossed that they will turn a profit, and it looks like they will have a good chance given the fact that the box office and merchandising have brought in approximately eleventy skillion dollars.

 

01

 

The cereal’s release is a bit odd, since it seems like they’d have put this out a while ago to coincide more directly with the movie’s release.  But I guess this is one of those “tying in with home video” cereal releases, which are usually reserved for when a movie did insanely well in theaters but they forgot to release a cereal back when it first came out.  I’m completely guessing with that whole thing, and using only this movie as my evidence.

 

Frozen cereal is a yin yang of effort – a fantastic cereal box with an extraordinarily lazy cereal inside.  Frozen goes the route of lots of licensed cereal, with the whole “slightly larger than variety pack-sized” box size – 8.4 ounces.  Going off memory, The Amazing Spider-Man Cereal was the smallest licensed cereal box I’d seen in a long time, and Frozen goes even smaller than Spider-Man’s 8.7 ounces.  Insert shrinkage joke here.

 

While the box itself is small, it looks great.  The box is covered front to back in a shiny, winter-y sheen.  My usual horrible pictures don’t nearly do the box justice, as the box is legitimately really well designed.  It’s bright and reflective, with a nice balance between showing the characters and still giving the nice background imagery a chance to shine through.

 

02

 

Disney hedged their bets between letting the Anna and Elsa star on the box, and showing the whole cast, by doing a double A-side box.  Instead of having a pointless maze or something on the back of the box, they just had two fronts of the box.  This way they get to have the two main characters again, but also show Olaf, red-nosed human guy, and Moosey the moose.

 

It’s a dumb thing to get excited about, but this really is the nicest cereal box I’ve seen in a long time.

 

Now, the bad news.  The cereal kind of sucks.

 

03

 

I mean, the cereal isn’t bad, it’s just lazy and boring.  It’s cereal pieces with marshmallows.  And yes, most movie tie-in cereals nowadays goes this route.  But Frozen used these grimy cereal pieces – puffy without being puffs, sort of crunchy without being nice Lucky Charms-esque pieces.  They’re in this unpleasant middle ground, and have a distinctly cheap “store brand” appearance.

 

Like the texture, the taste is also in a middle ground.  For a sweetened cereal with marshmallows, it’s bizarrely restrained when it comes to sweetness.  Not sweet enough to be an indulgence, not not-sweet enough to taste healthy.

 

The cereal pieces are almost as pale as the white marshmallows.  I know it’s a Frozen cereal, but this pale, washed-out color palette reads as depressing, not wintery.

 

Obviously, Disney didn’t have to put much effort into the cereal, because all they had to do was slap “Frozen” on a box of bran flakes and kids would be violently grabbing the boxes off store shelves.  But since the box is so well done, it’s a shame the inside didn’t match the outside.

 

[no seal of approval]

[but I wouldn’t begrudge you buying it just for the packaging]

 

 

Froot Loops have always been a minor-league call up cereal for me.  I never go out of my way for it, but occasionally I’ll get a box and remember that it’s awesome.  Then Kellogg’s released Froot Loops Treasures last year, and the Froot Loops name has stayed among my upper echelon of cereals.  Froot Loops Treasures are one of my favorite cereals released in a while.  So while the Froot Loops brand gained favor with me, regular Froot Loops has still sort of hung around in the background.

 

04

 

Kellogg’s seemed to struggle with a unique brand extension, and finally just said, “what if we made the loops into spheres?”  After the rest of the people in the meeting presumably shrugged and responded with, “I guess”, Froot Loops Bloopers were born.

 

Naming your product after a term that means “error” or “hilarious mistake” doesn’t seem like the best start.  Then bragging on the box about your “Out of this world new shape!”, when referring to a bowl of uniformly-shaped circles doesn’t seem like a strong follow-up decision.

 

Despite Froot Loops Bloopers being off to a very unimpressive start, I soldiered on.

 

 

05

 

Bloopers seem to keep the same shades of colors that the regular Loops have, making for a nice-looking bowl of cereal.  The colors themselves are a little more subdued than the almost-neon colors of Trix or Oops! All Berries, and the pastel shades make for a nice change of color pace.

 

I was surprised at just how good the cereal was.  Going from loops to spheres has improved the cereal’s taste.  Not that Froot Loops don’t taste good, but I just seemed to like the flavor better in this – dare I say – out of this world shape.

 

I’ve never been a fan of Trix – something about the flavor of it always seemed unpleasant to me.  And while Oops! All Berries is okay, I don’t particularly want a whole bowl of the berries without some of the blander Cap’n pieces to balance them out.  Bloopers seems to be the best compromise of fruit (froot) flavor in a spherical venue, without comically high levels of sweetness.

 

I can’t imagine this cereal lasting too long, only because of how pointless this product seems – at least until people try it.  Then again, I assumed Treasures wouldn’t last that long, and they’re still around.  So hopefully Bloopers stick around for a little while, because they’re awesome.

 

[insert seal of approval here]

Ice Cream Review : Friendly’s Jubilee Roll

Posted by robbposch on December 24, 2014
Posted in: Food, Food Review, Holidays. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

I touched upon the glory that is Friendly’s Jubilee Roll in my groundbreaking exposé on Walmart’s refusal to make me happy by stocking Wattamelon Rolls.

 

And while Wattamelon Rolls will always be my one true love, it is important to give Jubilee Rolls their much-deserved due.

 

01

 

We will ignore the fact that I can’t easily walk into a Friendly’s restaurant, since I live thousands of miles from the nearest one.  If I did live near one, I could go in there whenever I want, and buy a Jubilee Roll for a modest price.  But when I was a kid, this was not something so easily done.  When I was little, Jubilee Rolls were flat-out impressive – they were big, fancy, and looked like they were expensive.

 

So besides the fact that it tasted awesome, and was directly associated with Christmas, the Jubilee Roll’s reputation had a bit of a royal air to it.

 

My family ate Jubilee Rolls for dessert on Sundays during Christmas time.  What this did was form an absolute connection between the ice cream and the upcoming holiday.  Every Jubilee Roll brought into the house meant I was one week closer to Christmas.  To a kid, that is some serious power for ice cream to wield.

 

I won’t go any further into my Christmas memories and the Jubilee Roll connection, because I am well aware that my own personal memories are going to bore most people.  So, on to the good stuff.

 

02

 

I apologize in advance to the good people at Friendly’s, for probably hurting future sales due to my pictures.  My photos always manage to make everything I’m writing about look much worse, often to the point of looking ugly or unappetizing.

 

Friendly’s really needs to step up its online game, because when I went to look for official pictures, to show you how it should actually look, I found basically nothing.  So eventually, if you Google Image search “Jubilee Roll”, you’re going to find my pictures, and that won’t be good for sales.

 

The Jubilee Roll is an “ice cream roll”, which is – I don’t know – like an ice cream cake, just shaped more like a Yodel.  I will give them credit, as their phrasing is much more catchy and succinct than mine.

 

03

 

It’s possible that you’re meant to eat a Jubilee Roll in haphazard bites – getting little bits of different flavors and textures, to make each bite different.  If you are eating it like that – stop.  There is a necessary order to eating a Jubilee Roll, and the steps are as follows:

 

First, you eat the little bit of chocolate chip ice cream at the bottom, in order to gain access to the chocolate ice cream in the center.  If you want extra credit, you can cut the chocolate ice cream out, without eating the chocolate chip ice cream.

 

Next, eat the chocolate ice cream.  Chocolate ice cream is okay, but it’s sort of boring, and the least-exciting aspect of the roll.

 

After eating the chocolate ice cream, you can move on to eating the chocolate chip ice cream.  Save some ice cream below each strip of the fudge and nuts, enough to make a good-sized bite.

 

Once you have eaten the chocolate chip ice cream, move on to the two bites that will now contain fudge, nuts, and a little chocolate chip ice cream.  These bites are awesome.

 

Finally, you are left with the pink part.  You must now pause and appreciate how good your life is at this current moment.  I’ve heard heretics say the pink part is simply vanilla ice cream with some coloring added to it.  There is a special, extra-hot corner of hell for these people.

 

The pink part is one of the most glorious creations in the world.  It is also the smallest part of a slice of Jubilee Roll, making the joy fleeting, and something that must be truly savored.  It’s a like a metaphor for life, maybe.  I’m not sure how well that lines up, but it almost sounds good.

 

Once the pink part is eaten, you are, unfortunately, done.  If you are under the age of twelve, or if you are by yourself, you are permitted to lick the plate.

 

Merry Christmas!

 

As an added bonus: I have had these pictures in a random directory on my computer for literally fifteen years.  I don’t know why I have them, where they came from, or what I could really do with them, so I will include them here as some informative visual aids.

 

04

05

Cereal Review: Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch & Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp

Posted by robbposch on November 17, 2014
Posted in: Cereal Reviews, Food, Food Review, Holidays. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 10 Comments

Since the good Cap’n has yet to release Thanksgiving Crunch, it seems – like the rest of the world – the cereal world is skipping right from Halloween to Christmas.

 

The first two holiday offerings that the cereal world has put forth (that I’ve seen, anyway) are Christmas cookie-themed variations of existing cereals.

 

01

 

The first, Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, is a sugar cookie-flavored twist on Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  I’m going to go ahead and assume you didn’t need me to explain that.

 

First off – the packaging is awesome.  Bright, pale, snowy blues make a great wintery background for the Christmas decorations that make up the bulk of the box.  I also like the cracked-out cereal piece guys.  They are alarmingly excited at the prospect of what appears to be a bowl full of family members about to be eaten.  So maybe they’re on meth, not crack.

 

Drugged out, cannibalistic cereal pieces would normally be a turnoff, but since they’re wearing cute little elf hats, I’ll let it slide.

 

02

 

Visually, the cereal is very similar to Frosted Toast Crunch.  The cereal pieces seem a little lighter in color, and the coating looks more sugary, less cinnamon-y.

 

And taste-wise, that’s essentially what it is.  Some of it may be placebo effect, but the cereal pieces themselves do seem to have a “sugar cookie” flavor to them.  The coating dials back on the cinnamon, almost entirely, and amps up the surface sugar.  Despite the clear increase in sugar flavor, the cereal itself is no more sweet than any of the other Toast Crunch varieties.

 

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch is very well done, and is one of the new best holiday cereals in a while.  Sweet enough to resemble a sugar cookie’s flavor, but not as sweet as you may fear from something made to resemble a sugar cookie’s flavor.

 

[insert seal of approval here]

 

 

Following with the Christmas cookie theme is Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp.

 

03

 

Like Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, the packaging is well-designed.  I prefer Sugar Cookie’s, simply because of my preference for the blue shades.  But the shades of green, along with a different Christmas decoration on the logo, but keeping the lights to tie the cereals together, all make for a cohesive and good looking box.  Together, the cereals make for a very good pair of Christmas cereals, from a visual standpoint.

 

04

 

The cereal looks about what you’d expect, though the color saturation on the sprinkles leaves a little to be desired.

 

Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp is immediately at a disadvantage compared to Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch, because it doesn’t have a clear idea of what kind of cookie it’s supposed to be.

 

If anything, it seems like they took a cupcake with sprinkles and decided, “That’s good enough, I guess.”  Except “Christmas cupcakes” aren’t really a thing.  But the cereal has more of a flavor of yellow cake than sugar cookies.

 

This is clearly just a red and green repaint of Sprinkles Cookie Crisp.  Though I’ve never actually had that, so this winds up being a new cereal to me.

 

So I’m not exactly sure what cookie this is meant to be.  So as a cookie cereal, I can’t really consider this a success.  However, its yellow cake flavor is nice – not overwhelming, just enough to make it sweet but make it easy to eat a whole bowl without getting sick of it.

 

One strike against Holiday Sprinkles I have to give it compared to regular Cookie Crisp is, oddly enough, something it does better.  One of my favorite parts of Cookie Crisp is when all the little chips wash off the cookies, so when you drink the milk you’ve got hundreds of tiny chips in there, as well.  The Holiday Sprinkles cereal held on to the sprinkles much better, so there wasn’t that much in the milk.

 

While it’s a questionable “cookie” cereal, Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp is an admirable effort, and a good cereal.

 

[insert seal of approval here]

 

I’m all for holiday themed cereals, so well done to General Mills for introducing two solid cereals (along with two very well done cereal boxes).  Though Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch is the much better of the two.

 

Next year, bring these back, and maybe introduce another one.  But if they bring these back next year, and include an ornament as a prize inside, these cereals could reach late 80’s / early 90’s Christmas Crunch and Super Golden Crisp levels of Christmas cereal awesomeness.

 

And “cut out the ornament from the back of the box” does not count, General Mills.  There’s no cutting corners to greatness.