Marshmallow Crispy Oreo

 

Product circa: Intermittently from 2014 to 2019

Golden Oreo cookies with a creme that tastes like the marshmallows you get in cereal, plus the addition of tiny Rice Krispies in said creme.

I ate opened this package four years after I bought them in 2019 and... they were fine.  But I can’t help look through my nostalgia glasses back to 2014, when I first tried these fresh.  They were incredible.  The cereal-marshmallow flavor went so well with the cookies, it was like a revelation.  The only way I’ll be able to know I’m not crazy is if Oreo every decides to revive this variety.

Frute Brute cereal

 

Product circa: 2022 (and many years before and still to come)

Part of the Count Chocula entourage that makes its appearance seasonally.  This is the first time I had heard of Frute Brute, despite it existing, in various forms, since 1974.

Ever had cherry cereal?  I bet you haven’t.  These seem to be cherry flavored paws with the occasional marshmallow to provide most of the sweetness.  The cherry flavoring really works well here, it’s quite a novel and pleasant experience.  If I ate cereal on the reg, and if this stuff were available on the reg, I would definitely make a habit of buying it.

Chili Cheese Fritos Jack Link's Beef Jerky

 

Product circa: 2024

What an odd crossover!

Just as it seems to promise, this is beef jerky covered in what tastes like the exact same seasoning from Chili Cheese Fritos.  It's all well and good until even the cheese becomes apparent as you chew.  Unfortunately the cheese doesn't pair well at all, and it's even a bit putrid and disgusting.

Fruity Pebbles Candy Bar

 

Product circa: Purchased in 2024

This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.

Absolutely delicious.  The strongly-flavored cereal is a great complement to the sweet white chocolate.

Fruity Pebbles Rockin' Xtreme Colors

Boy, am I glad to be eating Fruity Pebbles in its loose cereal form again.

Post has issued a version of their cereal with neon colors, and trust me: the actual cereal is just as brightly colored as depicted on the box.  As mentioned before, aesthetic variations of noms are not reviewed on this site, even if they claim to be ephemeral.  However, this cereal boasts an "amped-up fruity taste", and so here we are.

Simply put, I can't tell the difference between this and the original cereal.  The differences might show themselves when tasted side by side, but I do not feel that I owe that experiment to this product.  The fruity and ever-so-artificial taste is there like it's always been, and that's not a bad thing.


Fruity Pebbles Rockin' Xtreme Colors:- Great
Original Fruity Pebbles(for comparison):- Great

The Amazing Spider-Man Limited Edition Spidey Berry

The fifth of several summer-related posts in a row!

Another standalone limited time cereal, this product also celebrates the Amazing Spider-Man film from this summer.

This "berry" cereal is actually just flavored with strawberry, and it wafts to your nose from the moment you open the bag.  Speckled with "lizard villain" marshmallows, these strawberry "webs" are almost of the same construction as what you'd find in Honeycomb cereal.

But quite frankly, familiar expectations should end there.  Why?  Because while the flavor of the cereal easily resembles that of strawberry milk, the sweetness of the "webs" are dialed down almost to zero, with only the marshmallows providing each bite's sugar.  I applaud the company for avoiding the unnecessary calories(think of the children!) and avoiding the saccharine pit into which these cereals too often fall, but unfortunately I think that the stuff just needs to be a bit more sweet.

The restraint of this cereal's sweetness is a novelty that makes it interesting and bumps it just barely into the 2-NOM range, but it'd be better with more sugar.


The Amazing Spider-Man Limited Edition Spidey Berry: - Good

Ice Age Continental Drift Cinnamon Cereal

The first of several summer-related posts in a row!

A one-off limited time cereal?  Alrighty then.

This stuff was created to commemorate the film Ice Age: Continental Drift released this summer.

When the box opens, a cinnamon aroma quickly wafts to your nose and you soon realize you'll be comparing this product to Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

When dry, the cereal's ultra-crunchy corn-puff construction could be compared to Cap'n Crunch cereal, except that it's even more crunchy, and indeed it has that notorious ability to shred the roof of one's mouth.  However, once it's sat in milk for a bit, the outer crunchiness gives way to a lovely chewiness which I don't think I've quite experienced in any other cereal.

The flavor is as interesting as the texture.  While one may expect a run-of-the-mill cinnamon cereal, what one gets instead is a formula which is conservative on sugar and heavy on cinnamon.  The lack of overbearing sweetness makes one pay attention to the actual flavor of the cereal, which is so heavy on cinnamon that it's downright earthy.  The palate is left with a dry, woody aftertaste.

This cinnamon cereal is elevated into something more sophisticated than its peers.  It's like comparing a Single Malt Scotch to Jack Daniels.  It's almost into 4-NOM territory.


Ice Age Continental Drift Cinnamon Cereal: - Great

Fruity Pebbles Treats

Note: I try only to remark upon limited time and/or rare products on this blog, not simply new products.  Unless otherwise confirmed via research, any product presented on this site is presumed to be limited time and/or rare by my own personal opinion.  This product is an example.

I was one of myriad children who was taught to make Rice Krispies Treats by a parent or relative.  They're delicious of course, and simple enough to warrant beginning to teach a child their way around the kitchen.  If you were like me, then there was a point when you underwent an invigorating realization that the Rice Krispies in the recipe were easily interchangeable with any other cereal, and your imagination began to run wild.  As an imaginative exercise, perhaps you sought to realize which cereal would be the wildest to make Treats with.  If you had, then you probably would have settled on Fruity Pebbles Treats.

In my opinion, Fruity Pebbles is one of the gems in the cereal aisle.  It's been around forever, the box features your favorite Flintstones characters, and the cereal offers a texture and flavor that no other brand attempts to match.  My jaw dropped when I found these in the store, but alas, I ended up disappointed.

Honestly, the packaging on these is great; the wrappers are bright red, and they feature a photograph of the snack, which is quite colorful.  Sadly, the snack itself fails to impress.  The clustered cereal doesn't offer the bright and fruity burst of flavor that the original cereal does; a dull version of the original is offered instead.  The texture of the snack is strange... it has an almost elastic quality where it will compress when you squeeze or bite into it, but it will reform to its original shape quickly afterward.  I realize that marshmallow is spongy and sometimes elastic, but it's a very unsettling texture that doesn't show itself in home-made Rice Krispies Treats, or even the packaged ones.  Lastly, there's a salty taste in the snack that leaves you with a salty aftertaste.

Ultimately, Fruity Pebbles Treats offer over-processed artificial flavor and texture.  You're much better off making them from scratch.

Fruity Pebbles Treats: 0 NOMS (Unpleasant)

Original Rice Krispies Treats(for comparison): (Great)

Acquired: supermarket

Dulce de Leche Cheerios

 Note: I try only to remark upon limited time and/or rare products on this blog, not simply new products.  Unless otherwise confirmed via research, any product presented on this site is presumed to be limited time and/or rare by my own personal opinion.  This product is an example.

I would say that this stuff is mostly disappointing.  A trend I've come across is that when processed food is flavored with "dulce de leche", it will most often simply contain both sugar and some sort of butter flavoring in an attempt to capture the milky flavor of dulce de leche. (This product may suffer from an identity crisis, since the product's front packaging indicate, at different spots, that it's both flavored with dulce de leche and caramel, which are not the same thing.)

That may be an oversimplification in this case, but the flavor of these Cheerios are not completely unlike the Honey Nut variety.  Half of the cheerios in this box are made of corn (as opposed to the normal wheat), which I imagine is thought to add to the caramel-like flavor via the corn's natural sweetness, but instead it lends the flavor of a simple corn cereal, like Corn Pops.

In the end, while this cereal isn't bad, it simply tastes like sweet Cheerios with additional flavors of corn, butter, and perhaps brown sugar.



Dulce de Leche Cheerios: (Good)

Original Honey Nut Cheerios (for comparison): (Good)

Acquired: supermarket