Cap'n Crunch - Sprinkled Donut Crunch

It's March 11th, it's absolutely beautiful outside and the snow is finally melting.  I think that's as good a reason as any to bounce back and write a new post for The Holidaze.  It's surely been a while - almost a month - and I hate when the downfalls take place.  It's common this time of year, but it aggravates me when I can't find new topics or the time to cover them.  If you follow me on Instagram @HolidazeBlog, you might have already seen today's topic posted and, surprisingly, it caught a lot of attention and increased my number of followers by more than expected.  So if you're not one of them yet, make sure you are one now!  During the "off-season," I find myself focusing more on social media and pictures than the site itself.  It's quick and easy!  Now.. Let's get into the crunch - Cap'n Crunch's Sprinkled Donut Crunch, that is!

Like many of the new products I cover and am interested in, I first discovered this on Instagram and was thrilled to find out it wasn't an elaborate hoax.  Why does new cereal intrigue me so much?  I think it's because I've never had a really bad cereal and they all bring something different to the breakfast table.  Growing up, it was all I ate.  Whether it was the early morning or a late night snack while watching Nick-at-Nite, nothing's better than a bowl of cereal and milk.  This past weekend, I was sick with a cold and didn't have an appetite for much, but cereal is something I've never not been in the mood for.  So yeah, new boxes and flavors will always attract my attention and, really, Cap'n Crunch always has something new up his sleeve to entice us with.

I knew Donut Crunch would look cool, but I didn't think it would look that awesome.  The tiny donuts, covered in rainbow sprinkles, look too good to be considered cereal.  They're also pretty big.  I was expecting them to be the size of Cheerios, but they're more like Cheerios on steroids.  I was impressed by them in every way and they were already living up to my expectations.  In terms of flavor, they're hard to describe, but there's definitely a distinct donut flavor.  They remind me plain and glazed Entenmann's donuts that come in variety boxes.  There's also a hint of birthday cake flavor thrown in that works really well.  I think we can attribute that to the sprinkles.  Overall, these little rings of Heaven are great and worth every penny.  It's your traditional Cap'n Crunch undertone covered in Donuttiness.  Not a word?  Now it is!

Before I conclude, I think this little bit of info is important for those interested in trying Sprinkled Donut Crunch.  According to various reviews I've read, especially on TheImpulsiveBuy, this new cereal is very similar to that of Sprinkle Spangles.  They were star-shaped sprinkled bits that I vaguelyyyy remember and most of my memory is sparked by Google images so I can't confirm or deny, but if you were a fan of Sprinkle Spangles, this may be the return you've been waiting for.  It's an added bonus to this limited-edition and it may be better than any premium they could have thrown in the box.

Based on my research, Cap'n Crunch has released a plethora of limited-edition flavors in the past and I'd absolutely love to give them a try if ever resurrected.  It looks like I missed out on a bunch before my time, but just look at these names - Punch Crunch, Vanilly Crunch, Polar Crunch, Choco Crunch, Deep Sea Crunch, and Volcano Crunch - whoaa!!  I remember a few, but never tried them.  I'm particularly intrigued by Fruit Punch flavored cereal, but they all sound awesome.  So if Sprinkle Spangles can come back for all of you, I'm holding out hope that a few others return for me.  In the meantime, Sprinkled Donut Crunch is a hit!

P.S.  St. Patrick's Day is less than a week away, so get ready for a few posts here and there celebrating the color green, shamrocks, leprechauns, beer, and - oh, right - my heritage :)

Halloween Crunch Cereal

For years, I have looked for Cap'n Crunch's Halloween Crunch cereal.  No matter how hard I looked, Halloween Crunch has always found a way to hide from me.  Until last year, the same could have been said for Christmas Crunch.  See, in 2010, my girlfriend found two boxes of Christmas Crunch at Wal-Mart in Woodbridge, NJ.  What an amazing surprise that was!  I assumed they'd have this year's special editions as well, but when we called, they said they never heard of it.  Obviously their customer service representative isn't a big fan of Halloween.  But I am, so what's a man to do?  Order two boxes on Ebay and wait patiently by the door for them to arrive.

Here it is!  Halloween Crunch is finally mine!  In my opinion, the Halloween Crunch box art is the single greatest piece of Halloween art you can buy.  I'm serious.  Every year, they come up with the coolest designs.  They've dressed the Cap'n as a Mummy, a Werewolf, and now, he's carved into a pumpkin.  They go all out each and every year and prove to every other company out there just how important it is to put the time and effort into their products.  I just love this box.  This is the type of art that makes me love illustration and graphic design.  This is the type of art that makes me want to work in package design.  It's just perfect. This will definitely be saved in a safe place.  Then, one day, it will be framed and hung in my kitchen for Halloween.  It's that awesome.

After I received my two boxes of Halloween Crunch in the mail, my girlfriend found two boxes in the same Wal-Mart that told us they never heard of the most amazing cereal ever made!  So, in a matter of one year, I went from not being able to find one box to now having four boxes in my kitchen.  Believe me, I'm not complaining one bit.  As I type this, I have Halloween Crunch, Count Chocula, Frankenberry and Boo Berry all waiting to be devoured in the next 12 days.  You know I'll make it happen!

Why do I love this cereal so much?  Well, besides the box art, it isn't all that different from your everyday Cap'n Crunch Berries cereal.  You're still going to get amazing flavor and, of course, the roof of your mouth torn up.  But in addition, you're going to get something that is very Halloweeny:  The milk is going to turn green!!  This is the coolest part!  The ghost berries work like magic and turn milk green whenever they're drowned in dairy.  Just like Boo Berry turns milk blue, and Frankenberry turns milk pink, Halloween Crunch adds a little color to Halloween.  But, in my opinion, the Cap'n takes first prize because he turns things green!  Green baby!!

If you're as impatient as I am and are constantly looking for immediate gratification, then you need to start mixing your Halloween Crunch as soon as the milk is poured into the bowl.  Sure, you can go about things slowly and wait for things to change color on their own, but I'm not.  I've waited at least 4 years to find this cereal and I want my green milk.

Ahhh yess!!  Look at the green milk!  That is Halloween!  That's just so awesome.  Not only are you getting quality flavor, but you're getting a bowl of green milk.  If you're creative, you can pretend that it's not really milk and actually some type of poison.  You can pretend that a witch has casted a spell and turned your Halloween Crunch into an evil love potion.  You can even pretend that you're not really a nerd and completely unphazed by the fact that you're milk just turned green.  I'd like to go with the latter, but we all know I'm pretending that this green milk is actually zombie throw-up.  It really doesn't matter what you imagine, as long as you know just how awesome it is that you're having Halloween Crunch cereal.

Here's another view to give you a better perspective.  If you were expecting a really bright green, then you'd probably be disappointed to see that there is only a slight change in appearance.  In my opinion, this is the perfect amount of change.  This green looks cold and ghostly.  It reminds me of a cemetery.  It's eerie and better than I expected.  I wouldn't want it to be neon green.  That would remind me too much of Nickelodeon slime or The Ghostbusters.  No way, I was looking for something to stand alone and Halloween Crunch cereal most certainly does just that.  If you haven't been able to find this yet, or just haven't picked it up, then you need to do whatever you can to do so now!  You have 11 days left!  Go Green this Halloween!

If the cereal alone doesn't get your motor running, then maybe the back of the box will interest the Pumpkin Carver inside of you.

The Cap'n wants you to bring him to life this Halloween by carving his face into a pumpkin!  Now you can make your very own Cap-O-Lantern and re-create the amazing box art in real-life!  I'm thinking about doing this.  We have one pumpkin right now but he's just so perfectly round that we've yet to tarnish his appearance with holes.  We want to make sure that our baby pump is done just right so we're not really sure what to do yet.  However, the back of this box is quite interesting and I feel like I owe it to the front of the box to carve the Cap'n.

For anybody who reads this and wants to do the same, here's an image that may make things easier for you.  Not everybody can find this limited edition Halloween Crunch, but they should still be allowed to take part in the pumpkin carving process.  So here's the Cap'n in black and white.  Save it, print it, carve it, light it.

Now, even though the roof of my mouth is destroyed, I'm going to go make a bowl of Halloween Crunch!!

The Ultimate Halloween Breakfast

There are vast varieties of Quaker Oats Instant Oatmeal, but when it comes to the Holidaze, my favorite of the bunch is Cinnamon Roll.  I love cinnamon.  I always have.  My favorite cereal is Cinnamon Toast Crunch and I attribute it to my Grandmother who used to always have it in her cabinet.  I can still remember her putting it on my toast when I was just three years old, and If I can remember that, then you know I must love me some cinnamon.

Cinnamon Roll Instant Oatmeal is not only perfect for Fall and Halloween, but Winter and Christmas as well.  It has great flavor, and since Cap'n Crunch's Halloween Crunch has yet to be released, this is the perfect spooky breakfast to instantly mix-up and create.  Well... almost perfect.

See, this Halloween season, I'm trying to take everything up a notch.  I want to create new Halloween memories with those that celebrate it with me and, to do so, we have to take things to the next level.  While Quaker Oats Cinnamon Roll Instant Oatmeal is great, there isn't anything "Halloween" about it.  Today, we're going to change that by creating the Ultimately Haunted Halloween Oatmeal Breakfast.  Oh yeah..

Step one in our process is easy -- grab yourself a few packs of Cinnamon Roll oatmeal and pick up a box of food coloring.  There are two ways of going about creating this breakfast beast.  There is a simple Halloween oatmeal, and the ultimate Halloween oatmeal.  If you want to go the loser route and be simple, then just dye your Cinnamon Roll oatmeal orange and call it a day.

I'd like to think that most people understand the color spectrum enough to know how to create the color orange, but if you don't, you're going to need the colors red and yellow.  Of course, you can dye your oatmeal any color you wish.  I thought about making it green or purple, but nothing says Halloween to me like the color orange.

The box will give you the necessary instructions to precisely mix the preferred color of orange, but I don't have time for any of that.  I want this breakfast to be ultimate and that means taking risks.  We're simply going to wing it.  Pour a little red, pour a little yellow, and keep going until I find exactly what I'm looking for.

Ahhh, yess!  Just look at what we've done!  The best part about Halloween treats is that they don't have to look appetizing at all.  Does orange oatmeal look good?  Of course not!  It looks like vomit or whatever Bridget the Bobble Monster was brewing in her cauldron, but that's the point!  Everybody knows that food coloring doesn't change the flavor of the food it's applied to, so you never have to worry about how it's going to taste.  But like any good optical illusion, orange oatmeal will make you forget that and have you think that you're about to ingest poison.  How great is that?

Okay, so like I said, simply dying your oatmeal is easy.  Anybody can do that.  But if you want your morning to be ultimate, then you need to be creative and add some figurative spice to your breakfast.  I say figurative, but hey, if you want to literally add some spice, I say go for it.  When we aim for the ultimate, we know we're jeopardizing flavor.  It may not taste as great once we throw in things that don't belong, but it's sure as hell going to look good!

Remember those Jet-Puffed Swirlmallows?  Well they're good for more than just toasting.  My girlfriend took one of the jumbo marshmallows and made a Ghostmallow.  He kinda looks like one of those things that chase Pac-Man around, but I'm pretty sure that they're ghosts too so we're right on track here.  He's perfect and you can tell he's looking forward to being a part of the Ultimate Halloween Breakfast.  We're close, but not quite there yet..

Now we're cookin'..  When it comes to creating the Ultimate Halloween Breakfast, there is one rule -- there are no rules!  But if you want my advice, just use what you have and make it look like it serves a purpose.  Here, we threw in the Little Debbie Fall Tree Cake, Trick-or-Treat Berry Fruit by the Foot and Boo Berry marshmallows to go along with our orange Cinnamon Roll oatmeal and Ghostmallow.  Is it going to taste good?  No way.. not together, anyway.  Individually, these treats are all amazing, but they're only here now to make things look and sound better.  Remember when Buddy the Elf poured syrup all over his spaghetti in Elf ?  Well that sounded awesome, but we all know it would taste horrible.  Yet, every year, I think it would be great for Christmas morning.  That's what this Ultimate Halloween Breakfast is.  It's our spaghetti and syrup.

It honestly doesn't taste bad.  The Boo Berry marshmallows add a lot to the orange oatmeal and the Fruit by the Foot makes you feel like you're eating right out of a pumpkin patch.  The Fall Tree Cake doesn't taste good covered in oatmeal, but the Ghostmallow needs his shade anyway so we don't have to eat that.  All in all, this is an amazing Halloween treat.  I wasn't sure if we could do it, but yes, we did create the Ultimate Halloween Oatmeal.  Now we have to come up with new ideas in terms of taking regular food and Halloweening them out.  It's all about taking things to the next level!

Happy Friday!