Cereal Profiles, Entry 4

Cap’n Crunch

Most definitely one of the all time best sugar cereals out there. Cap’n Crunch’s reputation for cutting the roof of the eater’s mouth has not impeded myself, nor most of America, from enjoying it.

Cap’n Crunch holds a strange place in the realm of sugar cereals. Cap’n Crunch, the original brand, has no real bells and whistles. There are no fruity colors, just a bland consistent yellow. There are no extraneous pieces; i.e. fruit pieces, marshmallows, kiddie shapes, etc. The only thing that qualifies Cap’n Crunch as a CHILDREN’S cereal is the Cap’n himself. I believe this is where one of the distinctions between children’s cereal and sugar cereals may lie… but nonetheless, the only thing that qualifies Cap’n Crunch as a SUGAR cereal is that, well, it’s really sweet and sugary.
As far as mascots go, Cap’n was kind of run of the mill as well. He really didn’t have any long lasting feuds going on with other cartoon characters, nor “the kids” who ate his cereal. He was always kind of just there getting in random adventures, being the Cap’n and reminding us we should go pick up his cereal.

Here’s a break down of the current major brands.

The Original:
There’s not much to say about plain old Cap’n Crunch Cereal. Chances are you’ve already tried it. It’s a very simple formula. Tiny squares of crispy cereal with sugary goodness embedded in every layer and fibre of it. They are in fact so crunchy that, besides been well known for shredding the roof of your mouth as mentioned before, they were once advertised as never being able to lose their crunch. As a kid, I once let a bowl of Cap’n Crunch sit out all night soaking in water (I was old enough to know that I wasn’t going to go near a bowl of milk that sat out all night) just to see if the bits would indeed stay crunchy. Truth be told I don’t really remember how the test ended up, but I have vague recollections of it being a gross mess in the morning. It’s structural integrity held up on the inside while the outer layer did, in fact, begin to get soggy. You have to give Cap’n Crunch some credit for that.

Cap’n Crunch Berries:
This is a mixture of original Cap’n Crunch mixed with pieces of several different colors and flavors. The original Cap’n Crunch bits are, as one would expect, identical to the bits found in the standard Cap’n Crunch cereal box. The fruit pieces are different, being slightly larger and more round in shape. This cereal is for the truly experienced Cap’n Crunch eater. I started eating these long after I got bored of the original brand, and binged on them for a few months. The eating experience is pretty intense: the fruit flavors are kind of weird. While the flavors mix well with the original Cap’n Crunch flavor, they add a definite zing and punch to the flavor that overwhelms your mouth and ultimately destroys all memories of what eating the original Cap’n Crunch is like. The “fruit” flavor doesn’t really taste like any fruit. It is somewhat similar to the flavor of Trix Cereal, but much more intense. The more you eat it, the more it feels like you are chewing impossibly crunchy shreds, spoonfuls of sugar and a spoonful of very concentrated, highly condensed flavoring. It’s a good cereal to do a brief stint on, but it tends to wear on you. And it turns your milk pinkish purple.

Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch:
Effectively this is the same cereal as Reese’s Puffs cereal. I was disappointed to find that the creators of this Cap’n Crunch brand even abandoned the classic shape of bit, using the size and shape of the fruit bits found in Cap’n Crunch Berries. This makes it so that they visually look identical to Reese’s Puffs. However, it does maintain the quality of crunchiness that you expect of a Cap’n Crunch brand, while Reese’s Puffs are known for having a crunch of less character and integrity, falling into sogginess quickly. Strangely, these slight differences are enough to propel the peanut butter Crunches a few solid tiers above the eating experience of Reese’s Puffs. I tried these for the first time tonight, and I was surprised to find myself throwing back 3 – 4 bowls where I had expected to just try one for experiential measure.

I highly recommend you check out the wikipedia page on Cap’n Crunch for a list of some other combos that were tried out in the past. Some really weird stuff that I wish I could have tried. One last brand that I must mention that I did get to try was the limited run Christmas Crunch. This was the same formula of the Crunch Berries substituting the normal colored bits for red and green bits and changing the flavor slightly.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap'n_Crunch



The Snackmaster as (a very scary looking) Cap'n, sans moustache.

Twizzlers

Twizzlers are one of those treats that fit into their own snack group. Now I know that there are other products out there that you can argue fit into their own category, but for now I’d like to address just licorice. For the purposes of identifying with my own personal experiences, I will mainly discuss this category in the context of Twizzlers (since Twizzlers are truly the dominant brand, and my favorite).

Twizzlers mystify: you can never truly get full off of them and they are mild enough to never really truly upset your stomach to the point where you need to stop eating them. One must achieve a higher mental will to stop eating them (or, just boredom). Eating massive amounts of Twizzlers will not cause your body to send impulses of warning to stop eating. There will be no “Too Full” message sent. Nor will there be a “Too Much Sugar” message sent. The worst that can be expected is a weird queasy stomach feeling and a sense of oversaturation.

You can do fun things with Twizzlers too. Adventurous eaters will take a small bite off of each end of a single Twizzler and then dunk it into their drink to use as a straw. This is yet another Snackmaster nostalgic childhood memory. Strangely enough, I remember having the best luck with milk as a beverage for drinking out of Twizzler straws. The mild flavor of the Twizzler did not distort the mild flavor of the milk. Carbonated beverages, Coca-Cola in particular, are a definite no no. My child-like scientific mind deduced that something about the sugary tube of a Twizzler activated the carbonation of Coke, sending small fizzing streams into your mouth if you attempted a Coke-Twizzler straw combo. You know, some people get off on weird stuff like that, but I'm more a fan of enjoying products as they are intended to be enjoyed. You can go ahead and eat mentos and diet pepsi at the same time. I'm good.

The true Snackmaster way to eat Twizzlers is to go for the whole pound bag. I have, indeed, downed that whole bag within a couple hours. Now I’m no competition eater, and I know it can easily be done in faster time. But I’m talking about day to day living; routine snacking. A single pack of Twizzlers kind of is what it is. Taking on the whole pound is a standard, mundane test of worthiness.

The Drought...

The drought of Snackmaster posts has also been accompanied by a slight drought in snacking.
Last week I did very little snacking. Which is still a poor excuse for not blogging, but nonetheless...
Lunchtime snacking had been down to a minimum, and I was pretty busy at night leaving only time for dinner.

Good news: The Snackmaster photo-shoot bag of treats is nearly depleted! At the bottom of this once mighty sack remains only a handful of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, a bag of Tropical Skittles, a bag of Tangy Twister Mike and Ikes and some York Peppermint Patties. I have a feeling it might be some time before even these get eaten; they're all kinda either niche snacks or one-is-already-too-much snacks.

I want to talk about Drake's Funny Bones. I had a package of these the other day, perhaps the 4th or 5th time in my life that I've eaten them. Now first of all, Drake's is a pretty stand-up Hostess replacement as far as packaged pastry snacks go. I had remembered enjoying the Funny Bones in the past so I thought I was making a slam dunk when purchasing them a few days ago. For those who don't know, Funny Bones are the shape of a human finger, except maybe a little bit bigger (depending on the dude). They are essentially chocolate frosted chocolate cake pastries filled with "peanut butter".
Pretty much everything about them is solid with the exception of the "peanut butter". Here's where my memory had failed me. Instead of having a delicious candied peanut butter, like Peanut Butter Twix for instance, Drake's peanut butter is kind of muddy and the flavor is not quite on point. Add to that the fact that the peanut butter color itself is a dark brown, and you begin to grow skeptical. All criticism aside, Funny Bones are really not bad, there are just many more products out there that are better. Fortunately, there are 3 per package. In The Snackmaster's world, more is definitely better; especially when you are dealing with a mediocre product. And credit must be given to Drake's as well. All in all they are a decent company. The Yodels and Devil Dogs are pretty slammer. Drake's is also places where other competing brands are not. There has been many a gas station convenience store that I've walked into with an embarrassing selection of Hostess products, only to be redeemed by a healthy Drake's selection. It's times like these when diversity of taste and resiliency of snack character truly pay off.

lately...

The Snackmaster = The Slackmaster (praise "Bob")

I apologize.
Stay tuned next week for new updates...

April 21, 2009

Day two of deep fry experiment:

Things were not all that better today, although there was one resounding success.
The Twinkie.
This was the one that I had the most faith in, and I was not let down.
The Twinkie was good.
The Twinkie was perfect.
I believe I deep fried it for the exact amount of time that I should have. It came out an even golden brown on the top and just a little bit yellow on the bottom, where the cream holes are found. Biting into it is a quick light crisp followed by some soft inner sponge cake and finally a slightly melted, somewhat gooey cream filling. Warm cream filling.
I believe that Twinkies are such a successful deep fry item because the cake portion is just primed for deep frying. Add to that the fact that the cake is already quite buttery, and you end up with a large flavor.
There was no guilt involved in eating the Twinkie.

Being the lazy, overzealous shlub that I am, I did not even do the most minimal research into finding out how to successfully prepare some deep fry dishes that I had heard of.
The result of this was me throwing a straight out-of-package Snickers Bar and Reese's Peanut Butter Cup directly into the grease with no prep. Had I googled "deep fried snickers" before hand I would have come upon a recipe instructing me to first freeze the Snickers and then batter it.
Needless to say the chocolates just melted and were not transformed in any meaningful way in flavor or appearance.

One item that I was looking forward to the most was Peeps. I threw in one Peep and watched it slowly disintegrate. Goodbye Peep, I had such high hopes for you.

I did, however, deep fry some generic brand Apple Newtons. While I didn't particularly enjoy eating them, I do not view this as a failure. They did not lose their physical integrity and came out tasting like a little apple fritter, crispy and tasty.

April 20, 2009

Ok so I dropped the ball on getting the deep-fry experiment going this weekend.
But I got the ball rolling today.

I picked up the wok and a 96 fluid oz. jug of corn oil after work today.
I set myself to it as soon as I got home from work, already a bit hungry.
I dumped more than half of the oil into the wok, giving it a good couple inches of depth.
My intention was to start out with something that could possibly substitute for dinner.
I tossed 2 Eggo Blueberry Waffles in the heated oil.
Adding a little bit of maple syrup, I sat down and gave it a try.
Almost immediately I knew that this was a mistake. Eggos are like sponges.
Cheap sponges, but sponges nonetheless. They absorbed the oil.

Whereas I have stated in the past that I want to keep The Snackmaster a positive blog and only talk about pleasurable snacking experiences, I have to come clean on this experiment. Lay out both the good and the bad.

The waffles were a bad idea.

Chewing into them I enjoyed the standard Eggo Waffle + Maple syrup experience, but it quickly was overwhelmed with the magnitude of grease that each bite contained.
Chewing the waffle bite, you could kind of feel the grease sloshing around in your mouth.
Kind of like eating cereal with milk.
After this, I cut up a few soft corn tortillas into quarters and fryed them up to make restaurant style tortilla chips.
Those were pretty good, but I'm still struggling with my method of removing as much grease from the deep–fried item after cooking it.
Having just eaten those two waffles and a few chips, I knew that I was done for the night.
The amount of grease already consumed was enough for me start feeling gravity's pull.
I sat down and struggled through some very minor waves of nausea.
Tomorrow begins the real experimentation.

Right now I am sweating out the grease and chewing on some Jelly Belly classic variety pack Jelly Beans. These are kind of hitting the spot right now.
I think the grapefruit flavor is pretty clever.

Cereal Profiles, Entry 3

Blueberry Muffin Tops by Malt – O – Meal

First of all, I had never heard of Malt – O – Meal cereal company before. This acquisition was picked up on my Philly trip while browsing the cereal aisle. It was right next to the health cereal section and kind of above some cereal bars. This stock placement combined with the odd shape of the box made me confused at first. I wasn’t even sure it was a cereal. I decided to try it out nonetheless. It was an impulse buy, based on the fact that it was a “blueberry muffin” cereal. Beyond that I wasn’t even sure what I was in store for.

It turns out that this is very similar to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It is approximately the same size and approximately the same texture. The only textural difference is that Blueberry Muffin Tops lacks the sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon on the outside of each crisp. This means you don’t get that extra weird sugar crunch in between your teeth while you eat it, like you do with Cinnamon Toast Crunch. In my opinion, this is a good thing. That odd sensation always made me cringe a little and always felt like a drawback. As far as the taste goes, Blueberry Muffin Tops is pretty good. It has that generic “blueberry” flavor that you get with any “blueberry” snack product, but it is mild and evenly distributed. While I don’t personally partake in this, it could even be a good hand-in-box snack; sans-milk. These are quite delicious.



Jumbo Multi-Grain Krispies with a touch of honey by Kelloggs

This is a new variation of Rice Krispies, complete with Snack, Crackle, and Pop on the box cover. Whenever a new variation comes out on a classic cereal, I feel compelled to try it out.
Right off the bat I can say I don’t really expect eating this to resemble a Rice Krispies eating experience. Looking at them, you can tell they are bigger than standard Rice Krispies, as advertised, and I know just based off of that fact that the texture is going to be different. And it is. These Jumbo ones don’t have the exact same crisp to them that standard Rice Krispies have. You know that crisp where if you shovel too big of a spoonful into your mouth, chewing it makes the little Krispies feel like they are taking mini-bites out of your cheek? The sort of crisp that you sense comes from inside the little grains themselves. Indeed, while the Jumbo Multi-Grains are crispy, the insides are more puffy and less crispier than regular Rice Krispies. The flavor is pretty good; kind of generic but good nonetheless. It’s a little sweet, no real big wow though. You know with an established brand like Rice Krispies they really can’t go way out there with the flavor. But Jumbo Multi-Grain Krispies does not disappoint.
These remind me of some other sort of puffin cereal that I have had before that I kind of liked. I want to say Kix but I know it’s not that….