When General Mills announced that they would be releasing some Girl Scout cookie-themed cereals in a partnership with the Girl Scouts of America, cookie fans got excited because it sounded like a license to eat cookies for breakfast. The cereals were announced last fall, but I’ve only started seeing them in stores very recently. I wasn’t able to get them in time for National Cereal Day, though I did pick up a couple of boxes this week, when my local grocery store finally got their display up. The cereals come in two flavors: Caramel Crunch, inspired by Samoas, and Thin Mints. Both cereals are corn based and have a light, crispy texture.
The Caramel Crunch cereal is inspired by Samoas – a.k.a. Caramel de Lites, depending on which bakery your cookies come from – and each piece is ring-shaped. The cereal has a nice light texture and a good crunch that holds up to milk for at least a couple of minutes before getting soggy. It is caramel flavored and is a bit one-note, meaning that you won’t find any of the coconut or chocolate flavor that are found in the cookies the inspired them. I think the coconut-caramel combination is what makes Samoas so good, so I found this cereal to be quite disappointing in terms of how much it reminded me of the cookies. That said, the caramel flavors were good and it will hit the spot if you’re simply looking for a caramel fix.
The Thin Mints look a bit like the cookies that inspired them, though they are fairly plain to look at since they lack the shine and style of Thin Mint cookies. The cereal also holds up for a few minutes in milk, turning it into a chocolate milk as it sits. These have a nice chocolate and mint flavor that is definitely reminiscent of the cookies, though the cereal is has a much less intense chocolate flavor than the cookies (lacking a chocolate coating, of course) and less sweetness overall. These were more of a success than the Caramel Crunch in terms of how much they reminded me of the cookies that inspired them, and I was surprised by how well a mint chocolate cereal actually worked. If I had to choose between the two, I’d take a box of these any day over the Caramel Crunch option, though both flavors will remain a novelty and won’t take up regular posts on my cereal shelf.
What do you think?