Long the red-headed stepchild to Kellogg's and General Mills...or, maybe more appropriately, the RC Cola to Coke and Pepsi...the Post cereal company is apparently trying to gain attention by teaming up with some extremely unlikely partners.
Aside from the Fruity Pebbles brand and the classic Honey Comb, most of the current Post Cereal products are of the more "healthy" variety (Grape Nuts, Great Grains, and Honey Bunches of Oats, for example). Still, in recent years, Post has introduced a few cereals based upon cookies such as Chips Ahoy, Oreos, Nutter Butter, and 'Nilla Wafers. But now they've gone "all-in" on the concept of junk food and cereal synergy.
Post recently released three new cereals which will certainly catch your eye: Hostess Honeybuns, Hostess Donettes, and Sour Patch Kids. As much as I pride myself on sampling odd combinations, even I have to work myself up to eat a cereal based upon a sour candy, so I started with the most innocuous one I could find: Hostess Donettes.
Truth be told, I've eaten many a donette in my day, although I prefer the full-sized assorted pack of Hostess donuts. You know the ones--where everyone eats the chocolate-covered and powdered ones first, leaving you to scrape the bottom of the box with the plain donut in an attempt to collect whatever powder or chocolate crumbs remain. The mini-donettes are a guilty pleasure despite being so dry that they are almost inedible without a glass of water or milk nearby. But a cereal based on a powdered processed donut? Hmm...
From the picture on the box, I was expecting the taste of Frosted Cheerios. Which, while not my preferred flavor of Cheerios (Honey Nut) are not bad at all. But Post Donettes cereal didn't taste like Frosted Cheerios at all...for better or worse. It definitely lacked the crunch of a Cheerio, and for good reason. Where the first ingredient of a Cheerio is whole grain oats, Donettes cereal goes straight to the dextrose and sugar before getting around to the corn flour. (That's not even a donette ingredient, by the way, as Hostess starts with wheat flour.)
The end result is something that doesn't have the taste or consistency of a crunchy frosted oat cereal, but more like a Froot Loop (which is a sugar and corn flour blend)--if you took out the imitation fruit flavor and substituted mild vanilla flavoring. Surprisingly, it is somewhat better than it sounds, but ultimately not that great. If the name piques your curiosity as it did mine, you would be better off grabbing a bag of the actual powdered donettes and dunking them in a glass of milk.
RATING: 2 / 5
