The Return of French Toast Crunch Cereal

I wept when I read this news today:

2006 was the year Twitter debuted and Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status. It was also the last time French Toast Crunch cereal was for sale in U.S. stores.

Now, General Mills has given the sugar-blasted breakfast treat new life, announcing its return to supermarket shelves after an eight-year hiatus.

The distinctive “little toast-shaped, maple-flavored bites of deliciousness,” as General Mills describes them, were survived by their sister cereal Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

General Mills said it was responding to demand by relaunching French Toast Crunch.

But it also wants to ride a wave of nostalgia: Children who ate the cereal in the mid-to-late 1990s are now in their 20s and buying cereal themselves.

For now, French Toast Crunch is available in only a limited number of grocery stores, but it will be available nationally in January.

While French Toast Crunch was discontinued in the U.S., it has been available in Canada; in French-speaking parts, it sells as “Croque Pain Doré.” Devotees ordered the cereal online from there, but General Mills said “the shipping fees were often steep” and only “a lucky few” could score a supply.

French Toast Crunch cereal should be a separate food group. The blast of maple flavor, along with a sublime consistency that holds up very well when milk is added, makes the product far more than a run-of-the-mill breakfast cereal. French Toast Crunch can be eaten for lunch, for dinner, as a snack right out of the box, and is particularly attractive if you run string through individual pieces and wrap around a Christmas tree.

Of course, even “part of a complete breakfast,” French Toast Crunch is unsuitable for children. The sugar rush will have them bouncing off the walls to begin the day, and then falling asleep in the middle of class when it wears off. So if you want to enjoy it, make sure they don’t see it and place it on a shelf beyond their reach.

But for discriminating adults, you can’t beat it. I had a friend who substituted beer for the milk and swore he was in heaven.

Now if I can only get Sue to buy it for me so I can get her hooked on it too.