Breakfast time! In America that can mean anything from incredibly brightly coloured, Skittles-flavoured Trix to a bowl of plain oatmeal. I’ve been hunting for a cereal I like… and I found one; Cinnamon Oatmeal Squares from Quaker.
My first venture into American breakfast cereal was by way of Organic Blueberry Clusters from Kashi, then I tried their Cinnamon French Toast cereal. Both of these were fine, but I wasn’t all-in for them.
The Blueberry with Lemon Clusters Special K was a mistake for me, in honesty. I should have known it would take forever to finish the box too. As the only person in the house that eats cereal, it does take a bit of time to get through them!
I wanted to go back to a brand I reliably enjoy – that means Quaker. I’m a huge fan of oats. Oat based breakfasts usually score well with me and I love an oat based bakery product too. Yes, I have a genuinely tough time deciding between Oatmeal Raisin and Chocolate Chip cookies.
I know you can’t really tell through a photograph, but these Cinnamon Squares are hefty, substantial pieces of cereal. They’re seriously crunchy too, yet light enough in design, like little cereal pillows with a crunchy exterior.
The scent of cinnamon is stronger than the flavour here, and yes it could be stronger in general, but I’m not angry about it. Quaker haven’t gone crazy on the use of spice, but even in milk there’s just about enough to know it’s there.
As for the cereal itself – I love it. It’s pretty oaty and wheaty in flavour, but in a really comforting and tasty way. This is not cardboard flavour. It’s more like… if a Digestive biscuit had a breakfast cereal cousin twice removed, this would be it.
While I really like this cereal, I am not a fan of the American nutritional info boxes. They’re such hard work! (Note: I’m sure they’re not as difficult for people that are used to it, but I’m 100% certain volumetric measurements for breakfast cereal results in wildly varying portion weights across products.)
To start with I’m not eating 56g of this for breakfast. I’ve been measuring out a 40g portion, because that’s what I’m comfortable with. Good luck on figuring out what that actually includes though! Because all the Nutrition Facts boxes I’ve come across are based on something like a 1 Cup measurement. Which means absolutely nothing to me and it makes it harder to do the maths with it. Yes, I’ve been the person stood in a flour aisle using my phone calculator to work out just how much protein 100g of flour contains.
This product is available in three other flavours; Brown Sugar, Golden Maple and Honey Nut. Unfortunately I’ve only spotted the Brown Sugar in stores near me – but I did buy a box! I’ll be keeping an eye out for the Golden Maple.
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