Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Mexican Style Hot Chocolate add a festive twist to a classic cereal

Is Cinnamon Toast Crunch a perfect cereal?

The iconic cereal is a mainstay in cupboards around the world (ours included). You can find its flavors in Hershey’s Kisses and even bacon. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is so beloved that Travis Kelce, a man who thinks many serious thoughts, included it in Kelce Mix.

The holiday season is when Cinnamon Toast Crunch really shines. The folks over at General Mills keep finding ways to elevate the beloved cereal to new levels. For 2025, not only is Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch back but we’re also getting Cinnamon Toast Crunch Mexican Style Hot Chocolate.

When I spotted the festive duo at the grocery store, I wasted little time tossing them into our cart. Raisin Bran Crunch (another perfect cereal) is my go-to cereal, but would either of these seasonal Cinnamon Toast Crunch varieties find their way into my breakfast bowl?

What they cost

Both flavors of Cinnamon Toast Crunch were on sale at my Harris Teeter for $2.50 a box.

My thoughts

I wasn’t kidding when I said that we had Cinnamon Toast Crunch already on the cereal shelf in our kitchen cupboard, so let’s kick things off with a quick comparison of the classic flavor with Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and Mexican Style Hot Chocolate.

All three varieties are your standard Cinnamon Toast Crunch size, with Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch being a touch lighter and Mexican Style Hot Chocolate being an appropriate chocolatey brown.

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch has been around on an on-and-off basis for the past few years. Sometimes I can find it in stores. Sometimes it escapes my search. Based on the excitement I’ve seen around its release in recent holiday seasons, this is a cereal that people love.

According to General Mills, Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch “delivers the sweet flavor of sugar cookie and cinnamon sugar Cinnadust.” (Yes, “Cinnadust” is the official name for the sugary crystals that make Cinnamon Toast Crunch great.)

Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch absolutely invokes the flavor of a sugar cookie, tasting a bit lighter than your traditional Cinnamon Toast Crunch. But check out the sugar crystals on those bits of cereal. If you grew up eating only cereals like plain Cheerios, Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch is gonna blow your mind.

Is Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch better than Cinnamon Toast Crunch? That verdict honestly comes to where you want your cereal to fall on the sugary/cinnamony spectrum.

Snack score

🍪🍪🍪🍪 (4 out of 5 cookies)

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Mexican Style Hot Chocolate

Adding some chocolate to Cinnamon Toast Crunch is a no-brainer. In fact, General Mills has already been doing it with the aptly named Chocolate Toast Crunch.

So what makes Cinnamon Toast Crunch Mexican Style Hot Chocolate different from Chocolate Toast Crunch?

The trick here seems to be in the level of cinnamon each variety of Cinnamon Toast Crunch adds to the chocolate base. While Chocolate Toast Crunch promises a “hint of cinnamon,” Mexican Style Hot Chocolate offers cinnamon as a full flavor partner to its “chocolate sweetened rice and wheat squares.”

Which makes sense considering that your standard Mexican hot chocolate adds spices like cinnamon to the drink’s traditional chocolate flavor. (No chili notes in Cinnamon Toast Crunch Mexican Style Hot Chocolate, though.)

It’s been awhile since I’ve had Chocolate Toast Crunch (oh, you thought there was any chance I hadn’t tried that cereal in the past?), so I can’t exactly recall what the cinnamon balance of that flavor was like in real life. But Mexican Style Hot Chocolate is a fantastic blend of chocolate and cinnamon, and I can’t wait to keep eating this cereal. And I’m going to be sad when it’s gone.

Snack score

🍪🍪🍪🍪 (4 out of 5 cookies)