Imagine a world without Cinnabon.
Walking through the malls of America would be less odoriferous. There wouldn’t be anything sweet to cleanse the nasal palate with to get rid of the old person smell wafting from Sears, the youthful scents seeping out of Abercrombie & Fitch, the testosterone pouring out of GNC and the smell of death coming from Radio Shack.
A world without Cinnabon would also be a world without the recent influx of Cinnabon-branded products, like Cinnabon Snack Bars, Cinnabon Cereal, Cinnabon Lip Balm and these Kellogg’s Original Cinnabon Pancakes.
Oh, what a world that would be!
If you’re expecting these Cinnabon-branded pancakes to taste anything close to Cinnabon’s shopping mall-famous cinnamon rolls, you will be disappointed, like I am whenever I’m told I can’t sit on Santa’s lap at the mall because “I’m a grown man” or because “It looks like I have crabs because I scratch myself in the neither region too much.”
While there’s cinnamon baked into each four-inch pancake and spots of white frosting injected into the breakfast disk, they do nothing to make it taste like the cloyingly sweet cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon, which isn’t Cinnabon’s Makara Cinnamon, is noticeable and allows the pancake to be eaten without syrup. But when syrup is added, the cinnamon is easily covered up. As for the frosting, it was like a stripper on stage; I could see it, but couldn’t taste it.
Even though I’m not impressed with the Original Cinnabon Pancakes, I did come up with a way to make them better — turn them into breakfast sandwich buns, a la McGriddles.
However, I couldn’t find at my local Safeway a large breakfast sausage patty that would fit nicely in between two of these pancakes. I thought about asking a stock clerk for help, but they were all men and I thought it would be weird asking them if they had bigger sausages.
So instead I bought smaller breakfast patties, microwaved them, cut them in half, tessellated the halves on top of a microwaved pancake and then folded the pancake over to create a breakfast taco that had the right balance of sweet and salty.
Yeah! Suck it, Bobby Flay! The secret ingredient iz deez nutz!
I’m sorry about that unnecessary outburst. I’m just surprised I came up with a breakfast dish that’s slightly more complicated than my last great breakfast idea, which just involved mixing Cocoa Puffs with Cocoa Pebbles and pouring chocolate soy milk over it. And it’s been awhile since I’ve used the phrase “deez nutz” in a review.
Overall, the Kellogg’s Original Cinnabon Pancakes were mediocre frozen pancakes. The cinnamon flavor was decent, but I really wish I could taste the frosting that was also injected into it. They’re also quite thin, making them easy to cut through and to fold over to create a pancake taco shell, but not really filling for a grown man.
They almost make me wish for a world without Cinnabon.
(Nutrition Facts – 3 pancakes – 270 calories, 70 calories from fat, 8 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 480 milligrams of sodium, 50 milligrams of potassium, 45 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 16 grams of sugar, 28 grams of other carbohydrates, 5 grams of protein and a bunch of vitamins and minerals.)
Item: Kellogg’s Original Cinnabon Pancakes
Price: $2.00 (on sale)
Size: 12 pancakes
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Noticeable cinnamon flavor. Can be prepared in either the microwave or oven. Makes an great breakfast sandwich bun or breakfast taco shell. Contains eight vitamins and minerals. A world without Cinnabon.
Cons: Doesn’t taste like anything from Cinnabon. Injected frosting isn’t noticeable. The term “injected frosting.” Too thin to be satisfying for a grown man. A grown man not being able to sit on Santa’s lap. Syrup kills cinnamon flavor. A world without Cinnabon.
LMAO, I love the stripper comment about the frosting. Has Cinnanbon actually made a good product outside the realm of their actually store?
I haven’t tried their lip balm. So it might be the greatest lip balm ever.
when i think of cinnamon rolls, i think ikea.
if you’ve been to ikea, you know what i’m sayin’. i think that they pump the smell of cinnamon rolls through their vents like whole food pumps happy gas. but, i was fooled once by giving in to temptation. never again. those things are pretty much everything a baked good shouldn’t be.
I’ve never eaten Ikea cinnamon rolls. However, their Swedish meatballs with lingonberries is the only dish I eat when I go to Ikea. And after I eat them, I take a nap on one of the beds. I would try to spell the name of the bed, but I would offend Swedish people everywhere.
Breakfast Taco = Brilliant. I’ve been eyeballing these in the freezer isle for sometime, hearing that they aren’t anything special…I’ll have to skip.
Did you mean dz nuts? http://www.dz-nuts.com/catalog/
Holy crap! I didn’t know they made Dz Nutz for deez nutz. I give Lance Armstrong even more credit.
“MANTAINTENANCE.” I would expect no less from a product called DZ Nuts.
Next time you need to use sausage links and make it into a pancake on a stick type deal. You’ll feel like you’re at the fair instead of McDonald’s.
I was so set on getting sausage patties that I totally didn’t even look at sausage links. I am bad at visualization. 🙁
Oh Marvo, you had my juvenile sense of humor on board with the “bigger sausages” comment, then you went and ruined it with “deez nutz”. Too far.
That said, I know this review is about pancakes but I can relate with not being able to find, erm, bigger sausages. Right after I got my toaster oven I went through a phase of making my own Sausage McMuffins, but the only microwaveable sausage patties were Jimmy Dean’s and they were woefully small compared to the English Muffin. In fact, they’re woefully small for pretty much anything. My rage over tiny microwaveable sausage patties is inappropriate.
I think I found a decent sized sausage patty last night at Target. Target’s Pantry Market line has frozen sausage patties that come in a bag. As I felt the bag, I wrapped my hand around a sausage to get an idea of how big it was. I think it was about three inches.
Similar to Hail Maries, I think you now have to say about 17 “No Homos” after that comment.
I find nothing erotic about my previous comment.
OILED BOOBIES!
However, this comment I find erotic.
With Cinnabon, it’s all about the cream cheese icing mixing with the cinnamon. I mean, that stuff is so good I’d gladly dive naked into a vat of it, although it would be a very sticky experience. Since this has no cream cheese icing, it could never succeed on its own. Might be tasty with cream cheese icing in place of syrup, though.
I think it would be tasty if it was stuffed into a Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll. Or if I could trade it for a Cinnabon Cinnamon Roll.
Cinnabon needs to back it off a bit. They’re getting involved in too much, like cranberry did in the juice world. And sausage makes everything better.
Also, Cinnabon, Bobby Flay, deez nutz, and tessalations all in the same review. Kudos.
Using the word tessellated makes up for my use of deez nutz. It’s like the literary equivalent exchange law.