Tony the Tiger must have stumbled into an ice cream parlor and liked it so much he decided to stay a while. A few years ago, Frosted Flakes came out with Strawberry Milkshake and Chocolate Milkshake varieties, and it appears they were successful enough for Kellogg’s to decide to pick up the ice cream scoop again and return to the blender because now we have Cookies & Crème Milkshake Frosted Flakes.

Cookies and crème sounds like a delicious milkshake flavor, but I can’t help but look at this box and worry that perhaps Frosted Flakes is not the correct vehicle to carry this concept. The art is pretty bland, featuring a bowl of cereal that looks like a semi-truck ran over a bunch of extra pale Cookie Crisp, and Tony was around to scrape up the aftermath.

Opening the bag, I was hit with a scent that was artificial and mildly off-putting. It smells sweet, but not in a way that makes me excited to dive in. I poured a bowl and was not surprised when it looked exactly as pictured.

This is not a visually appealing cereal; the smattering of tiny chocolate specks is unflattering at best and, at worst, could make a person worry there are bugs in their breakfast. I tried a few flakes dry before pouring on the milk, and at every step in this process, I found myself thinking, “I wish these were regular Frosted Flakes.” There just isn’t enough here to set this apart from a generic flake cereal. If you’re going for a “cookies and crème” profile, why be so stingy with the cookie portion? These dots that represent the cookie element are smaller than crumbs and don’t have a noticeable chocolate flavor. There’s also nothing here that suggests the creamy portion of a cookie or the ice cream in a milkshake.

It seems like Kellogg’s thinks that adding milk is enough to push this into milkshake flavor territory, but I’m here to confirm that it isn’t. Maybe that worked better with the stronger chocolate and strawberry iterations, but it doesn’t cut it here. Once you have poured milk on these (Congratulations! You made a milkshake!), they almost seem to get soggy faster than regular Frosted Flakes, and once you’ve eaten the cereal portion, the milk it leaves behind is equally disappointing. Some of the supposedly chocolate bits retain their shape and sit at the bottom, but again, they impart very little in terms of flavor and are mostly just sediment in the pool that is your sad milkshake.

At the price of around seven dollars a box, I can’t recommend this cereal. I’m sure it will have its fans, but for me, it’s lacking all around. Maybe the addition of more chocolate or a creamier coating on the flakes could have made it more true to its namesake, but as it stands, I think it’s time Tony turns to another dessert for inspiration cause the shake concept might have run its course.

Purchased Price: $6.99
Size: 12.1 oz box
Purchased at: Jewel
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup) 140 calories, 0 grams of total fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of total carbs, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 13 grams of total sugar, and 2 grams of protein.