This has been the most time I’ve spent on a recipe. To say I feel relieved to finally perfect it is an understatement. I’ve been working on a Fruity Pebbles mix for probably 6 months now, off and on. I’ve felt like I’m getting close, then come back to it later and it’s way off. I’ve gone through probably 40-50 attempts over those months and I feel like I finally have everything exactly where I want it to be. I didn’t want to use any of the “cereal starter” flavors (TFA Fruit Circles, etc.) because I wanted to make my own, similar to the way the Cereal Killa clone was.

After months of toying around with this and getting frustrated, I decided to just take a break and try to pick apart different notes in Fruity Pebbles cereal. This helped tremendously and I’m glad I stopped trying to make things work before I exhausted myself on this recipe.

Cereal Base

CAP Sugar Cookie is the main “crunch” for the cereal, along with TFA Graham Cracker Clear. The two play off of each other just the way I want in this recipe. Sugar Cookie brings the sugary sweet, almost grainy taste, and Graham Cracker Clear adds enough light honey, crackery taste for a light, plain crispy cereal note.

FW Hazelnut adds a little smooth nuttiness to the mix that you won’t notice unless you’re looking for it. It bridges the gap between Sugar Cookie and GCC.

TFA Toasted Marshmallow adds fluffiness, along with a slightly sweet, toasted/baked touch.

Cream/Milk

FA Vienna Cream and FA Meringue obviously go together hand in hand in any cereal mix. Vienna gives a sweet cream, with Meringue lending the sugary frosting, with a touch of milkiness.

LA Cream Cheese Icing is the real star for the milk base. In my previous attempts, I was keeping Vienna and Meringue, and just playing around with something that might give me some maltiness. TFA Malted Milk was the first choice, but that just didn’t work. I tried probably 15 other flavors before deciding to add CCI one night. It really surprised me with what it could offer to this type of mix. It adds a slight malty taste when combined with the cereal base, and attaches itself onto Meringue perfectly at this ratio. If you’re making a recipe that utilizes cream, try CCI at 1% just to see what it does. It’s magic when used properly.

Fruits

CAP Lemon Lime was almost a given for the main fruit taste. At this percentage, it’s a little more lime than lemon, but that’s what I was going for, so I was happy with leaving it where I started at.

FW Blood Orange is the perfect orange for a cereal mix. I first tried CAP Sweet Tangerine, but it was a little too candy-like for me. FA Mandarin was a little too harsh when mixed with the other fruits, and FA Orange wasn’t bright enough for what I wanted to do. (Make sure to shake this flavor a ton before you use it. It separates like no other.)

FA Black Cherry was a hard one to make work. I wasn’t sure if I was getting more of a regular cherry, or a black cherry in Fruity Pebbles. FA Black Cherry is one of those flavors that are either really noticeable and overwhelming, or not noticeable at all. The percentage in this mix walks that line just right for my taste.

Shake and vape, but the creams really come out to play after a few days.

Mixed at 30/70.