Strapple Jacks

I'm already addicted to apple-cinnamon profiles, and after trying oddDrop's Jacker I wanted to make one, but with strawberry milk. \\Mixed At: 70vg\30pg \\Steep Time: 5-7 Days

Back in my college days, my friends and I would drive around in the country, listen to Sublime, and do what most college kids do in that situation (cough cough). When we got back to the dorm, I would bust out my secret stash of Apple Jacks and get my strawberry milk out of the mini fridge. This is my best attempt thus far to recreate that moment.

The biggest challenge I had with this recipe? Getting the apple-cinnamon and strawberry to be distinguishable. A lot of batches I would be able to taste one or the other, but never both, and I think I finally cracked it.

Cereal Base: OddDrop was spot on with what CAP Apple Snacks provides, a wonderful dried apple and oat-grain flavor. The only big issue I had with Jacker is what is probably going to get me ostracized, I'm not a fan of CAP Cereal 27. I KNOW, it's crazy. I decided to still use it, but only at 1%, at 1% it still gives us a bit of that crunchy/corn note and still plays well off of the oat-grain notes from a slight increase in CAP Apple Snacks.

A lot of the recipes on here use FA Stark to help with the Apple notes, and they were absolutely right, it really helps the apple in this recipe, but again it was a little too high for me, I was almost getting a bit of a watery apple juice note at 1%. At 0.66% it helps round it out a bit more.

To get our cinnamon on with our apple, I went with the old classic FLV Rich Cinnamon. You only need 1 drop/30ml and it does the trick. I would wager that you could even drop the strawberry and keep the rest for a bangin Apple Jacks recipe on it's own. Also this gets a surprising boost from RF Strawberry Gelato (more on that later)

Milk Base: I want to give 100% credit to SteamOn's cereal milk base. It is spot on and is both tough enough against other flavors to it stand out, but malleable enough to bend it to my will. If you ever want to start working on a cereal w/milk recipe, SteamOn has got you covered. The only thing I did was round up meringue 0.05% just because I thought it looked weird.

Strawberry: TPA Strawberry Ripe is awesome, but is too "pink" for this profile if that makes sense. INW Shisha Strawberry was a front-runner but I always get this slightly earthy note from it that turns me off in certain recipes unless it's done right (like wh1skeyk1ng's Rhubarb Delight ). I decided to try a couple of new strawberries that I didn't have as much experience with. I really liked the notes I got from RF Strawberry Gelato SC from Tootall's Battered Berry, but in the never ending battle with tasting both apple-cinnamon AND strawberry in this mix it was too weak on it's own, and just increasing it caused the gelato notes to take over the recipe. So I included RF Strawberry SC to help both fruits in this profile. The best part? The slightly-granular note from RF Strawberry Gelato SC helps out our cereal base. It's one of those things where you're not sure why it works but it does.

This Cereal is Sweet: I think this is the first recipe in a while where I would say sweetener is required. I mean, look at the side of a box of Apple Jacks and you'll see why. 12 grams of sugar in 1 CUP, who the hell only eats 1 CUP of cereal for breakfast? Add some strawberry milk and you're on the sugar train to diabetes town. Anyway yes, CAP SS, even just a little like in this one, is needed at times. To really create that store-bought sugar bomb you took off the shelf this recipe needs it.

Epilogue: I swear the longer I write my notes on these the more passionate I get. I hope you like what I probably spent way too long on, and be sure to leave a review as well! I always enjoy hearing constructive criticism and any suggestions people might have. Lastly, be sure to try out the other guy's recipes I linked here, if it weren't for them I don't think I could have gotten this together.