I like building cereals from the ground up, I have a lot more flexibility and find that I'm able to arrive at more authentic profiles that way.

Rice cereal is pretty difficult, just because of how elusive "rice flavor" can be. My strategy was to leverage flavors with appreciable 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline/2-acetyl pyrrole content to bolster that note, as well as other generic non specific bready/nutty flavors to fill out something of a discernible rice flavor.

Fast forward after many sugary cereal bars, I identified the fruit flavors I wanted emphasized. Not quite gummy but artificial, in your face fruit flavors is the play here. Strawberry dominant (80% of the taste), with mainly a blueberry undertone. Notes of candy apple and grape can also be identified, so we're going need a pinch of those as well.

I'm a little burnt out on bottom of the bowl cereal tastes, so I figured why not make a cereal bar.

In any case lets get started with the recipe:

Fruity Pebbles Cereal Bar:

• FA Marshmallow 1.50%
• FA Meringue 1.00%
• FLV Vanilla Custard 1.50%
• CAP Buttercream 1 drop/10ml
• TFA Strawberry Ripe 4.00%
• FLV Strawberry 1%
• FLV Blueberry 0.50%
• FLV Green Apple 1 drop/15ml
• INW Grape 1 drop/15ml
• FLV Coconut 1 drop/30ml
• CAP Sugar Cookie 3.00%
• FA Walnut 0.40%
• FA Licorice 1drop/10ml
• Acetyl Pyrazine (10% dilution) 1drop/30ml
• Sweetener of choice to taste, totally optional

Break down of the flavor -

The "rice" element of the cereal comes from the 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline/2-acetyl pyrrole in walnut/licorice/cookie. Walnut's nuttiness, combined with the buttery bready taste of cap sugar cookie and a little help from licorice's sweetness gives you ultra refined cereal rice. 2-Acetyl pyrazine is a defining odorant in rice flavor (one of the only confirmed ones for taste, over 200 volatiles have been identified) so it doesn't hurt to help lift that flavor up a bit as well.

A cereal bar is basically just marshmallow + butter + dry cereal, so we don't want to go heavy on cream, more so on mouthfeel and sweetness, letting the fruits flavor and sweetness stay in your face. FA Marshmallow is the most distinctly jet puff, commercial marshmallow type flavor so we're making that the star. Meringue boosts the flavor of marshmallow, and then together with a little help from custard, you get the gooey sweet marshmallow flavor you get in a cereal bar with big body. A little butter flavor from buttercream and coconut takes it over the edge helps balance it all out.

As described earlier, we want in your face artificial/candy type fruit flavor. We're keeping FLV Strawberry at 1% to avoid the jammy note and retain the candy profile, as well as to help Strawberry Ripe pop out a little bit as we want to emphasize strawberry flavor. At the same time, it needs a bit more fruity depth to achieve the same authenticity as the cereal. FLV Blueberry provides the candy blueberry flavor, as well as their green apple for a little candy apple. FA Fuji won't work here. As a final note a little candy grape flavor ramps up the sweetness and ties together a pretty authentic fruity pebbles cereal taste. We are using a really tiny hint of coconut for its creaminess and butter, as well as to mimic the incredibly subtle flavor in the cereal from how its made with the hydrogenated oil.

Ultimately. I'm quite satisfied with the effort. The rice note is present and the fruity profile is pretty on point with how I taste fruity pebbles. You're looking at around a week steep time for that refined cereal rice flavor to come out and the custard to really merge with the marshmallow, though it still delivers reasonably well as a shake and vape. I don't recommend substitutions, the flavors chosen were for highly specific purposes and roles in the profile.

Have a nice weekend!

-Joe