Yesterday was the first day of autumn, and on cue, the weather gods ended their colossal mid-July heat joke, providing a chill suitable for sweaters and non-glistening foreheads. Love it. I can’t promise that I won’t turn on the air conditioner, but that has more to do with its soothing, clanging hum than a heat reprieve.

Let’s celebrate by making a haunted house out of cereal.

Kellogg’s says that their Cocoa Krispies “Haunted House Kit” is “fun to make and great to eat,” but my matured, old man palette will only agree with them on one of those points. Still, as one of the few “major brand” Halloween food kits available this year, it was well worth the money. Can’t remember what it cost, but since everything else I review seems to cost five bucks, let’s go with that.

When I started doing the Halloween Countdown in 2003, spooky-themed cereal spinoffs were still in vogue. It was always one of my favorite things about the season, as evidenced by the Greek-fonted “My Kingdom For A Cereal Marshmallow Shaped Like A Bat” tattoo running across my upper back. The phenomenon hasn’t totally dried up, but each year, fewer and fewer cereal brands put on their costumes, and there’s only so much Count Chocula a person can take before they gun down a crowded shopping mall in misguided angst.

This kit helps, even if it isn’t technically a Halloween cereal. It has Snap, Crackle and Pop dressed like mummies and pirates on the box, so I guess it sort of is. Yeah.

The kit includes everything you’ll need to build a haunted house out of Cocoa Krispies. This is admirable, since so many like-styled kits don’t. If I had a nickel for every holiday food kit I’ve bought only to find myself running back to the store for cinnamon or some other such bullshit, I could fill a sock and beat you into a coma.

Contents include a bag of cereal, house-shaped cake pan, icing pens, assorted decorative candies, and a mysterious bag of gooey marshmallow sludge. There’s also a handy printed tutorial, which separates the steps into stuff kids can do and stuff kids will need adult supervision to do. I was able to handle everything myself, which is just one of the many reasons those in the know call me King Matt.

I won’t burden you with the play-by-play, but if you’re really curious to know how a Cocoa Krispies Haunted House is made, you can probably figure it out from the pictures above. You’re essentially creating a giant Rice Krispies Treat and molding it with a house-shaped cake pan. The whole process only takes a few minutes, and is totally painless.

The final step (unless you count “devouring” as a step) involves decorating your cereal house with the included bunch of candies and icings. I’m a haunted house nut, but I didn’t want to go through so much trouble just to ice on a door and a few windows. Clearly, my Cocoa Krispies Haunted House needed to become something more akin to a severed goblin head.

You’d look upset if your nose was an upside-down ghost marshmallow, too.

My goblin/haunted house is pretty, but I can’t claim that he/it tastes very good. The super-processed gooey marshmallow gunk cannot compare to the materials used in traditional, homemade Rice Krispies Treats. It just has a slightly unnatural taste, not to the point of being inedible, but at least to the point where I don’t have to worry about feeling guilty for eating an entire goblin/haunted house. I took a bite for posterity’s sake, but that’s about it.

Still, I only mention the off-flavor because I find it incredibly difficult to review anything without bitching. It’s a minor minus. Overall, this is a fine little kit that made me feel like I was living the Halloween season and not just looking at it.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!