cookies

REVIEW: Limited Edition Cookie Butter Oreo

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Cookie butter. Super delicious – but what the hell do you do with it? After pulverizing the wonderfully spice-laden European speculoos cookies into a sweet and crunchy spread akin to peanut butter, there aren’t too many paths to take other than a jar, a spoon, and a dimly lit kitchen. However, when feeling extra creative, indulgent, and cannibalistic, like topping a fried chicken sandwich with a fried egg, you can put that cookie butter into more cookies and make a cookie on cookie sandwich that should send sweet tooth’s spiraling into happiness. Enter – Oreo Limited Edition Cookie Butter Oreo’s.

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As is customary in opening all new bags of cookies, I inhale the sugary aroma, and as is customary with most limited Oreo flavors, the smell is predominantly of the wafer, in this case, graham. There’s pretty much no spicy speculoos-y scent coming from the pristine rows of tan on tan on tan, and I’m not that surprised.

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What I am surprised about though, is the flavor. These cookie butter cookies taste nearly nothing like cookie butter and entirely of graham cracker. The deep, spicy nuances of speculoos are nowhere to be found, and the creme simply backs up and mimics the flavor of the wafer. I love graham crackers, so the profile to me is overall pleasant, but it’s also a pretty big letdown, as there’s barely even a trace of cinnamon, let alone the nutmeg, cloves, pepper, or ginger I expect.

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Where I will give Nabisco some credit with this limited edition is in the texture of the creme, which they made gritty and slightly chunky to mimic what comes inside the jars of the real stuff. Unfortunately the grittiness is about all that really resembles the cookie butter in the isolated creme, as the underlining flavor is closer to regular sweet Oreo “white stuff” than any spicy spreadable magic.

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The one-noted aspect of these cookies ultimately makes them pretty boring. The most interesting part of eating these is the slight saltiness that’s revealed in the graham wafer against the relatively boring and flat creme. They’re less complex than a classic Oreo, and maybe even less complex than a Golden, and surprisingly one of the more disappointing limited releases this year. A creamy frosting-esque graham cracker? Most definitely. A cookie filled with cookie butter? Most definitely not.

Rating: 6.5/10
Found at: Target ($2.99)
Quick Nutrition: 2 cookies – 140 cal – 7g fat – 2g sat fat – 85mg sodium – 20g carb – 10g sugar – 1g protein

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REVIEW: Keebler Limited Batch Pumpkin Spice Fudge Stripes

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Autumn is my favorite time of year, and thank goodness it is officially HERE! Not just for the more relaxed weather, longer periods of darkness, and constant swirl of spices in the air, but the landscape simply looks prettier. There’s something stunningly gorgeous about the environment dying and evolving everywhere you turn, and I’ve got to imagine there would be no more shockingly gorgeous transformation than in the mystical land of Hollow Tree. Yes, rumor has it, the small, incredibly dangerous tree-kitchen where the Keebler Elves do all of their baking, is quite the site to be seen come October, evolving from bright greens and yellows to a wash of orange, red, and brown. It is with this spectacular autumnal view that for the last few years Ernie and his clan of miniature baking enthusiasts have rolled out Limited Batch Pumpkin Spice Fudge Stripes, and this year they’ve arrived well before the leaves have fallen.

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The cookies carry a soft, creamy, vanilla, and spicy smell that doesn’t immediately register “pumpkin” in my mind but definitely conjures up “spice”. It’s funny how such an odd squash can have a particular smell and taste, but it does, and I don’t get any of that here. The deep brown-orange color is pleasant on the eye and the drizzle/pattern work is par the course for all Fudge Stripes.

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The flavor is a little bit different than I anticipated and surprisingly ginger-forward, followed by nutmeg, and then least represented is the cinnamon and a touch of cloves. This is pretty refreshing as many companies will label something “pumpkin spice” and just toss cinnamon into the mix, but Keebler went with the less common fall components to be the star of this stripe show. Even though ginger is unmistakably the lead flavor, it doesn’t have the usual accompanying tongue sizzle, as the taste is mellowed out by the creamy vanilla-y sweet stripe and slightly tamer nutmeg. Texturally they’re exactly the same as other Stripes – soft and crumbly with a gentle snap that falls somewhere in between your average grocery cookie and real deal shortbread.

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As is the case with all Limited Batch Fudge Stripes aside from Cinnamon Roll (which were decently cinnamon spicy), these cookies offer a full but subdued take on the flavor they’re aiming for. Even though they’re labeled as being a pumpkin cookie, I get more of a mellow gingersnap vibe from them, which is delicious and a very snack-able gateway into the seasons more intensely spiced options.

Rating: 8.5/10
Found at: Target ($2.99)
Quick Nutrition: 2 cookies – 140 cal – 7g fat – 4.5g sat fat – 85mg sodium – 18g carbs – 10g sugar

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REVIEW: Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Oreo

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In 2014 Oreo joined the pumpkin spice party and I lost my shit. Autumn is the pinnacle party time for the tastebuds of señor cinnaslut (me) and the limited Oreo’s at the time had seen no spicy love, and were mostly a wash of weird fruit and ice cream flavors. I bought a package at first sighting and devoured them happily amid the glow of my three-wick Bath and Body Works Leaves candle. I was in my zone, and I loved them, but for whatever reason, I haven’t repurchased them the last couple of years. Being that this blog didn’t exist until last year I felt it was only fitting to give it another go, and shed some skillet light on the fourth season return of the Pumpkin Spice Oreo.

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The prominent cookie-nose on these pumpkin cookies is the very familiar scent of Golden Oreo’s – sweet and vanilla-y, with just a hint of cinnamon rounding it out. The combination of the golden wafer with the soft spice notes reminds me of graham, and I wonder how a graham wafer would change the profile – likely for the better.

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As a boy who loves him a healthy dose of spice, these Pumpkin-O’s are simply too subtle. The flavor starts just like the initial smell implies – almost identical to a Golden Oreo. It’s noticeably less sweet, being tamed by the artificial addition of spice flavoring, and only towards the end does it finish with a bit of cinnamon flair.

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Isolating the creme on its own reveals a bit more cinnamon depth, but still no tingle or real autumn intrigue is brought to the table. Although there’s a touch of cinnamon, the rest of the pumpkin spice gang – nutmeg, cloves, and ginger – are nowhere to be found. The cookie is actually less spicy and complex than the stellar Cinnamon Bun Oreo, which is a shame since it has “spice” in its name. It’s still a good tasting Oreo but it doesn’t bring anything particularly exciting to the table that makes me want to eat more, and I now remember why I passed on picking them up the last couple of years.

Rating: 7.5/10
Found at: Target ($2.99)

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REVIEW: Keebler Limited Batch Dark Chocolate Mint Fudge Stripes

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Just when you thought those funny little Elves had started to dip into the deep end of limited time offerings, they return with another safe, albeit classic and delicious, limited batch flavor – Dark Chocolate Mint. Although I’ve gotta give them credit, they’re definitely throwing a cookie curveball releasing a flavor traditionally served alongside a blanket of snow at a time when most of the country is still sweating in triple digits. It would be like Oreo dropping their long lost Gingerbread cookie in Spring – it just doesn’t make sense, and yet, I can’t help but feel like there’s no wrong time for a taste of Winter.

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Opening up the long crinkly package releases an unmistakable aroma – Thin Mints. These striped cookie tires smell almost identical to the Girl Scouts’ classic that also reign supreme during a time of no Winter Wonderland vibes. Maybe Keebler are onto something, as is evidenced by their year round Thin Mint knockoff Grasshoppers – that people get down on the delicious pairing of chocolate and mint whether or not there’s a long branch of mistletoe dangling over their heads.

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The taste is also very similar to Thin Mints, a lovely marriage of chocolate and peppermint, just a bit less minty, and more obviously, much creamier because of the great green stripe of fudge along the top. The extra creamy notes also make the cookie register a bit sweeter than Thin Mints or Grasshoppers, with a heartier, deeper crunch and satisfying smoothness. The stripe on these cookies feels less notoriously waxy than their older siblings with a less hardened texture that provides a more legitimate creaminess than what I know and generally love from some Stripes.

Honestly, there’s not too much more to say about these cookies. The balance of peppermint sharpness to cooling sweetness is on point and it’s a classic pairing that will essentially sell itself. If I had one criticism it would be perhaps to make the cookie a bit more bitter since they used the word “dark” in the title, but overall these are a damn fine grocery cookie that will give anyone a taste of Christmas bliss, even if they’re wearing shorts.

Rating: 8.5/10
Found at: Sent to me by Keebler but spotted at Target and Walmart!
Quick Nutrition: 2 cookies – 140 cal – 6g fat – 4g sat fat – 120mg sodium – 20g carb – 11g sugar – 1g protein

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REVIEW: Limited Edition PB & J Oreo

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It’s back to school week for all the kiddos out there, and let’s just say it how it is – that sucks. The long, care free, sleepless nights of whimsy and wonder are over and get exchanged for homework, bed times, and social anxiety. But hey – at least we get another new Oreo out of it! Despite the sadness of summer ending, I always secretly kind of liked going back to school, since it meant the days would get short and before I knew it a blanket of spookiness would wash over every store and every child’s imagination. I also not-so-secretly love every opportunity I can get to try a new limited time flavor of cookie, and if this long overdue Peanut Butter and Jelly Oreo comes at the sacrifice of teenagers everywhere having to spend $30 on a new backpack – I’ll take it.

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The package smells sweet like artificial berries with a bit of swirling artificial peanut butter to back it up. The creme’s are split evenly down the middle, and by the looks of it the peanut butter half is really trying to flex its protein power over the berry, as the tan creme is oozing out of the side in a show of apparent snack time dominance. On the outside is the classic Golden wafer, and I can’t help but be a little sad it isn’t graham. Even though I’ve never had graham cracker bread, the mashup sounds delectably drool-worthy.

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While I really liked and was surprised by the execution of the jelly creme in the Jelly Donut Oreo, I’m not liking it nearly as much here. There’s an odd, slightly off-putting floral note that comes across and registers much closer to perfume than jelly. It isn’t the usual punch-in-the-face sweetness that comes with most artificial berry flavors, but I find it distracting, and ultimately overpowering to the usually very hard to overthrow peanut butter. I really wish Nabisco had gone with grape jelly for this Oreo, but the strangest thing is not only does it not taste like grape, it doesn’t really taste like strawberry or raspberry either. It floats in this weird fake tasting space that really reminds me of flowers and has no notable tartness to balance it out.

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The peanut butter creme, when I taste it on its own, is very good. It has a slightly thick and gritty texture with a true roasted peanut flavor that strikes a perfect sweet balance in tandem with the golden wafer. Some of the great nuttiness comes through in the complete bite, but a lot of its more subtle notes get drowned out by the sweeter and surprisingly prominent jelly. From what I recall, this creme is a bit saltier and less sweet than the one most of us are familiar with in a Nutter Butter, and I would love to see a Golden Oreo that features just this creme.

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While this Oreo is good, and certainly more interesting than a couple of releases earlier this year, I don’t love it, and I really really wanted to. It was a missed opportunity to not layer two thinner creme’s on top of each other, as no one eats peanut butter and jelly in two divided halves. The cookies are far from disgusting, and I will 100% eat the rest of them, but they unfortunately fall into the category of of PB&J products that don’t quite live up to the great flavor combo of the iconic sandwich, and will need an extra spoonful of PB to really pass my persona; tastebud test.

Rating: 7.5/10
Found at: FoodsCo ($2.99)

REVIEW: Keebler Limited Batch Strawberry Cheesecake Fudge Stripes

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Within any collective community or “scene” there are always different levels of dedication. There are casual sports fans who might don a team’s hat when they’re doing well, and then the guy who shows up shirtless to every game painted in the team’s colors. There are listeners of metal music that may fancy themselves a nice studded bracelet, and then there are those true-to-the-core metalhead badasses who don’t own a single piece of non-black clothing. There are part-timers who punch in 23 hours at their workplace, and then those who crawl their way in on Sunday’s and never push less than 60. There are the Taco Bell’s who are dedicated to the insanity and the McDonald’s who never stray too far from the path. You get the picture.

In the junk food world the levels of dedication can be measured by limited time offerings, and while Oreo reigns supreme in coming out with kooky cookies (Swedish Fish, Cotton Candy), Keebler have yet to really take any risks since delving into the LTO-iverse last year…until now. While they’ve played it generally close to the vest with Pumpkin Spice, Lemon, and Cinnamon, this summer the Elves took their first step towards true dedication, trying a flavor that is no easy task and could ultimately lead to Fudge Stripe failure – Strawberry Cheesecake.

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Ripping open the soft pink and off-white packaging reveals a distinctly tangy and cheesecake-y aroma. It’s mellow but sharp, and surprisingly less strawberry-forward than what I expected. These cookies were shipped to me straight from the Elfin land of Keebler’s Hollow Tree, and quite a few of them took a crumble tumble in travel, but that shouldn’t effect the taste at all. The intact cookies share in the same rosy pink as the package with the signature white “fudge” stripes on the top.

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Wow – these cookies are awesome. Much like the initial smell, the flavor that I get smacked with immediately is cheesecake, and to be honest I wasn’t expecting these to taste like cheesecake at all. I was anticipating a wallop of too-sweet artificial strawberry flavor with a hint of nondescript creaminess, more akin to a strawberries and cream, but these are tangy and cheesy with a great balance of sweetness. I’m not a big fan of fake strawberry, and I don’t get much of that flavor here at all, it may even be closer to cherry, as it just has a slightly tart fruity essence beneath the layer of cheesecake.

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The texture, like all Fudge Stripes, is a soft-yet-crumbly shortbread that brings a nice hit of butteriness beneath the cheesy berry flavors. Much like the Lemon Stripes, the flavors here are all around a bit muted, but with such notoriously bold tart and tangy potential I really appreciate the subtly they come across with. The ratios are spot on with the berry taking the backseat, because no one ever eats a slice of cheesecake drowning in sauce, it acts as the acidic highlight to the decadent cake, and that’s exactly what these cookies do.

Rating: 8.5/10
Found at: Sent to me from Keebler but can be found in stores and online (approx. $3)

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REVIEW: Limited Edition Dunkin’ Donuts’ Mocha Oreo

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Few things in this world go together as beautifully as coffee and chocolate – so why the hell did it take so long for Oreo to put a spin on the classic combo? When Trader Joe’s released their fantastic Mocha Joe Joe’s earlier this year I couldn’t believe they beat Nabisco in the cookie race, but they did, and they put out a real bang up of a product in the process. Although late, Nabisco teamed up with another junk food juggernaut in Dunkin’ Donuts to unearth the Limited Edition Mocha Oreo, which pairs the traditional chocolate Oreo wafer with a coffee flavored creme filling.

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Coffee is one of the most fantastically seductive aromas the culinary world has to offer, and shockingly these Oreo cookies don’t smell like coffee – at all. In fact, they smell like chocolate frosting. Slightly less sweet than what I remember regular double chocolate Oreo’s smelling like, but absolutely zero traces of the roasted bean that’s the inspiration behind the product. Sometimes coffee is used in baking to elevate the flavor in a chocolate cake, adding extra depth to the bitter cocoa notes, and I’m hoping that’s what’s at play here, and not a cookie that tastes as weak and diluted as Dunkin’s overhyped coffee.

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Fortunately for me, and for Nabisco’s reputation, these cookies actually taste great. There is 100% more coffee flavor than there is smell, and while it isn’t the punchiest mocha product I’ve had, it’s a damn good one. The usual bitter notes of the wafer cookie are amplified by the coffee creme, and the two play off of one another to great success. A mocha is generally less coffee-heavy, with only two or three ounces being actual espresso and the rest milk and chocolate, and with those ratios in mind this Oreo is pretty much spot on. As a daily black coffee drinker who really appreciates the natural flavor of the dark stuff these satisfy my tastebuds and are still sweet enough to actually compliment a real cup of bitter joe on the side.

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As simple as this minor creme-change is, it really works, and I find these Mocha Oreo’s to be the best chocolate-based limited offering in recent memory. They’re much more interesting and endearing than Chocolate Covered Strawberry and have a much more significant flavor switch up than Filled Cupcake or Brownie Batter. While they may not deliver as big of an espresso hit as Trader Joe’s Mocha Joe Joe’s, they’re nearly just as delicious and full of that classic Oreo nostalgia.

Rating: 8.5/10
Found at: Safeway ($2.99)

REVIEW: Limited Edition Jelly Donut Oreo

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In the 2017 food scene emulation is the name of the game. Whether it be dessert hybrids like snickerdoodle cupcakes, bars of whey protein that taste like key lime pie, or plant-based burgers that bleed like real meat, people who love food are in love with making things transform in our mouths into something they aren’t. As hot as this is now, perhaps no one has been chasing after this trend in the junk food universe more aggressively and consistently than Nabisco – who in recent years have been hell-bent on making their iconic Oreo cookie sandwiches taste like other things, from syrupy waffles to chocolate dipped strawberries. Their latest Walmart-exclusive attempt at sugary transformation aims to take down an early morning indulgence disguised as an after school treat with Jelly Donut Oreo.

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Taking in the general aroma from these Oreo’s is no different than your average golden package with the sweet, slightly vanilla golden Oreo wafer taking over the dominant sniff. If I dig my nose in closer and get real close there is a hint of tart berry smell that cuts through the sugary notes. there’s also a bit of that greasy donut aura that could be from the creme or could be from pure fantasy, but it’s present none the less. Much like an actual jelly donut, from the outside they don’t look much different than your average ‘nut, and it’s what lurks on the inside that will truly tell the taste tale.

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Biting into these cookies is definitely different than a regular Golden Oreo and definitely delicious. The composition of the creme is setup with an outer ring of classic “white stuff” with a jelly-flavored center. The center is big enough that it comes through with an average-sized bite of the cookie and the flavor is surprisingly really good. The “jelly” is somewhere in between raspberry and blueberry, which I guess would make it boysenberry? I’m going to assume Nabisco was going for raspberry since that’s a more typical donut-filling, but no matter what you want to call it it’s damn good.

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The jelly flavor, contrary to what I think about actual jelly, helps to temper the sweetness of the golden wafer and white creme for an experience that is very well balanced. The berry doesn’t come off as insanely artificial and has a very pleasant flavor that is much more desirable than what strawberry tends to bring to the table. Without any specific yeast or powdered sugar notes it’s hard for me to really lock in on “donut” when eating, but they remind me of the little thumbprint cookies with jelly filling, and for an Oreo to take me there is pretty impressive. When I pair the cookie up with some coffee, I do actually get the donut sensation, and somehow the bitter notes of the coffee washing down the vanilla-meets-berry flavor brings me to Saturday morning and delivers on the cookies’ name.

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Did Nabisco knock it out of the park with this emulation? No. Had they made the center ring more gelatinous or jelly-like it could have really driven the contrast that actual filled donuts have, but with a little bit of imagination the point comes across pretty well. What they did do is deliver one of the most interesting and tasty Oreo’s I’ve had in quite some time with a perfect sweetness and great berry flavor that I would happily buy again.

Rating: 8.5/10
Found at: Walmart ($2.99)

Quick Nutrition: 2 cookies – 150 cal – 7g fat – 80mg sodium – 21g carbs – 12g sugar

REVIEW: Salted Caramel Oreo Thins

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It’s already been well established that sweet and salty is one of the greatest flavor combos known to man, so naturally, salted caramel is one of the more readily available flavor profiles that really gets my digestive juices flowin’. Shockingly, as popular as this pairing has been in recent years, Nabisco overlooked making a salted caramel Oreo in favor of, you know, cotton candy, root beer float, and rainbow sherbet – BUT NO MORE!! …sort of. To get our beach bods prepped for long summer nights, Oreo have hit us with Salted Caramel Oreo Thins.

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I like Oreo Thins, but straight up the flavor on these limited slimmies is simply not strong enough. The package lets out a nice artificial caramel smell that channels packaged caramel corn mixed with the golden vanilla of the Oreo wafer and a hint of carnival nostalgia. Biting in as a whole the cookie has a verrrry subtle caramel flavor with a touch of saltiness that makes the overall experience a bit less sweet than the regular Golden Thin but not really venturing into the “salted caramel” territory proper. They actually remind me of a more muted version of the recent Waffles & Syrup Oreo the way that they hint at graham cracker and are generally sweet but with a deeper flavor than you would find in white cookies with white creme.

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Isolating the creme on its own is similarly disappointing. There’s definitely more caramel flavor that comes through without the two cookies, but even on its own the flavor isn’t particularly pronounced. It’s almost as though even on its own there isn’t enough creme to properly translate a more complex flavor like salted caramel. Eating the cookie open faced style is more of the same, but with the saltiest presence of the different methods – maybe the hint of cookie plus creme gives the best sodium punch as this is the only way any kind of “salted” caramel comes through for me.  Fortunately the creme is very easy to peel off and when I stacked two layers of creme into one sando the combo worked surprisingly well.  The flavor was both salty AND caramel-y and the texture felt thick and dense like caramel too – an easy, successful fix!

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While I was initially pretty excited to see some flavor twists on the Oreo Thins line, the execution here makes me wonder if doing special releases with so little creme and cookie to work with can actually be successful. If Nabisco wants to venture down this path again they need to use bolder flavors that will cut through in smaller quantities like their Lemon Thins, rather than flavors that can be easily muddled like salted caramel. The recently re-released full size Key Lime Pie and Blueberry Pie Oreo creme’s would work really well here, making a light, crispy, refreshing cookie treat, and I’m confident the smaller amount of filling would still pop against the thin golden wafer.

Rating: 7/10
Found at: Target ($2.99)

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REVIEW: Fudge Stripes Lemmy Num-Num’s

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When it became apparent that Keebler were going to enter the Oreo game and have limited Fudge Stripes chase after what Nabisco has been doing for years I was stoked, but I didn’t anticipate having to chase down the flavors myself with such difficulty. Sometime in April Keebler released Lemon Cream Pie Fudge Stripes and after looking everywhere from Target to Walmart to Safeway they just never popped up, and instead it seemed like 500 new packs of Cinnamon Roll were birthed every time I went back to check. With the release of Despicable Me 3, the cross-promotion between the cookie company and film includes an apparent rebranding of the pie flavor to “Lemmy Num-Num”, and this version has decided to make its way to the bay so I can finally try them. Of course, since this release there’s already been two more Fudge Stripes that I haven’t seen, but, that’s another story…

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Opening the package the cookies have a nice, soft, lemony scent that remind me of an amped up version of Barnum’s Animals Crackers. The flavor mimics the smell with a gentle lemon flavor that isn’t too bold or tart, with a slight butteriness and smooth creamy finish. There isn’t a huge amount of sweetness either, and these cookies kind of just “exist”, without any super dominant or super offensive flavors, which is kind of rare for lemon. The texture is nice – soft and crumbly with a little bit of crunch just like all other Fudge Stripes.

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I like these, they’re very tasty, but ultimately they don’t deliver as big of a lemony wallop as I would like. It’s tricky with the renaming and rebranding of a cookie that was Lemon Cream Pie now being “Lemmy Num Num” because if they were trying to channel a lemon pie they did a pretty decent job. While I still wish they were zingy-er and more tart, there is a solid lemon flavor for the filling, the crumbly cookie for the pie crust, and the “fudge” dip and drizzle to emulate the cream or meringue that would top the pie. All of the components work well together, albeit a bit muted, and putting back many of these in a row is no problem at all. Snack on.

Rating: 7.5/10
Found at: Walmart ($2.99)

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