COOKIE BUTTER OREOS

I think Nabisco has finally hit rock bottom when it comes to new ideas.  After spending the past several years combining the Oreo form with various flavors designed to imitate other snacks (Peeps, Swedish Fish, DQ Blizzard, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups), the latest limited edition Oreo is...well...designed to imitate another cookie.

I honestly didn't realize there was such a thing as "cookie butter," although I know what a butter cookie is.  Cookie butter is basically a spread such as Nutella, except that it consists of cookie crumbs, vegetable oil, butter or milk, flour and sugar instead of yeast, celery and onion salt.  Wait...no, that's Vegemite.  And you can eat cookie butter right off the spoon...unlike Vegemite...or spread it on toast.

In any event, what you have here is a cookie which tastes like a cookie.  It doesn't taste much different than Vienna Fingers, Mother's English Tea cookies, or frankly Golden Oreos...although the cookie in this case is graham flavored.

These cookies taste very pleasant, and there is no overpowering flavor such as mint, cinnamon or artificial fruit to get in the way.  Still, at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself--are these really necessary?  If you like traditional Oreos, this cookie tastes nothing like it.  If you like vienna fingers or other vanilla creme cookies, why wouldn't you stick with what you know?

I think this cookie might become more successful if it were launched on its own under a different name (and a different shape, of course).  As it is, it is a tasty "limited edition" Oreo which is likely too uninteresting to grab the attention of people looking for something unusual. 

RATING: 4/5

PANCAKES & MAPLE SYRUP JELLY BELLIES

"Maple" is rapidly approaching "pumpkin spice" on my list of most-hated flavors.  Not because I hate maple (or pumpkin spice for that matter).  My issue with pumpkin spice...beyond the fact that there is nothing pumpkin about it...is that it has become the go-to Fall flavor for almost every product under the sun.  And while some of these products are tasty and appropriate, many are not.  Seriously--do we really need a pumpkin spice English muffin or pumpkin spice Mini-Wheats cereal?

In the same tradition, I'm now seeing numerous maple-flavored junk food such as candy corn, cereal, Pop Tarts and now jelly beans.  Note, however, that none of them are content with just naming themselves "maple" and calling it a day.  Instead, they use much more interesting names such as French Toast, bacon and pancakes.  Which would be fine if the products actually tasted like French Toast, bacon and pancakes.  They don't.

Now, I'm not a confectioner, so I don't know how to recreate the flavors of breakfast foods using sugar, high fructose corn syrup and a handful of artificial flavors.  But I can tell you how these companies have decided to do it: with smoke flavor.

That may make sense when it comes to bacon, but pancakes?  Apart from the testers, which I always throw away, I don't think I've ever made pancakes that taste smokey.  And "burnt pancakes" is probably not a good name for a commercial product anyway.

So, yes, these Jelly Bellies taste like maple...with a little smokey flavor.  Come to think of it, it tastes slightly like their coffee jelly bean.  I know that the Jelly Belly people have already recreated the flavor of butter (in their "buttered popcorn" jelly beans), so I'm not sure why they didn't use that instead.  Maple and butter, while still not tasting like a pancake, would at least taste better than maple and smoke/coffee.  And before you are tempted to buy a bag of buttered popcorn Jelly Bellies and combine the two, let me warn you: don't bother.  That doesn't taste quite right either, unless you are a person who drizzles maple syrup on your popcorn.

If you like the flavor of maple, stick with those maple leaf creme cookies.  If you absolutely positively must eat a maple jelly bean, these will do the trick...but they no more taste like pancakes than a ketchup jelly bean would taste like a hot dog.

RATING:  3/5
 
 

MYSTERY OREOS

"Mystery flavors" are nothing new. How many of us had mothers that made us try something they cooked for us without telling us what it was? Or, depending upon our culture, an uncle who tricked us into eating sheep intestines or fish heads? In fact, if you think about it, mystery flavors are as old as humanity itself.  After all, someone had to be the first one to eat a lobster to realize that it was actually tasty.

But "mystery flavors" in junk food are more commonly seen with individually-wrapped candy such as Air Heads or Dum-Dums. Which makes sense: if you like such candy, you won't mind finding one mystery flavor in your bag of 20 pieces. Here, however, Oreo didn't give us one mystery-flavored cookie, but an entire bag full of them. That's asking consumers to take a big leap of faith! Who would want to be stuck with an entire bag of crab-flavored cookies?

So, in the interests of science...and an abundance of spare change and boredom...I took it upon myself to try these so you won't have to (which is the very mantra of this blog). But my motives weren't entirely altruistic--I'm still entering the contest to win $50,000 by identifying the flavor.

If you've read any of my prior Oreo reviews, you know that I am not a fan of the chocolate cookie but prefer the golden or graham cookies instead. In my opinion, the chocolate cookie only works with a handful of flavors--such as mint, vanilla, chocolate. This opinion was immediately put to the test when I opened the box and smelled a strong fruit flavor. Initially, I thought this might be some sort of orange (Fanta?), but after forcing myself to eat a few more cookies I've decided that they taste more like fruit punch. The problem is that Oreo has previously released both a fruit punch Oreo and a fruity crisp Oreo...both of which came in a golden cookie, by the way. Knowing how often companies like to partner with other companies, I'm guessing this cookie was meant to taste like either a Starburst or a Capri Sun.

As a gimmick, it is interesting. As a cookie, not so much. The chocolate doesn't pair well with the fruity creme filling. It would have been better with a golden cookie for sure, and while not nearly as bad as the Swedish Fish Oreos, it's nothing I would ever want to eat again.

(By the way, the contest is open until November 30, 2017, so you have plenty of time to try these for yourself before then. Or, better yet, save yourself the irresponsible calories and take a wild guess at oreomystery.com. Just send me a cut of your prize money if you are the winner!)

RATING: 2/5

UPDATE:  Nabisco has since revealed that the mystery flavor was...Fruity Pebbles!  Perhaps I'm a sore loser, but I call foul on this one!  Oreo previously released a "Fruity Crisp" Oreo, which everyone knew was actually Fruity Pebbles.  This one didn't have any cereal pieces in the creme.