Poor maple.

Since the dawn of seasonal snack food proliferation and the veritable arms race of limited-edition flavors, it’s been getting overlooked each fall by pumpkin spice and any combination of apple flavors. And while it seems obvious maple would make its way into prime-time cookie form, it sure took its sweet time. Hell, it took Oreo 25 other flavors to even consider maple!

Frankly, Maple Creme Oreo Cookies are long overdue, especially given the fact that people have been smuggling Dare Maple Leaf Crème cookies across the Canadian border for as long as I can remember.

Like any rational human being, I eagerly enjoyed my first Maple Creme Oreo by twisting the cookies ends off and licking the crème, which looks like peanut butter. More viscous than regular Oreo creme and slightly gritty, it has a delicate depth and slightly unprocessed flavor. These are not woodsy, warming, or even caramel, all flavors associated with darker colored maple syrups. But for what they lack in a romantic conception of drizzling maple syrup over pancakes after a long day of chopping wood in Vermont with our best flannel shirt, they make up in general appeal.

In that light, the creme does hit a maple note, although one that straddles a slightly-more-sweet-than-it-needs-to-be mixture of corn syrup and light brown sugar. You’re getting maple flavor, but you’re not getting maple syrup — a sensation complicated by the Golden Oreo wafers.

While the creme is far too sweet on its own, the Golden Oreo wafers help balance out the taste. When I first bit into one, an odd but welcomed memory of Golden Grahams surfaced on my tongue. I’m not sure if the wafers received a slight flavor change for the cookie, or if was the combination of being stuck to the maple-flavored creme, but the taste was different and better than the average Golden Oreo.

In any case, the wafers had enough complexity to dull the sweetness while rounding out the maple flavor, making the complete cookie chomp the preferred method for eating these.

While Oreo could have gone a lot of different ways in pairing the maple flavor, I tend to think the simplest variation is often the best. It definitely works here, and although Maple Creme Oreo Cookies are not quite as good as Canada’s Maple Leaf Crème cookies (which are made with real maple syrup), they’re still good enough on their own to deserve consideration to be in the regular lineup.

Purchased Price: $2.99
Size:12.2 oz. package
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2 cookies) 140 calories, 6 grams of total fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 65 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of total sugars, 13 grams of added sugars, and less than 1 gram of protein.