Tag: Oreo

August 14th is National Creamsicle Day.

I didn’t know that until just moments ago and although it’s only a few more months until it comes around again, I’ve been making up for the years I didn’t celebrate National Creamsicle Day by eating one Limited Edition Creamsicle Oreo for each year I missed it. Unfortunately, I don’t know when the holiday was established, so I hope the thirty cookies I’m eating will make up for it.

When the holiday comes around again, I won’t be sucking, licking, or biting a frozen Creamsicle to celebrate the day. Instead, I’ll be eating more of these Limited Edition Creamsicle Oreo cookies to honor the orange and vanilla treat. I hope they’ll still be available, since they’re limited edition.

Why not honor a Creamsicle by eating a Creamsicle? Because I believe one should honor something by eating something else that honors it. I wouldn’t eat an actual flag on Flag Day or a mother on Mother’s Day. In the case of Flag Day, I would eat something that honors the flag, like a cake or cookie decorated to look like an American flag or a pizza that uses pepperoni and mozzarella cheese to create the thirteen stripes.

Although, to be honest, I don’t really celebrate Flag Day, because no one gets the day off, there aren’t any fireworks, and I don’t want to blow my entire patriotic load before the Fourth of July.

Speaking of blowing entire loads, it looks like the folks at Nabisco have been doing just that with their Oreo cookies. Over the past two months, they’ve not only released these Creamsicle Oreos, but also Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo, new flavors of Oreo Fudge Cremes, Oreo Brownies, and Triple Double Oreo.

However, out of that high fructose corn syrup-sweetened group, Creamsicle Oreo is the only one labeled limited edition and I’m disappointed by that because they make me wish every day was National Creamsicle Day.

After all the twisting, licking, biting, and other verbs that sound sexual but are also done with Oreo cookies, I think the cookie as a whole doesn’t taste like a Creamsicle. However, the orange and white creme itself does taste very similar to the frozen treat, but it doesn’t have a strong enough flavor to stand out from the vanilla Oreo cookie. When the creme is combined with the vanilla Oreo cookie, its flavor reminds me of Fruity Pebbles.

Even though the Limited Edition Creamsicle Oreo as a whole doesn’t taste like a Creamsicle, it’s still a pretty good cookie. And I look forward to celebrating National Creamsicle Day with it.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 150 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram of polyunsaturated fat, 3 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 15 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, less than 1 gram of protein and 2% iron.)

Item: Limited Edition Creamsicle Oreo
Price: $2.98
Size: 15.25 ounces
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Creme taste like a Creamsicle. As a whole, it tastes like Fruity Pebbles. Honoring something by eating something that honors it. The number of Oreo varieties released recently.
Cons: As a whole, it doesn’t taste like a Creamsicle. Limited edition. Missing years of celebrating National Creamsicle Day. Eating an actual flag on Flag Day.

The Nabisco Oreo Brownies sound like the most awesome combination of sweets that has ever been conceived.

The melding of Oreo cookies with chewy brownies sounds so awesome that I believe by just touching it it’ll bring a smile to my face, cause rainbows to form on a sunny day, and make birds sing to me instead of pooping on my car.

However, Oreo Brownies aren’t as awesome as they sound or as awesome as what I typed to overly hype them in the previous paragraph. You see, Oreo Brownies aren’t really brownies and those birds are going to poop on your car, especially if you feed them these Oreo Brownies.

If you look though the annals of the internet, you’ll discover there used to be Nabisco Oreo Brownies which were brownies with Oreo pieces baked in, but these Nabisco Oreo Brownies are different. Although they’re not completely unfamiliar.

Do you enjoy stuffing your cakehole with Oreo Cakesters? Then you’ll enjoy stuffing your browniehole with Oreo Brownies because they both taste exactly alike. However, while the Oreo Cakesters have an airiness to them, like cake, these Oreo Brownies are a little more dense, like, you guess it, brownies.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of eating Oreo Cakesters, they taste like chocolate Hostess CupCakes. And if you’ve never had the pleasure of eating chocolate Hostess CupCakes, you’re probably skinny and have never had chocolate cake get stuck under your fingernails.

Since Oreo Cakesters and Oreo Brownies taste the same, deciding which product to pick up depends on what you prefer: something that looks like an Oreo on steroids or something that looks like an Oreo Cakester on better steroids that was shot by one of Spider-Man’s web-shooters. Or if you’re a stickler for metrics, do you go with two Oreo Cakesters, which are 14 grams heavier than an Oreo Brownie, but have more calories, saturated fat, and sugar? Or if you’re a stickler for value, do you go with a box of Oreo Cakesters that has seven packs of two cookies or a box of Oreo Brownies that comes with ten brownies?

Because I’m a fan of Oreo Cakesters, it’s easy for me to like these Oreo Brownies, but at the same time they disappoint me because they taste like Oreo Cakesters and not some Oreo/brownie hybrid that makes rainbows appear and deters birds from pooping on my car.

If you do decide to pick up a box of Nabisco Oreo Brownies, I’d recommend sticking them in the fridge for a little while because they end up a little chewier and a little awesomer.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 brownie – 190 calories, 9 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 2 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 3 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 150 milligrams of sodium, 65 milligrams of potassium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram fiber, 15 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 20% calcium and 10% iron.)

Item: Nabisco Oreo Brownies
Price: $4.99
Size: 10 brownies
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like an Oreo Cakester. Tastes like Hostess CupCakes. Better when chilled. Contains poly- and monounsaturated fats.
Cons: Tastes like an Oreo Cakester. Thinner than I thought they’d be. Not actual brownies, just shaped like brownies. Doesn’t cause rainbows to form on a sunny day. Birds pooping on my car.

Spring has finally sprung in the Northeast, so all sorts of great things are happening! Grass is rising. Birds are singing. People are getting tan. My hay fever is so bad that I am wondering if cutting off my nose would really be all that spiteful to my face. Most importantly, “Writers from New Jersey review new Oreo flavors” Week is going on at The Impulsive Buy! (All of our themed weeks are incredibly wordy, exactingly descriptive, and don’t follow the normal Sunday-Saturday week schedule.)

Nabisco’s latest non-fudge-covered Oreo is the Berry Burst Ice Cream edition. I can’t find any information online about this new flavor, so we’re left to our own devices when it comes to figuring out which berries are included in the “Berry Burst.” I was hoping for a combination of blackberries (fruit), Blackberrys (phones), and Halle Berry circa 2001.

Once I actually bought and opened the package, it became obvious that the primary and perhaps only berry flavor involved was strawberry. Despite my stuffy nose, I was hit by a strawberry aroma that strongly reminded me of Special K Red Berries cereal. The scent was very pleasant and surprisingly not-too-artificial.

The filling did taste like a really sweet batch of strawberry ice cream. There were little red specks that I imagine were supposed to be tiny berry shards, but they didn’t add anything in texture or taste. Since these Oreos seemed to be single stuffed rather than Double Stuf, the strawberry flavor became a bit too understated when I ate the cookies whole (“whole” meaning without taking them apart, not meaning eaten in a single bite… though, you know, there’s no wrong way to eat an Oreo).

I never got a chance to try the limited edition Strawberry Milkshake Crème Oreos in 2008, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they’ve recently been re-named and re-packaged. Even if that’s the case, these Berry Burst / Strawberry Milkshake Oreos are fairly tasty, so if you love Oreos to begin with, go ahead and give them a try. Apologies that this review is on the short side, but I really have to get going – X-Men, Swordfish, and Monster’s Ball aren’t going to add themselves to my Netflix queue.

(Nutrition Facts – 2 cookies – 150 calories, 60 calories from fat, 7 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 120 milligrams of sodium, 60 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 1gram of protein.)

Other Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo reviews:
Grub Grade

Item: Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreo
Price: $2.99
Size: 15.25 ounces
Purchased at: Kmart
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Pleasant and not-too-artificial smell. Filling tastes like strawberry ice cream. Spring has sprung. Halle Berry circa 2001. Eating cookies whole. TIB theme weeks.
Cons: Flavor becomes too understated when you eat the cookies without taking them apart. Not really any berries other than strawberries. Might just be the same product Nabisco came out with three years ago. Seasonal hay fever.

A wise yet misunderstood sage once observed that C is for cookie, and that was good enough for him.  It’s hard to argue with truth bombs like that, and I’m not going to try.  If anything, I’ll simply observe that like women, cookies come in all different shapes and varieties, some of which you’ll never be able to get enough of and some of which will break up with you via text message because you’re “too nice,” whatever the hell that means, Rachel.  But unlike women, you’re allowed to keep trying new ones after you settle down, which is fortunate because otherwise this review would be one sentence long and say, “I love chocolate chip cookies and I would NEVER TRY A DIFFERENT ONE NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT BEGGED ME TO EAT IT.” 

Obviously that’s not going to cut it, so last Friday night I put on my finest dress shirt, headed down to the local grocery store and picked up some Golden Oreo Fudge Cremes and Peanut Butter Creme Oreo Fudge Cremes.  I’m not one to brag, but let’s just say they both found their way home with me and leave it at that.

I naively assumed I knew what to expect with these cookies, only to realize how wrong I was once I opened the packages.  The first thing you’ll notice is that they’re pretty slim, about the thickness of a Thin Mint.  (In fact, there’s a mint version of this cookie that I’m guessing tastes exactly like a Thin Mint.)  Ergo, clearly not the “regular Oreo coated with fudge” that I had assumed they’d be.  I can’t imagine why I would have thought that, unless it’s because Oreos have a distinct “cookie/filling/cookie” sandwich configuration that literally everyone in the entire world associates with them.  Don’t ask me why they decided to deviate from that — possibly eating full Oreos covered in fudge would cause your ass to expand so rapidly that you’d give yourself an instant wedgie even if you were wearing boxers.  Or maybe it€™s a cost-saving measure. 

The fact remains that Oreo Fudge Cremes are more like what you’d get if you twisted an Oreo in half and dipped it in fudge, the only real difference being that the peanut butter ones (natch) have PB instead of vanilla creme.  In retrospect I should not have been surprised, as the front of each package has a 3-step illustration showing exactly what I just described: half of an Oreo being covered in fudge until it’s completely coated, the end.  It’s literally so simple that its intended audience of children should be able to grasp it in a second, which does not reflect highly on me.  What can I say, it’s late.

As I mentioned before, the cookies really do closely resemble Thin Mints, just a bit bumpier.  Both kinds, Golden and Peanut Butter, look functionally identical when placed next to each other.  In fact, if you can correctly identify which cookies are which in the picture above and email me your answer, I will send you a hefty monetary prize.  Though I have a nagging suspicion that every single person who guesses is going to be wrong.  Call it a hunch.

The peanut butter cookies definitely carry that distinctive PB smell, though it’s not overpowering thanks to the fudgy shell.  They taste decent, but unfortunately suffer from not enough peanut butter flavor… it’s a little too muted.  As my wife quite rightly points out, there are tons of ways to get your peanut butter/chocolate fix, not least of which are Reese’s peanut butter cups.  If there aren’t any PB cups available, these will do in a pinch, but their texture makes them slightly less desirable than the old standby — for some reason the cookie component doesn’t add anything, it just gets in the way of the more pronounced peanut butter and chocolate tastes.  They aren’t bad, but I stop short of being able to highly recommend them either.

The Golden Oreo Fudge Cremes, on the other hand, are really good.  Here the cookie component doesn’t seem superfluous thanks to the lack of a preexisting peanut butter cup bias, and actually feels a bit crunchier.  Also, the creme filling is a much bolder taste than the peanut butter, which in this case is a good thing.  It feels odd to say this since peanut butter and chocolate are a proven flavor combination, but the components of the golden fudge cremes just mesh a lot better.  And I might just be imagining it, but the flavor seems to linger longer, for what that’s worth.

Be prepared for the fact that even though they come in large packages, there really aren’t that many cookies in there.  I can’t remember exactly how many regular Oreos used to come per package, but I guarantee you it’s more than what each of these packages contained, which makes no sense because these are thinner than regular Oreos, so in theory you should be able to cram more of them in.  Each cookie has its own little individual slot in the plastic container, and maybe there needs to be a little room between them to keep the fudge from melting and sticking all the cookies together, but they don’t need THAT much space.  At least part of that is profit inflation, so while these aren’t ridiculously expensive products, you’re not getting everything you could be either.

I don’t have much else to say without resorting to mocking Hydrox cookies (you could tell your after-school program already spent their entire month’s budget on softball equipment when they started hauling out the Hydrox, couldn’t you?), and nobody wants to hear that.  I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how unhealthy these fudge cremes are for you — three cookies account for almost a quarter of your recommended saturated fat intake for the day — but no one buys Oreos because they’re concerned about health, they buy them because they taste good and help to relive your childhood.  On the former count, at least, these cookies mainly succeed, but unless you still have the metabolism you possessed as a kid, tread carefully.

(Nutrition Facts – 3 cookies – Golden Oreo Fudge Cremes – 180 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of total fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 55 milligrams of sodium, 40 milligrams of potassium, 25 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 18 grams of sugar, and less than 1 gram of protein.  Peanut Butter Creme Oreo Fudge Cremes – 170 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of total fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 80 milligrams of potassium, 23 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 17 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Golden Oreo Fudge Cremes and Peanut Butter Creme Oreo Fudge Cremes
Price: $2.99 per package
Size: 11.3 ounces
Purchased at: Acme
Rating: 5 out of 10 (Peanut Butter Creme Oreo Fudge Cremes)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Golden Oreo Fudge Cremes)
Pros: Om nom nom nom!  Extending cookies/women metaphors to the breaking point.  Both kinds smell really good.  Effective texture in the golden variety, with flavors that mesh well.  Lasting taste.  Nostalgia factor. 
Cons: Getting dumped by text message.  Masquerading as Thin Mints.  Peanut butter variety not as good as PB cups.  Not overwhelming quantities.  Takes a lot of games of freeze tag to burn off the calories.