Nabisco has introduced Gluten Free Oreo Cookies in both regular and Double Stuf varieties. Made with rice and oat flours instead of wheat, Nabisco hopes to make the best-selling cookie in the world available to the gluten-intolerant. Can it recreate the iconic sandwich cookie, or was gluten the secret to its success this whole time?
I open the lily-white packaging using the convenient tear strip and see the cookies lined up in their orderly rows, just as I have dozens of times before. I pick one from the middle row to inspect more closely and see that “GLUTEN FREE” has been incorporated into the classic Oreo design.
The chocolate wafer tastes the same, with a hint of bitterness that’s perfectly balanced with the sweet white creme. It has the same crispness. It smells the same. These are indistinguishable from classic Oreo, as far as I can tell.
Yet, first appearances can be deceiving. No one grabs an Oreo and just…eats it. They’re meant to be twisted, licked, dunked, and crushed. Will the Gluten Free Oreo stand up against more strenuous testing? I suspected that I would have to do some science to these to fully assess them. So I picked up some traditional Oreo cookies to do some comparison testing.
Both twist cleanly apart so I can scrape off a full serving of crème from each and confirm they are the same. The chocolate wafer sans crème also remains indistinguishable in flavor and texture.
Next, I dunk each in milk for a full 30 seconds to see how they hold up. I place them on a plate and notice that they have similar sogginess levels.
For the final test, let me tell you what’s been my favorite way to eat an Oreo since I was little: complete submergence. Simply float the cookie in a glass of milk and wait. Slowly, very slowly, the milk will penetrate the cookie island.
As a kid, I would imagine this was an ancient Atlantis-like nation. As the milky sea flooded the roads formed by the embossed design, I would imagine the world being lost. What secrets were being consigned to the opalescent depths? What technologies would need to wait centuries to be rediscovered? What people clung to each other in their last moments?
I was an, um, imaginative child. Anyway, Gluten Free Oreo work just as fine for this too. Even when completely saturated, it retains enough integrity for a spoon to recover it from the depths and then into my mouth, a much worse fate.
Coming to a final judgment about Gluten Free Oreo is difficult, in a way. Is there anything new or exciting here? No. That’s the point. There’s no reason for a shopper not avoiding gluten to pick these up, but they do perfectly replicate the world’s favorite cookie.
Purchased Price: $3.49
Size: 13.29 OZ (376g)
Purchased at: Woodman’s Market
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (3 cookies) 160 calories, 7 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 130 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 14 grams of sugar including 13 grams of added sugar, and 1 gram of protein.