Tag: Oreo

REVIEW: Limited Edition Orange & Lychee Oreo Cookies (China)

Rachel 12 Comments

Limited Edition Orange Lychee Oreo Cookies Box

What are Limited Edition Orange & Lychee Oreo Cookies?

In celebration of Chinese New Year (a.k.a., Lunar New Year or Spring Festival), Oreo has released a limited edition orange and lychee flavored cookie in China! These flavors have symbolic meanings for New Year – oranges are good luck and lychees are family togetherness.

This isn’t the first time either flavor has graced an Oreo – Orange Creamsicle Oreo hit the US in 2011, Orange Tang Oreos have been spotted in Dubai, and China has had an Orange & Mango Oreo for almost a decade. China also released a Lychee Rose cookie in 2019. But this is the first time orange and lychee have come together. You got lychee in my orange! No, you got orange in my lychee!

Limited Edition Orange Lychee Oreo Cookies 2

These Oreo have red cookies, which makes total sense since red is the primary color of New Year’s celebrations and symbolizes luck, joy, and happiness. Couldn’t we all go for a lucky-happy Oreo right now? I stalked them on eBay and had them shipped.

How are they?

The cookies had an earthier brick hue than last year’s fire-engine red Supreme Oreo. The aroma in the package was a really strong orange with a hint of lychee. It was inviting. The cookies were decorated with Chinese Hanzi characters like fortune and happiness, and cartoon versions of the zodiac signs – 2021 is the year of the Ox.

Limited Edition Orange Lychee Oreo Cookies Designs

At this point, I had somehow managed to never eat an actual lychee, despite tasting and enjoying multiple lychee-flavored foods, so I bought some fresh ones. Turns out they tasted exactly like every lychee-flavored thing I’ve ever had, which was a relief – how often do artificial foods taste identical to the real thing?

As I alternated between lychee and Oreo, again – the lychee flavor is spot-on, sweet and fruity with a strong (but good) floral taste. The orange here was a lot like the Chinese orange-mango Oreo – artificial but bright and tasty like a candy without being too tart. Both flavors took up equal real estate, which I liked. Overall, they worked really well together.

Limited Edition Orange Lychee Oreo Cookies Wrappers

Anything else you need to know?

As I’ve stated in other reviews, I’m a fan of the Oreo packaging philosophy in China. Instead of a single large pack, the cookies are separated into 5-cookie mini-packs. I bought an 8-pack box (40 Oreo total), which was more than I expected, but I can share them or keep some for later. I’d prefer all the novelty/limited edition Oreo this way – so much more practical. While the box here wasn’t as elaborate as others in the recent past, it was lovely and the mini-pack wrappers were beautiful in gold and red.

Conclusion:

These are delicious and worth the wait and expense to buy online – although probably wise to get a friend/friends to go in on a box with you to split the cost. It’s an unusual Oreo flavor combo, and so tasty.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Purchased Price: $22.99 + $3.00 shipping
Size: 388 gram box/40 cookies
Purchased at: eBay
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (per 100 grams) 490 calories, 21.5 grams of fat, 260 milligrams of sodium, 69.5 grams of carbohydrates, and 4.3 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Gluten Free Oreo Cookies

Mike 9 Comments

Gluten Free Oreo Cookies Pkg

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.

Gluten Free Oreo Cookies Split

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.

Gluten Free Oreo Cookies Side by Side

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.

Gluten Free Oreo Cookies Floating

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.

REVIEW: Java Chip Oreo and Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo Cookies

Ann 2 Comments

Java Chip Oreo Cookies Package

Everyone loves a comeback story. Like the Buffalo Bills 1993 wild card victory, or Diana Nyad finally completing the 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida after several failed attempts, or fat (yeah, fat, it’s allowed now). These are victories we can stand behind, nodding and muttering, “Well, I’ll be damned. They did it.”

With the love of a comeback in mind, I’d like to introduce you to the Rocky Balboa of cookies, the Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo, and the 2007–2008 Chicago Cubs of cookies (they’re not QUITE there yet), the Java Chip Oreo.

Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo Cookies Package

Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane to consider Oreo’s initial attempts. In 2018, Nabisco launched a Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo using Golden cookies and a chocolate cream that had a nearly undetectable hazelnut flavor, the cookies’ greatest flaw. Similarly, Nabisco is not new to coffee flavor combinations, having launched Dunkin’ Mocha Oreo, Latte Oreo Thins, and Tiramisu Oreo with varying degrees of success.

Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo Cookies Open

Java Chip Oreo Cookies Open

Upon opening, the Hazelnut Oreo had me concerned. These mostly smelled of chocolate, maybe even just plain Oreo. However, the Java Chip package had a robust and pleasant coffee aroma that immediately reminded me of coffee ice cream, perhaps because of how sugary sweet it was.

Because coffee can be a strong flavor, I decided to try the Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo first. To be fair (TO BE FAIR), the pressure was ON. Launching a chocolate hazelnut flavor is a huge challenge in a confectioner world dominated mainly by Nutella, a mammoth of a product that’s often imitated but never duplicated, and Oreo had already failed that test once. BUT. NOT. THIS. TIME.

Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo Cookies Closeup

Friends, these updated Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo are a dream. The hazelnut flavor in the cream filling is POWERFUL, and the slightly darker, more bitter chocolate cookie rounds out the flavor delivery into an irrefutable success. I think I might have said “wow” out loud.

The flavor is not overwhelming or artificial tasting. It’s nutty, balanced, and definitely there. These might be my new favorite Oreo. I’m already thinking up what kinds of baked goods I’d like to make with them. Yum. I’m not giving them a perfect score because the creme is the standard Oreo texture, where I think hazelnut spread is usually impeccably smooth.

Java Chip Oreo Cookies Closeup

As mentioned earlier, however, the story is not as sweet for Java Chip. These cookies are certainly tasty. Using Oreo cream to emulate ice cream is definitely strategic and, in my opinion, a closer flavor match than aiming for coffee alone. But overall, I wasn’t that impressed.

The little added texture element of the tiny chocolate chips throughout the Java Chip cream certainly aided the experience. If java chip is your favorite ice cream, I can see a Dairy Queen coffee Blizzard with chopped up pieces of Java Chip Oreo Cookies being GREAT. But I wouldn’t seek these out again. There are just too many more exciting options available.

Java Chip Oreo and Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo Cookies Together

Overall, these are good, but the Chocolate Hazelnut Oreo stands out. Nabisco had some ground to recover from its 2018 miscue, and I think it’s done so here. Time will tell if it can better impress us with a coffee, java, or espresso iteration in the future.

Purchased Price: $3.67 each
Size: 17 oz (Family Size)

Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 9 out 10 (Chocolate Hazelnut), 6 out of 10 (Java Chip)
Nutrition Facts: (2 cookies) 140 calories, 6 grams of fat, 2 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 13 grams of total sugars, and less than 1 gram of protein.

REVIEW: Lady Gaga Oreo Cookies

Rachel 9 Comments

Lady Gaga Oreo Cookies 1

What Lady Gaga Oreo Cookies?

Food icon Oreo has teamed up with music icon Lady Gaga for a limited edition cookie inspired by her latest album Chromatica – a combination of celebrity cache and grocery store cred that Andy Warhol would heartily endorse. Why now, six months after the release of said album? Stop asking questions and eat. Or dance. Or both.

The cookie wafers are bright pink with a kelly green filling – a fun twist, although similar to last year’s Sakura Matcha Oreo from China. Gaga’s colors were brighter, however.

Lady Gaga Oreo Cookies 2

How are they?

While billed as standard Oreos with color, I disagree – these were buttery and had an almond extract flavor. They tasted a lot like spritz cookies (you know, the kind you squeeze out of grandma’s 50-year-old cookie press at the holidays), which was a plus for me!

Lady Gaga Oreo Cookies 3

I’m not sure if this flavor deviation was intentional. The extra food coloring for intensely-hued foods can bring a bitter taste – red/pink are notorious for this. I wonder if more flavor was added to offset any possible bitterness.

Lady Gaga Oreo Cookies 4

Packaging here is disappointing. A lot of white space, and the back has almost nothing on it! Come on, this is GAGA. She ain’t minimalist! I want holographic metallics at least. Mockups of the full-sized pack have a hot pink background and a larger “monster rip”, but even then, meh.

Lady Gaga Oreo Cookies 5

There’s a promotion involved as well, but the only way to know that is the “Scan here for something fun!” QR code on the side. Mmmkay. You can make and share an “Oreogram” singing message.

Anything else you need to know?

Right now, 6-cookie-packs have been released to convenience stores, with full-size package release date TBD.

Conclusion:

Fun cookie colors (although not totally new), slightly interesting flavor deviation that might be unintentional, but lame packaging. Worth a try if you love Oreo cookies or Lady Gaga.

Purchased Price: $1.79 each
Size: 6.1oz pack (6 cookies)
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2 cookies) 150 calories, 7 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 12 grams of total sugars, including 12 grams of added sugars, and less than 1 gram of protein.

REVIEW: Limited Edition Brookie-O Oreo Cookies

Holly 10 Comments

Limited Edition Brookie O Oreo Cookies Package

Oreo cookies are iconic. The sweet cream snuggled between two crunchy chocolate wafers is one of the (if not the) most recognizable cookies on the market. Yet, in the past decade, we’ve seen Nabisco move out of its comfort zone into a new world of unique offerings. Two of those discontinued varieties, Cookie Dough and Brownie Batter, have joined forces to return in a new form: Brookie-O.

For those unfamiliar with what a brookie is, it is when you layer brownie batter and cookie dough to create an extra decadent treat. I love fresh chocolate chip cookies and I love ooey-gooey brownies, but not usually together. They almost always end up competing against one another for flavor dominance in a Highlander-like fight where the brownie layer will scream, “THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!”

The Brookie-O Oreo is described as “Brownie, Original Creme, & Cookie Dough Triple Layered Creme between two chocolate wafer cookies.” I was worried that having three creme layers were going to be too much. Luckily, the food research and development department managed to deliver an enjoyable and balanced flavor experience.

Limited Edition Brookie O Oreo Cookies Open

The first thing I noticed upon opening the packaging was the cookies’ size seemed to be equivalent to the Double Stuf. At first bite, the overwhelming flavor is that of the original Oreo. The sweet cream and chocolate cookies almost seem aggressively loud, but then magic happened. As I continued to chew, the cookie dough flavor started to chime in. Another bite saw the entrance of the brownie batter. Nabisco managed to layer the creme flavors in a way that blended perfectly.

Limited Edition Brookie O Oreo Cookies Top Off

Upon taking the Oreo apart, you can see the distinct layers even more clearly. I attempted to separate them (there was a whole thing with tweezers and trying to freeze them), but they are fairly well stuck together. Going the old fashioned route (licking them), I was able to taste each. Brownie had that taste of when you sneak a lick of the batter off the spoon. Fudgey and rich, it worked really well in the context of this variety, but I could see it being too much on its own.

Limited Edition Brookie O Oreo Cookies Creme Only

The middle layer was that of the original creme. I had questioned why this would be included at all as I assumed the brownie and cookie dough would be more than enough, but I’m glad it was there. As mentioned previously, brookies tend to feel like they have two strong flavors competing for your attention. The original creme acts like a great equalizer to the two flavors.

Finally reaching the cookie dough layer, I was greeted with the familiar flavor of cookie dough you’d find in ice cream. It is not quite the flavor of homemade stuff, but a pretty good approximation. Of the three layers, it was my least favorite on its own.

Limited Edition Brookie O Oreo Cookies Side

Overall this Oreo was like a good chorus: each voice on its own can shine, but together they make beautiful music. As they are marketing them as a limited edition, I’d encourage you to grab them while you can. I’m debating if I should get a second package so that I can make the most meta baked good ever: Oreo Brookies made with Brookie-O Oreo.

Purchased Price: $4.99
Size: 13.2 oz
Purchased at: Walgreens
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (2 cookies) 180 calories, 9 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 95 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.