Mem-oreos Day

You saw them on the shelves, but you never tried them?  That's the thing about limited editions... you gotta grab 'em while they're HOT... or room temperature.  TWO NEW flavors to review for you today. I'm talking about...

FILLED CUPCAKE & CINNAMON BUN OREOS

"Filled Cupcake Oreos" is another way of saying "Hostess Cupcake STYLE Oreos".  C'mon, let's not beat around the snack bush.  Nobody sees a cupcake filled with delicious, creamy, white filling and says, "Hey, you like those filled cupcakes?"  Legally, Oreo can't embrace the Hostess name, but at the end of the day, Faturated Sats is gonna call a spade a "Hostess Cupcake".

From the moment that I saw this on the shelf, I was intrigued.  How was an Oreo different from a cream filled cupcake in the first place? Chocolate outside, creamy center inside.  Even the consumption process is the same. Let's consider the steps:
 - Step 1: Buy snack
 - Step 2: Bite into snack
 - Step 3: Enjoy chocolate cookie outside with creamy, white inside. Done.

Not so fast, my friends.  There is a not-so-hidden technique with these cookies that makes for a unique and interesting snacking experience.

Normally, I'm not down with "instructions" for snacking.  As you can see in the picture above, the packaging specifically says to "Twist & Lick" these cookies.  This is an easily ignorable command, but I promise you will lose out on the experience if you ignore this.  Simply biting into the cookie makes for a pleasant Oreo eat, but when you take a moment to change your eating pattern by that small step, the whole experience changes right before your eyes.  The folks who came up with this are GENIUSES.

To the untrained eye, these look like chocolate Oreos, but don't be fooled by their commonplace appearance like I did.  As a seasoned Oreo eater, I immediately popped a whole cookie in my mouth and thought to myself, "what's the big deal?"  To make matters worse, I even opened up a cookie and started to peel out the filling (as I do with traditional Oreos) to see if the only magic what when you removed the cookie from the equation.  I did, however, notice that there were differences in the consistency of the filling and realized that I probably wasn't getting the whole experience.  I had completely ignored the specific instructions on the packaging.

I can't emphasize enough how important this is to get the full, unbridled experience from this specific licked into it you don't just sweep through getting a chocolate/vanilla mix.  The vanilla cream softens just enough that you get a light taste of the chocolate along with the traditional Oreo filling flavor.  The chocolate is not "hard" by any means, but it is evident that the two fillings stand alone as singular tastes.
flavor of Oreo.  What the makers have done was create a different consistency between the two fillings, so that when you

What really boggles my mind is how this got applied in the first place.  If you watch how Oreos are made, you can see the machine that applies the cream to the cookies.  There's certainly an efficiency to the process, but after eating the "filled cupcake" cookies you can appreciate how they would have SPECIFICALLY updated the manufacturing process to accommodate this cookie build.  I have a deep appreciation for something that obviously took a lot of forethought and effort.  Nice job, Nabisco.  It's certainly not reinventing the wheel, but your work was not lost on me.

In a quick follow up:

This cookie is not nearly as deep and complex as it's cupcake counterpart.  This Oreo is a simple matter of executing the right flavor profiles and putting them together. Nevertheless, the Oreo-wizards hit the nail on the head with this one.

They took almost everything there is to love about a good cinnamon bun and put it into a bite sized cookie.  By taking the usual vanilla cookies from the blonde Oreos and adding just a touch of cinnamon, they almost take on a sort of graham cracker flavor.  It's ideal for the creamy, sugary, zesty frosting that they put in the sandwich. Obviously the balance of cookie to cream is what make any Oreo successful and this holds onto that balance nicely.

The only thing that is lacking on this cookie is that there isn't any undertones in the flavor.  I know it sounds picky, but part of what makes a cinnamon bun delicious is that oven cooked exterior that's almost burnt.  That way, when you bit into the bun you have that soft center, with the sugary frosting and the slightly over cooke exterior to balance it out.  This cookie eats more like a refreshing graham cracker with the sweet frosting in between.

Regardless, with a nice milk chaser, this cookie is definitely a success.  A lot sweeter than the typical Oreo, so know that going in.  If you have a taste for cinnamon, and a sweet tooth for a good frosting this is the cookie for you.  Eat happily if you find it on the shelves.  This flavor was introduced to the shelves in Jan of 2016 and (as you can see in the pic above) was NOT labeled as a "limited edition".  I can't be sure if it's still out there, but go out and find it for yourselves.  Keep 'em coming, Nabisco.  You are definitely a stand out in the snack market.  You keep us consumers and enthusiasts happy and on our toes.