Taste Test: Red Velvet Oreos

Apparently inspired by an viral online hoax, Nabisco has thrown down the product development gauntlet and release a limited edition run of red velvet Oreos.

I love red velvet desserts. It's not just my penchant for food coloring that does it, but there's something so homey and beautiful about a red velvet cake. Red velvet is primarily flavored by loads of chocolate, but the addition of buttermilk and/or vinegar adds tangy-ness and depth that you don't normally get with plain chocolate. And cream cheese icing is a gift from Heaven. I love cream cheese as is - on bagels, club sandwiches, in cheese cake or just straight from that silver packaging - but it's really superb when manipulated in a sweet way. Creamy icing with a perfect balance of tartness and sugar paired with deeply earthy cake is the best of the best, to me. It's really a riff on Southern culture as a whole - our food, our attitude and way of life - sweet and smooth with a bite, and an outward appearance that's just a little too much.

A favorite red velvet recipe -- brownies. Click HERE for the recipe. 

Needless to say, I was thrilled that the rumor came to fruition and that they're now available at our local Ingles market. Up to this point, I have refused to try any of the bastardizations of a classic that Nabisco has tried to pawn off as an Oreo. I have no desire to eat a cookie that tastes like watermelon, peppermints or birthday cake; so this taste test is truly an act of faith - that Nabisco and the institution of red velvet won't let me down.

First, let me say that anymore Oreos are a ripoff; $4 for a pack is absurd. We caught these on sale for 2/$5.50 but the "specialty" packs are smaller, this one being the smallest one yet with only "about" 20 cookies. The packaging is almost an afterthought because of the small size; it's off center! Stay tuned for this summer's Rick Moranis blockbuster, "Honey, I Shrunk the Oreos."

Secondly, they aren't that pretty. Red velvet cakes vary in coloration from bright, brilliant reds to deeper, wine-like hues. I love assertive red velvet cakes; part of what sets them apart is their color, so let it shine through. These cookies are on the darker side and almost look brown. You eat with your eyes first, and I think it'd be a more effective product if the coloring was more bold.

But those aren't the make or break cookie critiques. Let's look at the critical quality points of an Oreo: the cookie, the creme, the twist and the dunkability.

Simplicity at its best, an Oreo has two distinguishable, judge-able parts. 

The Cookie: 

Eaten on their own, the cookie wafer is noticeably sweeter than the traditional chocolate wafer. And it does have the deeper, signature flavor that distinguishes red velvet from plain old chocolate. I was impressed with the cookie and enjoy eating them post-twist as much as I do the original flavor. 

The Creme:

This creme is Sweet, with a capital "s." It does have the tangy flavor of cream cheese but the sugar factor is on over-drive. It felt like the creme in these sandwiches was actually creamier that the traditional cookie's, like icing; smooth and soft. But it was actually gritty from the sugariness. 

LEGO Amanda is thrilled (or scared) that these cookies match her sweater vest...

I once did an exercise with elementary students about instructions and how to read/write for detail. They had to write step-by-step directions on how to eat an Oreo. Their answers varied in degrees of success, but the true lesson was that everyone eats Oreos differently (this is a good diversity exercise, too!). Despite our varied methods, most people have at least experimented with twisting the sandwiches apart and dunking them in milk. 

The Twist:

I am a habitual twister. Traditional Oreos have a great structure and texture such that you can almost always twist the top and bottom cookies into two independent parts. One free of creme and the other with a smooth, unblemished layer of creme. I like to twist, eat the plain cookie, peel the creme off in one sheet, eat it in one bite then finish the now-naked cookie. Probably because this sweet creme is so soft and creamy, it sticks to both cookies and makes for a messy twist. Technically that's just an aesthetic issue, but those built in Oreo-eating habits are hard to break. 

The Dunkability:

Drinking big glasses of milk wrecks my stomach, but if there are Oreos around, I'll pour a cup just for dunking. There's so many different schools of dunkers. J is of the soft, but not too soggy camp. I barely get my Oreos wet before I pull them back out. But sometimes, I do enjoy letting a cookie almost disintegrate in the cup. Again, probably because of the creme, the structural integrity of the cookies is compromised. In milk they start falling apart drastically quicker than their normal counterparts and get softer faster. If you're pro-soggy cookie and you use a spoon to cradle your cookie mess, you'll love these. If you seek a gently softened Oreo or are dipping with your fingers, you need to make a mad dunk in and out to get the perfect consistency. 

I would say that this experiment did not hurt my love for red velvet but didn't improve my opinion of Nabisco's recent Oreo tampering. They're pretty good and fairly true to the intended flavor but they're not the Oreos of my childhood. I love the plain chocolate and vanilla cookies. They're 100 years old and we still buy them. My overwhelming sentiment is, that like so many things in life, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.