It seems that Oreo is putting forth a valiant effort to catch up to the jelly bean as far as number of different flavors, and Cotton Candy Oreos are the newest limited edition variety to hit the stores this spring. I got my hands on a package of these babies and put 'em to the test, so let's take a tour of the newest version of everyone's favorite sandwich cookie.
I used the tab to rip open the top of the package and inhaled. I admit, I was a little disappointed. At first sniff, Cotton Candy Oreos smell exactly like a package of Golden Oreos. I leaned in a little closer to take a bigger whiff and yeah, I detected a bit of a sugary candy smell, but overall these don't impress much in the aromatics department, unlike Red Velvet Oreos (my review).
The cookie part of these is the classic vanilla flavor from Golden Oreos. When I was a kid you had two kinds of Oreos to pick from - original and Double Stuf. The day the world was turned on its end with the introduction of a vanilla cookie variety of Oreo was the start of a spiral of all kinds of flavors, each one trying to one-up the last in creativity.
Frankly, I'm just glad that Oreo isn't getting too cute with changing up the classic cookie stamp to which we've grown accustomed. Though to be honest, I'd totally squee if Oreo did start making themed cookie stamps. I'm such a sucker for crap like that.
For fun, here's a look at the evolution of the Oreo stamp from its inception in 1912 (source: The Atlantic)
Visually, Cotton Candy Oreos are totally cute, filled with equal amounts of baby pink and baby blue cotton candy flavored creme. I bet you anything that someone is going to use these at a gender reveal party or a boy/girl twin baby shower. Seriously, I'm just waiting for that to show up in my Pinterest feed. It's only a matter of time.
Now for the fun part and the whole point of a food review - the taste test. I twisted off the top of one of these babies and my slight OCD tendencies were rewarded with a clean twist - the creme filling was left intact with only the tiniest bit of filling residue on the leftover cookie. I took a taste of the filling by itself and was delighted that, by George, it tasted exactly like cotton candy. I don't even know what that means exactly, since cotton candy is just pure sugar, but I'll be darned if this filling doesn't hit the nail on the head in flavor accuracy. There is even a distinct grittiness to the filling that further tricks your tastebuds into believing that you are eating actual spun sugar. And yes, it's very sweet.
Nipping at the cookie by itself I got the expected and traditional vanilla cookie flavor of with the crispness only found in a freshly-cracked package of Oreos. After reassembling and taking a bite of the cookie and filling together I noticed that the distinct and impressive cotton candy flavor of the filling got a little lost when eaten with the cookies. The resulting flavor was more sugar cookie and less cotton candy cookie.
Overall, it's a nice little offering in the ever-growing pile of limited edition Oreo flavors. Cotton Candy Oreos are definitely not in my top 3 (or even top 5) list of favorite Oreo flavors, but they're worth a try if you can find them. Before you shop, remember that Cotton Candy Oreos are only available at Target and only for a limited time.
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