We Tried All of the New Oreos Dropping in January (Golden Cakesters Are Back, Too!)

It is a well-known fact that the good folks over at Oreo are innovators. If they can dream it they will do it. Not “can”…will. Oreo’s innovation strategy seems to be “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” and we love that for them. Why do we love that for them? Because it gives us something to do (where would professional food taste testers be without food to professionally taste test), and, sometimes they strike gold.

This time, milk’s favorite cookie threw a lot of proverbial spaghetti at the proverbial wall with seven new products, including two new Oreo ice cream treats we haven’t gotten our hands on yet. What we did try are five new flavors of Oreo cookies so that you, the people, know which of these new Oreos will be your new favorite milk’s favorite cookie, and which cookies milk would never deign to associate with.

New Product!

Irish Creme Oreo Thins

Pros: These new Oreos do kind of smell like Irish cream, right on down to the alcohol aroma, I will give them that. In fact, they kind of taste like Irish cream if you really think about that while eating them, and if you like Irish cream a lot, you may want to give these bad boys a try. But these are in no way better than regular Oreo Thins.  

Cons: These are the worst new Oreos of the bunch. They very clearly taste “alcohol flavored,” like Nabisco’s food scientists tried to mimic that astringent punch, but the result is a very sweet creme that is quite pungent, slightly bitter, and weirdly tastes kind of like a piña colada. Whatever that flavoring is, it’s so strong that you can’t really taste the Oreo cookies, and since they are Oreo Thins, there’s not a lot of cookie there to balance out the rather powerful flavor of the creme.

Rating:

4.5/10

Sporks

New Product!

Golden Oreo Cakesters

Pros: Cakesters are essentially mini whoopie pies, which sounds ideal in theory. These Golden Oreo Cakesters, however, are pretty mediocre. The cakes have the dry-yet fluffy-yet-dense texture of those grocery store Lofthouse sugar cookies, which is probably of interest to some people. The crème in the middle is pleasant, sweet, and fluffy.

Cons: These taste a little bit off, almost like the cardboard and plastic they’re packaged in. They’re also very, very dense—you WILL want a glass of milk nearby when you eat these. They’re not terrible, but they need more vanilla and a little salt for some dimension.

Rating:

6/10

Sporks

New Product!

Oreo Minis Peanut Butter

Pros: These taste almost exactly like Nutter Butters. They are sweet, crunchy, and very peanut buttery which, let’s be real, is a delicious combo. These are excellent, and if you are a fan of peanut butter cookies, these will be right up your alley.

Cons: They don’t really taste chocolatey at all. They’re essentially like mini Nutter Butters but with a different and more crumbly texture, as the chocolate doesn’t come through until the very end in the aftertaste. Even then, it is still super subtle. Regardless, these are a great snack.

Rating:

8/10

Sporks

New Product!

Oreo Loaded

Pros: If you tried the Most Oreo Oreos when they hit shelves briefly last year, then you have had these. These Loaded Oreos are essentially the same as those Most Oreo Oreos—the Mega Stuf-sized layer of creme in these tastes subtly like cookies and creme when you have it on its own (due to little Oreo cookie bits in the creme), but with the cookie tastes like…well…Oreo. There’s a lot of filling in these cookies, but I can’t complain—Oreo creme tastes great, cookie bits or none.

Cons: When you eat the creme with the cookie, these pretty much taste like Oreos plain and simple. And the crème itself doesn’t taste particularly strongly of much besides Oreo crème, so if you are looking for a blast of cookies and cream ice cream type of flavor, these are not necessarily going to do that for you. The Sporked team loved them, though.

Rating:

9.5/10

Sporks

Bonus: Game Day Oreos

Pros: We weren’t even going to review these new Oreos. They appeared to be regular Oreos embossed with “five different football-inspired game day designs.” But the color is all wrong. These Oreos are reddish brown rather than almost black. (Normal Oreo cookies use alkalized cocoa, these appear to use…regular cocoa?) And they do taste different as a result. These taste more like when you make homemade chocolate chocolate chip cookies with regular baking cocoa. The texture is different, too—these Game Day Oreos are thicker and more buttery (like me after the holidays).

Cons: To me, these new Oreos taste more like Trader Joe’s Joe-Joe’s than Oreos, which is a bizarre revelation to have on game day of all days (I don’t know if there is any football happening today, but as far as I am concerned, every day is game day with these cookies around). If that is a dealbreaker, you have been warned.