Kotas Reviews Hydrox Cookies

Legacy is an important thing for a lot of folk. Most people want to be remembered fondly when they are gone, either by millions of others, or even just a few family. What we do in the present is how we will be viewed in the future, and we hope that view is a good one. Some products reach this level of cult status: Coca-Cola with cane sugar, the Encharito (for reasons no one can explain to me) and even a limited time promotional dipping sauce. Even more legendary are products that everyone thinks are rip offs, but actually came first. Today, we look at one of those, the humble Hydrox Cookie.

Further adding to our Peak Nostalgia crisis.

I think it is pretty obvious by now that I fucking love Oreos. When I was growing up, I always saw Hydrox as Just Another Shitty Generic version of my beloved Oreos, that could never possibly be as good. I never got a chance to put that to the test, as my parents never purchased them, and by the time I was old enough to buy them myself, why would I bother with what I considered to be an inferior product? So, what the hell is a Hydrox anyway?

According to one of my favorite websites, the Hydrox cookie was originally brought to market in 1908 by the Sunshine Biscuits company, 4 years before the introduction of Oreo. The trend in marketing at the time was "purity", so the creators tried to come up with a name that would inspire thoughts of purity. Turns out apparently "purity" equals "hydrogen and oxygen". So, these are really Water Cookies! Isn't that special? These cookies have a small cult following that is as obsessive about their perceived superiority to the Hydrox to the Oreo. This led to Leaf Brands not only taking over the trademark from Kellogg, but going to great lengths to get the original recipe and in 2015, restart production. And here we are.

Let's see what we've got here.

Well, that was anticlimactic.

I can tell you this, the scent is a much richer Chocolate than that of Oreos. The vanilla creme is incredibly sticky, so the "twist off test" is a miserable failure. The creme itself is incredibly sweet, almost painfully sweet and not very vanilla, which makes sense given the chocolate of the cookie is SUPER strong. Oddly, the marketing claims the creme is LESS sweet, which I find hard to believe. Together they taste fairly decent, but the cookie is very durable on top of its intense flavor, which makes these kind of hard to actually eat. You'll put in some work to munch these suckers down. It is hard to describe these in reference to Oreos, but the word "Unrefined" is what I would use. It is a stronger, more intense flavoring, but the cookie is incredibly crunchy and the creme is very sticky and their flavors do not blend together smoothly. These are pretty good cookies, but they are basically a "decent generic" rather than a unique and special flavor all their own. Special shout out though to those who love to dip their Oreos in milk. These bastards will soak it all up and come out swinging with a nice crunch. In fact, I will declare that these are the superior dunking cookie. The milk softens the cookie (and adds some needed mitigation of the intense chocolate flavor), but because the cookie starts off so tough, you still get a nice satisfying crunch when you eat it.

On the FACE Rating System, these get 1 Smiley Face. They are tasty, but only in so far as they are "pretty good if you don't have Oreos". I am sure there are those out there that find these to be the superior cookie, but this is not the cookie for me and my delicate palate. They cost the same as Oreos, so slotting them in for a try shouldn't be too difficult. Maybe you will find your new favorite cookie, especially if you only eat them with milk. I'll stick to my usurper cookies, thank you very much.

Kotas Reviews the Cadbury Creme Egg Cookie

Spring is in the air, flowers are blooming, rain shows up to ruin things, and yes, for some reason rabbits are delivering eggs that are either brightly colored, made of candy, or both, for reasons that vaguely relate to religious holidays. Still, that's not gonna stop confectioners from cramming different treats into a single, gloriously terrifying object of consumption. Also, cookies! Ladies and Gentlemen, let's take a gander at the Cadbury Creme Egg Cookie!

There's a joke about white cookies here...nah, just gonna leave that one alone.

Cadbury Creme Eggs. I've spoken about them before ages ago, when I pointed out their off season Screme Egg product, but I've never really talked about how much I adore these little chocolate morsels full of diabetes. I'm not sure why I love them so much. Usually I don't go for super sickly sweet treats, but these Creme Eggs are a different story. First manufactured in 1963, they remained a staple product of Cadbury until 2015, when the recipe changed to no longer use Cadbury Dairy Milk as the shell, replacing it with a cheaper, less tasty chocolate. I still like them though. Still, I've not seen them in cookie form before. The packaging is consistent with Cadbury's current branding, and includes a picture of the cookie itself in both whole and "open" forms. There is also some sort of contest. Uh, neat, I guess. Let's crack it open!

Fell apart it did. Just like a real Creme Egg!

Not sure what I was expecting really, but it is exactly as pictured on the package, which is rarer than you might think when it comes to candy and cookies. The creme itself is a little odd, but it's a softer, believe it or not sweeter version of the fondant found inside a normal Creme Egg. The chocolate...well, it ain't great, but the proof of a cookie is how well the cookie part stands alone and with the rest of the confection. 

Well friends, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is the absolute WORST FUCKING COOKIE I've ever had the displeasure of putting between my jaws. It tastes like someone laced a biscuit with cough syrup flavored with the tears of children who were served this disaster of a "snack". The rest of it really tries to actually taste decent, but this cookie, like a wronged and enraged Kibler Elf, snatches any hope of such an outcome away and laughs at your pain. It is just awful and makes me wish irritating harm upon those who begat it upon this good Earth. My daughter is not known for her refined palette having joined me in eating worms a while back, and she took two bites and never touched them again, despite being left within easy reach. When a 3 year old won't touch a cookie, you know it is a heaping pile of failure.

On the FACE Rating System, these get 3 Frowny Faces. How do you FUCK UP a chocolate cookie for goodness sake, while besmirching the good name of Cadbury by taking its signature treat by shitting out a nigh poisonous cookie? Whoever it is, they should be fired immediately for gross incompetency, and made to wear a sign that says "I hate children and unicorns" for a year and a day. Stay the hell away from these, and let us never speak of this abomination again.

Kotas Reviews Brownie Batter Oreos

Alright Nabisco. I know we've had our spats in the past. But today I'm gonna give you another chance. Let's do something wonderful together. Or at least something hilariously amusing. Ladies and Gentlemen, let's take a peek at Brownie Batter Oreos.

Does anyone even USE a wooden spoon for mixing anymore?

I have never understood the obsession with cookie dough, cake batter, and other "non-cooked" sweets that people seem to go gaga over. Raw cookie dough, while tasty enough I suppose, has an awful gritty texture and a baked cookie is just so much yummier. Same with cake batter. Yes, it is very tasty...but a cake always tastes better and has a better mouth feel. These flavors, born of desperation, laziness, or impatience have worked their way into ice cream culture (See the proliferation of cookie dough and cake batter ice creams) for reasons I cannot explain.  With all that lead up, we come to the Brownie Batter Oreo. My predictions are that it is going to be chocolate flavored. Very, very chocolate flavored. Release the Cookies!

The only cookie where the filling absolutely matches the cookie in color.

Well they do smell like brownies. Very fudgey, very chocolatey brownies. Oh, and some Oreo in there too. Wow, that is a dark colored filling. I mean, if you could have a singularity encapsulated in cookie form, I imagine we would perceive it as something like this before we were all sucked into the oblivion past its event horizon. Or maybe not. Anycrap, let's taste this!

My stars, it's full of chocolate and grit. This is EXACTLY what I would expect a brownie batter cookie to taste like. Super thick chocolate flavor, completely overwhelming the taste buds. I imagine that in some way this is how Augustus Gloop felt when he was drowning: completely subsumed to the Chocolate. What a punch in the mouth this is. The texture is gritty, like all batter and dough sourced treats, which while not appealing, is at least true to the source material. Even milk does little to tame these cookies.

On the FACE Rating System, these get 1 smiley face. They do not taste bad, they just are a typhoon of chocolate in gritty, cookie format. Definitely worth trying for chocolate and Oreo fans, but you might need a sit down after consuming. DAT CHOCOLATE. Nabisco, I won't say you are fully redeemed in mine eyes, but after the last fiasco of Cookies and Cream Oreos, you are at least back to trying new and entertaining things. So, good on ya for that.

Kotas Reviews the Chips Ahoy Doughnuts

'Murica week continues here at Kotas Reviews Everything with a look at something nominally a breakfast item: The Humble Doughnut. My love of doughnuts is well documented on this blog, and today will only reinforce that notion. Homer Simpson and I have a lot in common, and a love of doughnuts is no exception to that rule. Dunkin' Donuts is a thoroughly American institution at this point, though more for the coffee than the doughnuts these days. America runs on Dunkin' as the jingle goes and all that. They do try and innovate in their food options as much as their celebrated love of the caffeinated bean. With that, we have today's subjects: The Chips Ahoy doughnuts.

What a delightful topping you've discovered.

Only in America would we look at a doughnut and say "You know, what this needs is a chocolate chip cookie". Well ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our bold new reality. I admit to hoping for something a little bit more interesting than "iced doughnut dipped in cookie bits", but I suppose that is the straightforward way to handle something like this. Chips Ahoy is not the best "off the shelf" chocolate chip cookie you can buy, but it certainly isn't the worst, so there really is no need to get overly complicated so long as the ultimate product comes out good. Right? 

Never, EVER look inside a specialty doughnut.

I did not have particularly high hopes for this doughnut. Chips Ahoy, while a staple of my childhood, never really seemed to go well with anything else for reasons I still do not understand. Maybe it's the weird over crumbliness or the fact that they always seemed just a bit too small to be a real cookie, but I felt they were best when served alone. My assertions in this matter were thoroughly borne out by the failure that is the "Chips Ahoy Creme" filled doughnut.  As shown above, the creme is a very unappetizing shade of light brown. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea to grind up a cookie and mix it with some kind of creme, but the result is a gloppy, gritty overly sweet mess that tastes vaguely like crappy cookie dough. It's edible, I suppose, but it is certainly not GOOD. The crumbles on top have a weird off flavor that is kind of like Chips Ahoy, but not quite. It is what I imagine artificial Chips Ahoy Cookie flavoring would taste like...as if you could get any more manufactured. 

The non-filled edition of this doughnut is another matter. It is lazier than the filled one, but in a way that makes it a higher quality product because it's starting from a better base. It's really hard to fuck up chocolate iced doughnut and yet...here we are. The crumbles do them no favors, as they do not taste good, but the base doughnut isn't horrible, so the whole experience is very "meh". Dunkin', I am disappoint.

On the FACE Rating System, these doughnuts get separate scores: 2 frowny faces for the filled version, and 0 faces for the non-filled version. The filled one tastes like they used a recipe made up by a 4 year old: Sounds good, but the sad reality is a gloppy mess. The other one is more a problem of the quality of the ingredients, but the base item isn't bad, so it's not terrible. I would just avoid these all together, even if you like Chips Ahoy. You will be disappointed and sad.