REVIEW: Oreo Reese’s Cookies

/ / Reviews / 5 Comments

Butterfly clips, low-rise jeans, Ed Hardy jeans, and apparently Oreo Reese’s Cookies are all back in rotation. What’s old is new again.

If you’re feeling déjà vu too, you’re not wrong. Back in 2014, there was that split-filling Oreo – half chocolate crème, half Reese’s peanut butter crème. Fast forward to 2025, and the upgrade is a full peanut butter crème filling with Oreo cookie crumbs mixed in for texture.

But the brands didn’t stop at just another cookie. They went full “platform launch” in marketing-speak with three delights: Reese’s Oreo Cups, a Crumbl collab (from the cookie chain known for its weekly rotating menu), as well as a Reese’s cup with Oreo baked in.

According to a Wall Street Journal article, this mashup wasn’t just product development; it was more like a secret affair between chocolate and peanut butter – recipes guarded like love letters, prototypes smuggled in foil. Food scientists worked in code, tweaking formulas for nearly a year until each product “met the parents.”

So, how do they actually taste?

The Oreo version: What really stood out first was the packaging. Instead of the usual Oreo sleeve, it came in a box with a separate inner sleeve stamped with both Oreo and Reese’s logos. My friend even asked if it was ice cream sandwiches because the packaging looked so different.

But once I opened it and took a bite, it was mostly just another peanut butter Oreo. The cookie flavor overpowered the filling, and the balance felt off. Maybe a golden cookie or a Thins wafer would have allowed the peanut butter to shine more.

Oreo also added cookie crumbs to the filling, but it didn’t do much for me. I wasn’t sure if it was meant for texture, flavor, or just visual interest. As it stands, the chocolate cookie steals the spotlight. Normally, I wouldn’t mind, since I think the cookie is the best part of an Oreo, but if you’re marketing this as Reese’s (my all-time favorite), it doesn’t deliver.

The Crumbl cookie (bonus taste-test): Since their collab hit the same week, I had to snag it. And honestly? Totally different story. That giant, soft cookie leaned all the way into peanut butter, and I loved it. Salty, creamy, almost fluffy in texture – admittedly not quite Reese’s peanut butter, but way more satisfying.

I admire the effort that went into this collab, but the cookie-aisle version felt more rerun than reboot. Both were limited-time drops, yet Crumbl’s oversized take is the only one I’ll be keeping an eye out for when it makes its way back to its stores!

Purchased Price: $4.99
Size: 10.81 oz
Purchased at: Meijer
Rating: 6 out of 10 (8 out of 10 for Crumbl’s version!)
Nutrition Facts: (2 cookies – 29g) 140 calories, 6 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 125 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 11 grams of sugar (includes 11 grams of added sugar), and 2 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Mexican Hot Chocolate Cereal

/ / Reviews / 1 Comment

Cinnamon Toast Crunch is one of the most beloved cereals, and many of its limited edition seasonal flavors, such as Apple Pie and Sugar Cookie, have been home runs.

For this year’s winter season, we get another seasonal flavor: Mexican Style Hot Chocolate. Since we’ve already had Churros, Dulce de Leche, and Tres Leches, it only makes sense that we would get another Mexican-adjacent flavor. Though this cereal is evidently for wintertime, it’s out early enough that you could include it for your Day of the Dead celebrations if you wanted.

Mexican hot chocolate typically has cinnamon, and sometimes it has “hot” spices like cayenne pepper. Thankfully, this cereal does not have hot spices (even though we have seen that before!).

I expected that the chocolate flavoring would be subtle. But the cereal pieces are generously dusted with a cocoa-y powder, and there’s no mistaking that this is a chocolate cereal.

With that said, the chocolate flavor is not aggressive. Chocolate fiends might wish for more, and it doesn’t really impart much cocoa flavor to the milk. But if you want something super chocolatey, you can just pick a different chocolate cereal instead.

Obviously, this cereal prominently features cinnamon. Is it different than regular cinnamon in Cinnamon Toast Crunch? I don’t actually know, but it seems that way to me. The combination of cocoa and cinnamon gives the cereal a robust flavor. While this is a sugary cereal with anthropomorphic cartoon cereal pieces on the front, the cereal seems slightly more mature than the ordinary version.

Mexican Style Hot Chocolate Cinnamon Toast Crunch is a delightful addition to the canon of CTC flavors, and I will definitely buy it again this season.

Purchased Price: $4.93
Size: 18.8 oz box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 cup) 170 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 1 gram of polyunsaturated fat, 3 grams of monounsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 200 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 12 grams of sugar (including 12 grams of added sugar), and 3 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Dunkin’ Sabrina’s Mixed Berry Daydream Refreshers

/ / Reviews / Leave a Comment

Earlier this summer, I not so boldly predicted that Sabrina Carpenter’s Strawberry Daydream Refresher – her first flirtation with Dunkin’s Refreshers line – was only the beginning.

The Fall menu at Dunkin’ features two new Daydream Refreshers that don’t scream “Fall” in terms of what we’ve grown accustomed to in the pumpkin spice age, but the flavors aren’t totally out of place for September, and they definitely look the part. Mixed Berry and Mango Daydream Refreshers are here in all of their purple and orange glory, attempting to bridge the gap from fruity summer fantasies to convincing yourself it isn’t too early to buy Halloween candy.

Banking on my enjoyment of the Strawberry Daydream, I opted to try the Mixed Berry version. This Refresher blends the strawberry dragonfruit concentrate and blueberry breeze concentrate with oat milk and is served iced, topped with sweet cold foam. Was I just talking about Halloween?

As soon as I was handed my drink, a very different holiday scene came to mind. I couldn’t help but think of the movie Elf, where Buddy goes to work with his father and greets a coworker with “That’s a nice purple dress. Very purply.” This mixed berry drink is decidedly purply, and somehow just holding it and looking at it is enjoyable. Is this why Grimace is always smiling?

Getting beyond looks and into taste, I always enjoy the cold foam at Dunkin’, and this was no different, a thick and sweet layer on top that initially hides anything underneath but quickly dissipates into the drink. I couldn’t detect any strong berry notes until I got past the foam, and I was pleased to find the underlying bulk of the drink to be not too artificially blueberry-ish.

Not surprisingly, the flavor of this Refresher reminded me a lot of a mixed berry yogurt, and the creaminess of the oat milk only made it more reminiscent. You know it’s berry flavored, but no one berry really stands out. We can probably attribute this to the fact that the strawberry flavoring also includes dragonfruit and the blueberry includes juniper, making this a bit of a monster mash of berries. I’ve heard some people found the taste of this and the original Strawberry Daydream to be medicinal, but it never hit my taste buds in that way.

It’s sweet without being overly so, and the berry flavor is inoffensive but also about as exciting as mixed berry yogurt, which is to say, not very.

In addition to not being particularly exciting, I also don’t find this necessarily refreshing. It’s pleasant enough, but when I open the refrigerator searching for refreshment, I’m never going to reach for the mixed berry yogurt first. They say you eat (drink?) with your eyes first, and if you subscribe to that, you might be pleased with this purple concoction, but I don’t think it will warrant a repeat purchase.

Purchased Price: $5.49
Size: Medium
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 290 calories, 5 grams of total fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 115 milligrams of sodium, 57 grams of total carbs, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 42 grams of total sugar, and 3 grams of protein

REVIEW: Dairy Queen Caramel Toffee Cookie Blizzard

/ / Reviews / 3 Comments

Have you ever been excited to see a new movie, and as you are leaving the theater, or more likely getting up off your couch, all you can think is, “Well, that was disappointing?” Let me introduce you to the rare Dairy Queen Blizzard that I might turn down if offered it for free. The new Caramel Toffee Cookie Blizzard is a classic case of over-promising and under-delivering.

The DQ website describes this one as having “chewy cookie pieces, buttery toffee and golden caramel,” which is all technically accurate. Then things go off the rails a bit with this sentence, which apparently someone got paid to write: “Picture your favorite autumn moments—the crunch of leaves underfoot, the warmth of a bonfire and family outings filled with laughter—all brought to life in this Dairy Queen Blizzard Treat.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a bonfire nearby; otherwise, I might have tossed a mostly full cup into the flames. This one made me rethink my belief that you cannot really have a “bad” Blizzard, because anything with ice cream and various other sweets will at least be palatable.

This one barely clears that bar. For starters, the cookie pieces (which, according to the ingredient list on the DQ website, are blondie cookies) are immense. They certainly are chewy, as promised, but not much else. The flavor of the cookie pieces is nondescript, but their size overpowers the other parts of the Blizzard, and they were so chewy that it distracts from the other parts.

I really wanted to like this Blizzard, and I’m a big fan of toffee. OK, I’m not enough of a fan to have ever purchased a Heath or Skor bar, but I always snatched a few in the process of “checking” my kids’ Halloween candy. And I’ve enjoyed other toffee Blizzard variations. This one just missed the target. The toffee pieces did bring a bit of crunch, but there didn’t seem to be enough of them in my Blizzard, and the caramel flavor was barely there.

Maybe this would be a bit better with more toffee and without the Godzilla-sized cookie pieces, but I can’t imagine it would make a big difference. The overall taste combination of the cookies, toffee, and caramel was inexplicably almost a little bitter. So, this one gets the rare Do Not Recommend classification in my book.

Purchased Price: $4.99
Size: Small
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 680 calories, 22 grams of fat, 14 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 430 milligrams of sodium, 106 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 81 grams of sugar, and 13 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Reese’s Oreo Cups

/ / Reviews / 2 Comments

Snack food all-stars Reese’s and Oreo have collaborated to grant fans not one, but two best-of-both-worlds mash-ups: Reese’s Oreo Cups and Oreo Reese’s Cookies. A cookies and creme peanut butter cup AND a peanut butter and chocolate sandwich cookie? Whichever product speaks to your preference, we can all agree that both brands have been reading our diaries.

I tried the candy half of this collaboration. Available in Standard Size, King Size, and Mini varieties, Reese’s Oreo cups consist of a milk chocolate and white crème shell filled with peanut butter confection and Oreo cookie crumbs.

Reese’s connoisseurs may also think of this cup as a collaboration between two past varieties: Reese’s Crunchy Cookie Cups and the seasonal Werewolf Tracks Cups. Like the former product, Reese’s Oreo cups contain delightfully crunchy chocolate cookie crumbs. Like the latter, they use half milk chocolate and half white creme to achieve a unique taste and cool colorblock look. With all this mixing and matching of parts, maybe Dr. Frankenstein was in charge of engineering this collaboration.

If Frankenstein did channel his unchecked scientific ambition into candy, I would argue that he played it safe with the Reese’s Oreo cup. The white creme doesn’t taste much like an Oreo’s center, but it adds extra sweetness to the cup. The Oreo cookie crumbs add fantastic texture to the peanut butter filling, but I wish I could taste more of the wafer’s characteristic dark cocoa flavor. The crumbs are concentrated at the bottom of the cup, which creates a cool layering effect, but a whole wafer would have been a more exciting way to achieve Oreo flavor.

Despite the Oreo’s subtle flavor, the cookie crunch—in satisfying contrast to Reese’s perfect, smooth peanut butter—is the best part of the candy. I wish I had found the Mini variety at my local store rather than the King Size pack. I suspect the cookie’s texture and flavor might be more pronounced in a smaller cup. Readers, confirm my hunch?

Although the cookie flavor is generally lacking, Reese’s Oreo cups are crunchy, sweet, peanut buttery, and very easy to eat. It’s hard to achieve snack food perfection, but this flavor pays respectable homage to two brands that already have.

Purchased Price: $1.97
Purchased at: Walmart
Size: 2.8 oz (79 g) King Size package
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (per 2 cups) 200 calories, 11 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 125 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 20 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein

Scroll to Top