I didn't hesitate for a second when I saw the display of Peeps Oreos in the back of the Bellevue Kroger — I immediately put two packages into my shopping basket and took to Slack to alert my co-workers that another taste test was in their future. They hit me back with poo emojis. I think they're really starting to hate my curious sweet tooth.
Turns out, they have nothing to fear. Granted, before opening the package, I braced myself for something horrifying. Oreo has burned us before, and I expected the neon-pink filling sandwiched between two Golden Oreos to ruin the tongue with a lingering chemical burn similar to the Swedish Fish Oreos released last year. I love Swedish Fish, but those cookies were death. I love Peeps, too. But would I like them in Oreo form, when the textural marvel of sugarcoated marshmallow was reduced to a creme filling? Would I like Peeps if they were ... crispy?
OH MY GOD YES.
I love these cookies. I L-O-V-E THEM. They taste like Lucky Charms. They taste like little sweet snowflakes dancing on your tongue. While the flavor isn't necessarily natural, it's not overbearing, either. It's light, it's delicate. And you won't notice if you eat both the creme and the cookie together, but if you lick the filling off the cookie like an Oreo pro knows to do, you'll notice the pink goo is laced with little crunchy sugar crystals to replicate the coating on our beloved marshmallow bunnies and chicks.
I love these cookies so much I want to smash a bunch of them into a bowl, pour milk over them and eat them for breakfast every day until Easter.
Some of my officemates were skeptical, of course, but most everyone who's tried them likes them — some have even come back for more. "They remind me of those pink wafer cookies that I secretly love," said art critic Laura Hutson.
Others, while they didn't love them, they were still able to see potential. "They taste like Bubble Yum, cheap bubble gum. Or cotton candy. They just taste like sugar," said managing editor D. Patrick Rodgers. "They're not terrible. Stick one in a scoop of vanilla ice cream and then maybe we'll talk."
But as successful as these Peeporeos seem to be, it's worth asking: Are Oreos capable of delivering a new limited-edition flavor that consumers would actually want to buy and eat more than just once or twice for goofs? Or is Nabisco happy having the unpredictable edible clickbait hit the shelves just long enough for bloggers and cookie fans to digest before moving on to the next thing? If they are capable of inventing a new forever flavor, what would that flavor look like? Could it be risky like Peeps or Swedish Fish? Or would they have to play it safe, sticking to traditional flavors like chocolate, vanilla, mint and peanut butter?
And how much longer will this trend of companies releasing limited-edition food last? Easter candy is already on the shelves, and there are plenty of newbies on the scene, including Carrot Cake Hershey Kisses (which were introduced last year) and even new kinds of Peeps called Peeps Delights, which are dipped in a variety of coatings like dark chocolate or lemon fudge and filled with stuff like chocolate ganache or caramel. Weird.
If these limited runs of experimental flavors turns out to be the only way candy companies can get our attention, what happens when they hit on a winner? So far every Oreo limited-edition flavor has been best suited for temporary status. But at some point they have to get something right ... right? And when they do, will they be able to afford to keep it around? Or is "fleeting" the main ingredient? Maybe the only way we can appreciate anything in this Snapchat-soaked society is by knowing it's going to disappear before our very eyes.Â
