Sometimes Foodie: April Showers? How about a Sprinkle?

Happy (belated) Birthday, Oreo!

Birthday Cake Oreos were released in 2012 for their 100th anniversary and it was kind of a big deal. This was back when the bags had roll-down and twist-tied tops, instead our modern front--peel packaging. (Which I hate.) It was also before we were all burnt out on fancy new Oreo flavors. (Or is that just me?)

Upon their original release, this flavor was limited edition, but since then it has become a staple of the line-up, with a Mickey-themed Disney release added in for good measure.

So, for their 110th anniversary, they rereleased their centennial product and added a layer of chocolate creme. That's it. Same classic chocolate cookie, same "birthday cake" creme, but with added chocolate. I didn't feel like that was anything special, and with my irrational annoyance at "Birthday Cake" themed products and marketing, I was going to skip this...but then I was given a package as a gift. So, here we are. Happy Birthday!

Upon closer inspection, there IS another new addition. There are translucent, thin, sprinkles on the chocolate cookie itself. You really need to look for them, since they're translucent, but they're there. Cute concept, but I'm underwhelmed. They don't add any texture or flavor to the experience and you can barely see them.

Almost a decade ago I hosted bake sales in college for a club, and I got super fancy with it. At one point I splurged for this edible glitter that was in the baking section of Michaels. It was so pretty, and I imagined it tasted like sugar sprinkles, but thinner, like an edible foil of some kind. Guess how they tasted? Bad. Well not really bad-bad, but like, cellulose. It was a texture more than a flavor, and that texture was plastic skin flakes that dissolved on your tongue like rice paper. That is what we have here, but thankfully it's more finely ground, and the cookie texture hides them completely. So yes, there are sprinkles, but they're sad flavor-less and texture-less sprinkles.

Change it to rainbow jimmies, and then we'll talk.

Unlike older double flavored Oreos, I cannot separate the two cremes to try them on their own, they're so thin they've merged into one. So I'll try the creme first, and then the cookie+creme combo.

The filling starts out with fudgy chocolate, kind of like Brownie batter, or the Ultimate Chocolate Oreos I just reviewed, but gets sweeter and creamier with a healthy amount of canned vanilla cake frosting, which is just a more buttery take on classic vanilla. I quickly noticed that this left a vegetable shortening-like film on my tongue more-so than the Ultimate Chocolate version I had just the other day. I don't like the waxy feeling in my mouth, but the flavor is very similar to a half-vanilla and half-chocolate grocery store sheet cake.

Combined with the cookie, it does briefly make me think of ice cream cakes covered in shortening-infused frosting and little chocolate cookie crumbles, but the cookie overpowers the subtle Birthday-Cake-like flavorings in the filling.

The filling really lives up to flavor's promise, but when you eat it like a normal Oreo, it ends up tasting like a normal Oreo. It's just not different enough to make it worthwhile. I'll finish the package, but after that, I'm good.