Gingerbread Flavor OREO Sandwich Cookies

My theory is that OREO doesn’t really care if most folks buy more than one package of any particular novelty flavor sandwich cookie. Didn’t like Red Velvet? Here comes Caramel Coconut! Imagine my Christmas surprise when gingerbread OREOS reappeared for 2020 with a new and improved recipe.

Before this year, what we got was Gingerbread Flavor Creme OREOs – two vanilla cookies with a gingerbread-spice filling. Maybe it was more efficient to repeat the vanilla cookies from other “yellow” OREOS, but it’s just backwards to have the gingerbread flavor on the inside. Nabisco must think this particular OREO has staying power, so it’s been re-reciped.

Short answer – the new ones are better. I don’t know the legal distinction between gingerbread and “gingerbread flavor,” but these OREO cookies have ginger, cinnamon, molasses, and, although I don’t taste a hint of chocolate, cocoa. I’d put them somewhere between a cinnamon-sugar graham cracker and a less-buttery Biscoff. The filling is the basic vanilla creme with red sugar flecks to plus-up the texture. I could do without the grit, but it does subliminally remind you of Christmas cookies.

Here’s the five designs pressed into the cookie wafers. The other side is your standard OREO. As a kid, I pulled my OREOS apart for a two-course experience, but now, I like them undivided. To me, the creme is really sweet by itself and the cookie adds a balance. Do you dunk? I don’t recall this happening with traditional OREOs, but the gingerbread ones will start to separate cookie and creme if you don’t hold them in the milk just right.

One weird fact I picked up by reading the labels. A serving of regular OREOs is listed as three cookies for a total of 160 calories. For the Gingerbread Flavor OREOs, its just two cookies for a total of 150 calories. That’s closer to OREO Double Stuf that are two cookies a serving for a total of 140 calories. I didn’t get out the calipers, but I’d guess that Santa Nabisco brought us some extra creme filling for the holidays.