Monday, January 11, 2021

Close Encounters of the Doritorio Kind


Bloreog the Oreo Blog began five years ago. After half a decade of ardently following Nabisco's premiere snack cookie product, I want more. New flavors arrive every few months, but few inspire. Gingerbread was a decent Christmas treat; Java Chip is solid, but lacks punch; Brookie-O is a sugary mess best forgotten. Maple Oreos are a Fall family favorite but what is there to say? We've all had Maple cookies. We've all had Oreos. '

I needed something moreo.

On New Years Eve an old friend tweeted the Doritorio Meme. A Dorito flavored Oreo, combining two iconic snack treats into one? It's been a solid business model for fast-food corporations for the past decade, starting, if I recall, with the Doritos Locos Taco at Taco Bell. A classic! Still good! He joked: if only we had a machine that could create such a snack confection.

I do.




I have.



I've longed to sit down with OR3O, my first born son and closest friend, for awhile now, but he's been busy stored upside-down in a closet filled with miscellaneous crap.  Approaching the Doritorio problem,  I knew I needed his expertise. Ground rules were set by my wife: I was not allowed to use any good food in this quest, which meant none of the Queso in the fridge I'd planned to use as a substitute creme.

That was hurdle one. The second was that my original design called for home-made cheese crackers shaped like Oreos, but I am very lazy.

I settled for scraping off (most of) the creme from Winter Oreos I had hidden in OR3O a few months ago. Oreos stay good for a long time if you don't open them, but even open you can eat them for years, as long as you don't mind a chewy cookie. Some people even pay a premium for the pleasure of a chewy cookie. Suckers.

My stroke of genius came when I realized how to make a perfect Doritorio creme. I crushed up a small bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos and then mixed them with some week-old sour cream for thickness and texture. Not that the cream was rotten or anything, but it was the bottom of the tub and thus aged a little more than had I used a fresh one. Bold solutions call for bold flavors.

The result was a photogenic chunky filling, divergent from the traditionally smooth & chalky Oreo creme experience.


My wife was in the next room, trying as hard as she could to ignore my experimentation, which is fine, because true science is done without collaborators in a half-lit kitchen using baby utensils for precision. 

It's important to note she was nearby, because she heard my unintentional hurking when the sour-creme nacho-cheesy mess of crisp cookie and chippy chunks hit my taste buds. Quite vile! 

Like Icarus, I had flown too close to the sun.

I'd planned to continue experimenting with a few Oreo forms I have been dreaming of for years, but was told in no uncertain terms that she did not want to watch me vomit tonight, and that it was time to stop. Fair enough. A good scientist knows his limits. 

Next time I'll use Spicier Nacho, for that little extra "zing!"