Sugar Savvy

Last year around this time Newman’s Own expanded its Newman-O’s Cookie line to include a new Peanut Butter Crème Filled Chocolate Cookie, and generously sent me a sampler box to review, which you can check out here.

Along with the Peanut Butter Crème Filled Chocolate Cookies, the Newman’s sampler box also contained some other flavors, including their Organic Ginger n’ Crème Ginger - O’s (one of the most unique flavors of crème filled cookies I have seen on the market).   Although these have been around for awhile, I had never tried one before.  For some reason, I was expecting a vanilla cookie filled with a ginger crème, so I was surprised when I opened the package and the cookies were all a light tan color.  These are ginger cookies with a plain crème filling (I guess I missed the part where it clearly says “crème filled ginger cookies” on the label).

The spicy/sweet taste of these cookies reminds me of gingersnaps.  There is a clear hit of ginger and nutmeg when you bite into one.  If you are not a fan of ginger, then this might not be the cookie for you.  Unfortunately, the ginger flavor has a bit of harshness that comes from using powdered ginger instead of fresh.  The crème filling, however, tames the bite of the spices nicely and makes the cookies sweeter than a gingersnap.

As usual with all the Newman’s Own products, the ingredients are fairly straightforward (organic unbleached wheat flour, organic powdered sugar, organic palm fruit oil, molasses, organic sugar, ground ginger, soy lecithin [an emulsifier], salt, sodium bicarbonate [leavening], nutmeg,  monocalcium phosphate [leavening]), and do not contain any hydrogentated oils or trans fats.

Although I prefer some of the company’s other crème filled cookies a little more, overall I was pleasantly surprised at how good these were.  I have also heard that the Trader Joe’s Ginger “Jo-Jo’s” are amazing; sadly, however, they were discontinued before I had a chance to try them, so I cannot compare the two.