Life is full of many mysteries. When you live with a foodie, you’re made aware of how many exist in the pop culinary world. “What exactly is The Colonel’s Original Recipe?” “Chick-Fil-A Sauce…what’s in that?” “Is the Big Mac’s sauce just Thousand Island Dressing or is it something else?” These are just a few that have been tackled in our kitchen. However, there is one mystery that has confounded foodies and novices alike for a century. “What’s the best way to twist an Oreo Cookie apart?”
The trick is to do it where cream is on both sides of the separated sandwich cookie. Sure, you can pull it off every now and again, but consistency, is it possible? When in doubt, involve the nerds. Scientists recently took 1000 Oreos and a rheometer and went to work. The idea was to figure out what level of torsion on each side of the cookie was necessary to ensure cream on both chocolate cookies upon separation by twist. The results? This is a really tough task, and speed doesn’t matter. 80% of the time, Oreo separation left cream filling on only one side. To get cream filling equality, slow is the only way to go. The slowest twist speed took FIVE MINUTES, but the cream was on both sides. Whereas when set at a speed of 100 times that of a human twist, cream was ripped off both sides. Bottom line. We must be satisfied with failure 80% of the time. Then again, failure still involves eating an Oreo, arguably the greatest snack cookies ever. So, not a bad thing.