Pepperidge Farm Caramel Tim Tam Cookies

I love Tim Tams!
After my review of the classic style Pepperidge Farm Tim Tam several people wrote in comments that while I thought the Arnotts version is better they couldn't tell a difference or preferred the Pepperidge Farm. Well they will either be really happy or really sad to know that I LOVED the Caramel Tim Tams!

Basically it's the same cookie- two chocolate biscuits that have a chocolate creme sandwiched between the two and then the whole thing is enrobed in more chocolate. The chocolate is still on the sweet side but it is quite smooth and has a nice melt to it.
In this version, the caramel lays below the first biscuit gently resting atop the chocolate creme. The caramel doesn't have the strongest flavor. It's not overly buttery or rich BUT what it does add is some great chewy texture. It's the contrast of the cool chocolate, the crunch of the biscuit and the sticky caramel that made the cookie for me.

I may not go out of my way for the normal Pepperidge Tim Tam but I will be buying more of these!

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Pepperidge Farm Tim Tam Cookies

A few years ago my friend Bek made a visit from her home in Melbourne.
Amongst the gifts she had brought from home for her U.S. friends were a stash of Arnott's Tim Tams. It was then that I realized that Hugh Jackman may in fact be the second best gift Australia has given to the world.

Arnott's Tim Tam's (which can often be found at World Market- and easily, but not cheaply on-line) are a cookie comprised of two chocolate biscuits, a chocolate creme filling and then the whole thing is enrobed in a milk chocolate covering. There are some variations available and I am partial to the double coated ones myself. How would the Pepperidge Farm version stand up to the memory of the Arnott's?

Let's start with the outer layer of chocolate.
First, the layer is so thin that it immediately starts melting in your hand. The chocolate is real chocolate but it is on the low end side. It's smooth, but very sweet. If Pepperidge Farm had used the chocolate they use on the Milano's that would have been outstanding.

The biscuit layers are crunchy and have a satisfying flake to them. While they are chocolate colored, flavor wise they remind me of an old school Nabisco Cameo cookie. Which is to say that it is mostly vanilla flavor, but it is bland even by vanilla standards.

The creme.
Again, it's chocolate colored, but flavor wise about all I could come up with- and people I actually went through the trouble of scraping filling out and eating it on it's own (my inner Alton Brown again)- was that it tastes kind of, like oily butter.

All things considered it is not a bad cookie. It is a lame attempt at matching the greatness that is a proper Tim Tam, but again an OK cookie. If you have never had a real Tim Tam before get a hold of the Arnott's- you will thank me.

And just because it amuses me have a little Aussie eye candy as a parting gift:


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