Arnott’s Tim Tam – Chewy Caramel

I’ve heard a lot about the Tim Tam, how it’s a very popular staple snack of Australia and it’s quite popular over here in the frigid North as well. I’ve also often heard of something called the Tim Tam Slam, where you bit off opposite corners of a Tim Tam and dip it into a hot tea or coffee and essentially use it as a straw to get it all moist. I hear all this but I never really got around to trying it.

Maybe it’s a tragedy of the commons situation, where I see it so often in the cookie aisle that I take it for granted and was never compelled try it, always under the impression it would be there later if nothing else piqued my interest. But there always was something else. But not today. Today I make a conscious effort to get these in my disgusting gullet.

For the uninitiated such as myself, a Tim Tam is comprised of two malted biscuits that sandwich some sort of filling and then the entire thing is coated in a light layer of chocolate. If the whole thing sounds elaborate, that’s because it is. It seems more like a chocolate bar than a cookie you would find in the same section. Though I guess chocolate covered Oreo’s are a thing so maybe not.

I decided to opt for a more popular flavour, and it seems that chewy caramel happens to be just that. I don’t tend to go for caramel as a flavour, but if they happen to be the popular flavour I’m sure there’s a reason and I should give a try. When in Rome.

The more I think about it, the more these remind me a lot of Twix. I mean, if you think about it isn’t this basically what Twix are? A cookie like layer with caramel, all covered in chocolate? Whether they taste like it too remains to be seen.

They aren’t joking when they say chewy caramel. I just assumed it was marketing speak for having lots of caramel. Nope. Turns out the caramel is actually chewy. Quite awesomely so too. I tend to find caramel too sweet so I don’t opt for it in most cases, but something about slightly viscous caramel speaks to me – it isn’t firm like an actual caramel but isn’t runny like a liquid caramel. I guess it’s why I enjoyed Twix as a kid. The interplay between the chewy caramel centre and the biscuit texture plays really well, and leads to an addictive little cookie. Biscuit? I guess this is closer to a biscuit than a cookie.

The flavour is fairly straightforward – you have the milk chocolate outer coating, balanced by the malt flavour. The malt flavour is there, but it’s kind of overpowered by the chocolate. The caramel certainly doesn’t help things, as it walks it’s sweet ass into the joint like it’s nobodies business, and catches everyone’s eye. All this to say that the flavours compliment each other pretty well, and caramel is the main attraction here, arguably for the better.

I will concede that I do understand what the hype over these are. They are quite good, and I would do it again. Would I get these over a Twix? If price and availability wasn’t an issue, you bet. I’m also looking forward to trying the other flavours in their offering. And based on what I’ve seen or heard, there’s quite a few for me to sink my teeth into.