Review: CLIF Builder's Cookies & Cream Protein Bar

If you were to take a look at CLIF's website, you'd see that they have a ton of different products (I've reviewed several) and because of that, I'm lead to the Builder's bar line and specifically the Cookies & Cream flavor.  Builder's bars are CLIF's entirely natural line of products aimed specifically at the protein bar market.  I picked this one up for $1.69 at Kroger and the under the hood details include 2.4 ounces by weight, 270 calories and twenty grams of protein.

As you can see from this one, it has a chocolate exterior coating.  The innards are then made up of a base layer of the standard rice crisp mix and also a few Oreo-like cookie crumbles mixed in with the rice crisp.  On top of that is an off-white, almost caramel like, sticky layer that I suppose is supposed to be the "cream" in the Cookies & Cream.  To the touch, this sticky layer layer is quite hard and when I felt that, I did not hold out high hopes for this bar.

As we all know though, sometimes looks can be deceiving and that was definitely the case with this bar.  The hard layer of cream was actually soft when chewed in your mouth and it, along with the chocolate, had a "melt in your mouth" type quality to them that added an unexpected creaminess to the bar.  The rice crisp and cookie mix added a nice solid, but not hard crunch to the creaminess of the chocolate and "cream" and overall, this bar had a nice balance between creaminess and crunch.  As for it's taste, the chocolate in the cookies was definitely noticeable (again, think Oreos) and the chocolate/cream combination added a mild, sweet balance to all of the crunch.

Buy It or Fly Buy It?  This one was a success in my mind on all levels, so definitely BUY IT.  This one is kind of in the middle in the protein bar market in that it costs more than the cheap Pure Protein bars (it's also larger), but costs less than MET-Rx bars (it's smaller than those).  It's a good flavor though and if you are looking for a tasty protein bar, this would definitely be a good option.

BUY IT!!