Review: Stonyfield Organic Oikos Caramel Pure Pleasure 0% Greek Yogurt

Not to beat my own chest here, but I always feel sort of "big time" when a product manufacturer contacts me regarding my review of one of their products.  That has been happening occasionally recently and it makes me feel good to be noticed.  Granted, I've made myself known by my strategy of networking through Twitter, Facebook, etc., but not all of these companies have to respond.  One of the several companies that did respond to my prior review was Stonyfield and they sent me some coupons for their single serve Greek yogurt cups and also their four packs of Greek yogurt cups from their Pure Pleasure line.  So, I picked up a gratis (regularly $4.69) four cup package of the Pure Pleasure Caramel flavor recently and I was anxious to give it a try.  Each cup is four ounces (same as a JELL-O pudding cup) and has 110 calories and ten grams of protein.  It's also non-fat, by the way.

This Pure Pleasure line has the tagline of "Pure Pleasure on the Bottom", so after I took my mind out of the gutter, I realized that meant this was essentially the same thing as fruit on the bottom except that in this case they were using caramel in flavor of fruit.  So, I opened up the yogurt cup and the first thing I saw was the white, thick, creamy and strong smelling (tart smell) Greek yogurt, which is pretty much standard stuff.  When I stirred up the cup to get to the pure pleasure, ahem caramel, I found it on the bottom although the side I started on first had very little caramel and I though I was getting hosed.  After I stirred it up a bit more, I found that the caramel had shifted on the bottom of the cup and most had moved to one side.  As for the caramel's appearance, it was a dark brown color and I would compare its consistency to dulce de leche in that it was quite thick, sticky and held together well.

When I tasted the caramel, I would say that it not only resembled dulce de leche in consistency, but it resembled it in taste.  It was not overly sweet, but it was quite thick and hearty.  You could definitely tell it was caramel, but its tasted tended to be more "burnt" for lack of a better way of describing it as opposed to a teeth rattling sweet like some caramels can be.  When I mixed the caramel with the yogurt, I expected it to overpower the yogurt taste, but it did not do that at all.  In fact the tartness of the Greek yogurt was still the star here and the caramel was only a supporting player in the whole taste of the cup as it added a flatter taste to the tartness and tang of the yogurt.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Despite the fact that this was not what I expected when I saw caramel on the label (was expecting more powerful and sweet tasting caramel), this was still a good product and I would give it a BUY IT rating.  This one is more about the Greek yogurt than the dulce de leche-like caramel, so if you are willing to accept or would prefer that you aren't going to be slapped in the fast by caramel flavor, you'll really like this product.

BUY IT!!