The Dr. Oetker Taste Test

When Jacy praised Dr. Oetker's frozen pizzas, it spurred Tearfree to investigate the German Doktor who’s suddenly taken over supermarket shelves.
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Like many grocery shoppers, Tearfree has, on occasion, found herself sufficiently tempted by Dr. Oetker's tiramisu mix or the chocolate mousse to actually pick up the box and scrutinize it, but, in the end, she's always put it back on the shelf, thinking, “What can a German Doktor possibly know about tiramisu and chocolate mousse?”

As we observe regularly here at RTK, Tearfree is not alone in her Weltanschauung. It seems that many Brits have also expressed skepticism about Dr. Oetker, a powerhouse in the western and central European food industry, whose recent marketing blitz in the UK stirred up antagonisms both old and new .

“Perhaps we can next expect the taste of Real Brazilian Pizza... by Dr. Mengele,” commented one blogger.

“Dr Oetker sounds like the name of a mad scientist who has been grafting ocelot heads on to genetically-enhanced super babies in an abandoned nuclear bunker,” wrote another.

And in perhaps the unkindest cut of them all, yet another blogger wrote that the German Eurovision entry -- a country song -- was “reasonably authentic... probably about as convincing as a Dr Oetker German pizza. Though I have to admit I've never eaten one, somehow a pizza made by a German doctor just doesn't appeal.”



Clearly the branding folks at Dr. Oetker have sort of half-way grasped this lack of allure. How else to explain the gender ambiguous person featured in the company logo? Is it supposed to be some German Hausfrau who uses Dr. O or is it the good doktor himself complete with a Mozart-era hairstyle? (Sexist as it may be, it actually never occurred to Tearfree that Dr. O was a woman.)

When Tearfree began to investigate, she learned that Dr. O has been in Canada since 1960, but has only been using the Dr. O brand since 2003. Originally, his products went under the name of Condima Imports (no comment), followed by a number of other names that even the company itself no longer wishes to reveal. Dr. O took over the better known (in Canada) Shirriff brand in 1992 and its former products are now sold under both names.



As for Dr. O himself, he appears to have been a chemist and not a medical doctor. He made his mark by inventing a baking powder formula and expanded from there. His real photo shows that he bears far more resemblance to Marx than Mozart. And the company he founded , a mega brand in Europe, is now in the hands of Dr. h. c. August Oetker, fourth generation CEO.

In the interests of doing for Herr Doktor Oetker what she’s done for softwood lumber and synchronized swimming, Tearfree staged a Dr. O taste test this past long weekend and has committed herself to blogging regularly about Dr. O. products.

The taste test began at Saturday breakfast with Dr. Oetker’s wild blueberry muffins with Streusel topping. Tearfree knows from time spent in Germany that the natives make really good fresh fruit cakes and streusel, and she wanted to give Dr. Oetker a positive start. Even though it’s really really easy to make your own blueberry muffins from scratch (hint: use frozen blueberries when fresh aren’t available), Tearfree was keen to try out fancier innovations that she doesn’t usually have time for, like the filling and the topping.

Muffin assembly was quick and easy and the results were pretty good in a commercial bakery kind of way, but Tearfree still prefers her own traditional Blueberry muffin, made from Susan Mendelson’s Mama Never Cooked Like This. (Tip: substitute plain yogurt for the buttermilk.)

Next on the taste-testing agenda were Dr. Oetker”s frozen pizzas, which have been garnering a lot of praise, including from Chatelaine for the vegetable one and from the Journal de Montreal for the four cheese one. Tearfree tried the vegetable pizza for supper and while it was tasty enough, it confirmed her opinion of frozen pizzas with too many vegetables – they are soggy and if you cook them enough to rectify this, you end up practically incinerating the vegetables.

This is why Tearfree sticks to cheese and/or meat frozen pizzas, serving up the vegetables in a side salad. Dr. Oetker’s four cheese pizza, cooked to a pleasing crispiness, was more up her alley. It distinguishes itself from the President’s Choice four-cheese version in that it has blue cheese, but neither Dr. O nor the Prez can match the four cheese white pizza at Amelio’s.



The last item in the weekend taste test was Dr. O’s crème brûlée. Tearfree has never prepared a crème brûlée herself as she has heard that it is extremely challenging even for talented cooks, many of whom suggest you need a blow torch to get the crispy burnt sugar crust just right. For this reason, Tearfree only ever eats crème brûlée in restaurants or buys it at pastry shops. (In the photo above, the crème brûlée is in the very back row. Click for an even better view.)

She was deeply concerned that any crème brûlée from a mix would have a chemical taste, but she felt that after lobbing Dr. O an easy ball, with the blueberry streusel muffins, it was time to send him the toughest shot possible. All went well in the crème brûlée preparations until it came time to broil the puddings with their sugar topping. The instructions called for three to four minutes, but when Tearfree checked at the three-minute mark, they were nowhere near done. She decided to give them two minutes more but then lost track of time and they ended up cooking for six additional minutes. By the time Tearfree removed them from the oven, they were boiling like a mad scientist’s ocelot potion and all the sugar that should have formed a crust on top had completely disappeared from sight.

In the line of duty, Tearfree soldiered on and sampled the finished product. It had an unidentifiable, possibly artificial citrus, taste that disappeared after two or three spoonfuls, but given that the topping is the best part of crème brulee and that Tearfree can’t, in all good conscience, hold Dr. O responsible for its vapourization, she is forced to withhold definitive judgment. Since it’s unlikely that she will try this particular product again, she urges readers, who cannot find crème brûlée so easily in their neck of the woods, to give Dr. Oetker a try and report back to RTK with the results.

For that matter, Tearfree would like you all to test any Dr. Oetker products that might have tempted you in the past. She herself plans on using Dr O’s famous vanilla sugar in next weekend’s waffles and should Germany win the World Cup, she will prepare his Black Forest Cake to celebrate.

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