Let’s Mix: Crooks & Creams (An Oreo DIY Ejuice Recipe)

This recipe was one that took a very long time to develop. The problem I ran into the most was getting the right texture out of the chocolate, while also making sure the sweet cream filling still was prominent...AND distinguishable from eachother. After much deliberation between ratios, a violent hunt for the right chocolate ingredients, and a notion to "keep it simple", I've finally completed what I think as the most difficult recipe profile I've tackled to date. The recipe is a nice Oreo flavor, with a deep grainy chocolate next to a sweet cream. Not very exciting on paper...until you vape it. 

Flavor Notes:

CAP Chocolate Fudge Brownie: This is the body of the mix. This ingredient really does help capture that "Oreo" style chocolate that many flavorings/eliquids just don't get right. It has that nice dark and rich chocolate profile, as well as just enough texture for the recipe to be distinguishable. This ingredient didn't come to me until much later in the development. I started out trying to create the chocolate cookie from complete scratch, and was severely let down each and every time. Stumbling upon this flavoring, I realized how well that chocolate brownie profile matches up with the Oreo profile. Those flavor matching skill really helped me here. At 3% you get what you need from this flavoring, without it being too rich, or too heavy in the mix. Remember we still need to fit a light and sweet cream next to it...which was quite difficult. 

INW Milk Chocolate: This is the recipe secret weapon. I've searched far and wide, high and low, for chocolate flavorings to use not only in this mix but others. I was always disappointed by them, especially the ones from INW as many have that band-aid flavor I can't stand. But one day testing I tried this stuff and I couldn't believe what I was missing. This is one of the best "lighter" chocolates with more of an emphasis on getting the milk part right, while also keeping a nice silky chocolate flavor. In the recipe I needed a way to allow the chocolate to be separate from the creams, and with this flavoring in there as a bridge, I was able to do that. Now the flavors aren't completely separated, as if you're vaping two different flavors, no. It's a more subtle separation. But nonetheless it help immensely in the authenticity of this mix. At 4%, which may seem high but really isn't with this flavoring, you get that cream separation, you get that nice milky sweetness, all while you keep the integrity of the deep rich chocolate from the brownie.

CAP Vanilla Custard: Now I really didn't want to use this flavoring. I've been making a point to not use it as much as I see it as a crutch sometimes. But in this mix, it just works much better than the other creams I had, like Sweet Cream, or Meringue. It adds that thickness to the cream that just helps it stay separate from the chocolate, that thickness so when you vape it you can actually taste it. It also adds a nice buttery element to the cookie part that brings the mix a nice silky dimension.  Keeping it low was the key here to the balance. A light 1.5%, and honestly I could probably go even lower, but I don't want to risk the chocolate being too much so I settled on that concentration. 

TFA Vanilla Swirl: Like I said in the video, the reason everyone really likes using this in their mixes is because it does a great job of sitting in the mix, minding its own business. Meaning, you can put this ingredient in pretty much anything and you can taste it, almost unhindered, and depending on the accompanying flavors, you get a different flavor each time. 1.5% again is just enough to get what I need from it and it also helps turn the creams into a more "Oreo filling" instead of a caramel custard as it would taste like without it. 

TFA Sweetener (Sucralose): Again, this is optional. But I think it really does add to the authenticity to the mix. It just turns that chocolate into something more palatable and something much more usable. I feel the mix tastes too rich and too deep without sweetener to turn everything into more of a dessert. Sweeten to taste. 

BEST MIXED AT 70VG///30PG

STEEP TIME: 1 WEEK

A Word from the Creator:

This is something new I'm going to be adding to my recipes from here on out. It's just a little something I think people should know about the development of the recipes. So in this recipe, it was the first time I really saw how the vape experience matters in a recipe. In the video I explain how my first original recipes of this mix didn't please me because of how poorly they vaped. Not vaped in a sense that it was harsh, or that it wasn't tasty, but how the recipe would completely destroy a coil in less than a day of vaping. This to me was unacceptable. But I was left with a complex. If flavor is all that matter, if flavor is the number one deciding factor of a mix, is it worth it to pull back on the flavor in order to gain in another area. In this case I would be trading a much more authentic recipe for a recipe that was much easier on the coils (even though the recipe is still a little rough on coils). I didn't know what to do, and I was very close in releasing those original recipes. If it weren't for a BETA tester telling me he barely could get a half a day in his tank with the recipe, it would've been released. But after he told me that I realized that it was unacceptable to release something like that, and had to go ALL THE WAY BACK to the drawing board. Anyways I wanted to point out that complex. Sometimes you might have to trade authenticity for something that just vapes better. If something doesn't vape well, then there is really no reason to vape it right?