The Ooey-Gooey Grocery Store Cookie From The Late '80s We'll Likely Never See Again

Everyone has a few discontinued snacks they miss from childhood, but not all of those nearly forgotten foods were made equal. If you gave me one of those nostalgic Flintstones Push Up frozen treats, I'd eat it, but I'm not sure I'd enjoy it as much before. Keebler Magic Middles are different. These cookies really should have stayed around. They were made of shortbread with soft-filled centers. The filling was originally chocolate, with peanut butter added later on, as well as a chocolate-filled chocolate chip variety.

One of the strangest things about Magic Middles is that they were around for quite a while. The earliest version of these cookies appeared in 1989, enjoying plenty of '90s popularity. A smaller sister snack, Mini Middles, joined the fun some time in the early 1990s. And yet, sometime in the beginning of the 2000s, Keebler discontinued the sweet stuffed snack. No one knows for sure why the cookies kicked the bucket, but there are rumors that Kellogg's (which bought Keebler in 2001) wanted to focus on newer products.

Whatever their reasoning, the elves over at Keebler may have made a mistake when they got rid of Magic Middles. They're missed on Reddit, where one user professed, "I still crave these from time to time." They're not the only person dreaming of the cookies. In 2024, the chef-owner of Kamal's Kitchen attempted to resurrect the Magic Middle, with big plans for a whole range of flavors. So far, it doesn't seem like the project has come to fruition, but we will be keeping an eye out.

With their resurrection unsuccessful, we'll probably never see Magic Middles again. But there are several Middle Eastern and Turkish brands of shortbread cookie with sweet, fudgy fillings that will feel familiar to Magic Middle fans. As you might expect from the part of the world that brought us treats like kataifi and baklava, these cookies are delicious.

Common brands include Libyan Bella Mosaic Biscuits, Eti Tutku, and Ülker Biskrem Duo – the latter two cookies are both from Turkey. These cookies are all made with a striped chocolate and plain shortbread exterior, so they differ from Magic Moments visually. The filling, however, tends to be very similar to Keebler's original ooey-gooey chocolate. There's also a vanilla version of Bella Tender Biscuits filled with the same chocolate sauce and a variety of Ülker Biskrem with a chocolate chip cookie that resembles the chocolate chip Magic Moments of the good old days.

These cookies are widely available across the United Kingdom and a lot of Europe as well as throughout the Middle East. So, if you have a vacation planned any time soon, make room in your suitcase for a few packets of cookies. For anyone stuck on U.S. soil for the foreseeable future, they're also available to buy online from a plethora of international stores. Since this style is popular across a wide swathe of the world, you can also try looking for them in person at a Syrian corner store, order them at an Armenian bakery, or grab them at a Georgian deli.