Dunking Oreos in milk is about as American as apple pie. It's a skill you have to learn by trial and error -- if you leave the cookie in the milk too long, it will crumble and fall apart. If you take the Oreo out too soon, the milk won't have moistened the cookie enough. It's a delicate procedure.
To determine the perfect dunk time for an Oreo, we at HuffPost Taste conducted a very scientific experiment. We dunked an Oreo into 2 percent milk at a series of intervals to test the consistency of the cookie. We dunked for two and a half seconds, five seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 35 seconds, 45 seconds and 60 seconds. We were careful to dunk the cookie at the half-way mark and used a new cookie every time.
Of course, the right dunk time depends on how moist you want your cookie. If you want it just slightly soft, only a few seconds will do. If you want it so soft that it's on the brink of falling apart, you can go as long as a minute.
At 2.5 seconds the cookie was slightly moist but completely retained its structure. At five seconds, the cookie was significantly softer. At 10 seconds, it was so soft that we were worried it might collapse soon. Little did we know, we had a full 50 seconds until the cookie crumbled.
Between 10 and 45 seconds, the cookie got progressively -- but barely -- softer, but remained intact. The biggest change in consistency came early on, and as time went on, only subtle changes were noticeable.
Finally, at 60 seconds, the Oreo broke apart.
If you want a fully submerged Oreo, there are some genius tricks for that too -- like using a fork or a French press.
How do you like your Oreos?