Snack Review: Chocolate Chip Cookie Showdown

The recent issue of Consumer Reports rates chocolate chip cookies. I was - intrigued? offended? dubious? - to find that two brands outranked my favorite Chips Ahoy.

I mean, “favorite” isn’t even the word. In my mind they are the standard, the traditional, THE American cookie. What’s more, they are outranked in these ratings by Keebler.

Here’s the truth, people: As far as I know I’ve NEVER eaten a Keebler cookie. I’ve certainly never chosen to buy them myself. I don’t want cookies baked by creepy little elves in a dirty forest. And yet, Keebler were ranked “very good” and Chips Ahoy only “good.”

Well, this was a challenge. And - what if they were actually better? So of course I had to try them.

When I opened the package, the smell was perfect. But matters went rapidly downhill from there. The cookies were too perfectly, artificially round, and very pale, like they’d been taken out of the oven too soon.

The texture, in my opinion, is all wrong. CR called them “crunchy but tender.” I like crunchy, and “crunchy but tender” seems contradictory to me. The “tender” should have warned me. They’re almost kind of sandy or powdery. Ick. (A second taster agreed, so I’m not totally crazy.)

The taste of the cookie part is OK. It’s mild, not too distinctive tasting, which is fine - flour and sugar, obviously no butter. No weird off tastes from strange fats. But the chocolate is mostly just sweet, not very chocolate. Not impressive.

So, bummer. Not only are they NOT very good and now I have this whole bag… but now I feel like I can’t trust Consumer Reports about cookies.

I couldn’t find their other brand ranked “very good,” Health Valley Mini. But overcome with a desperate need to find a cookie worth eating, instead I bought a similar looking kind at Whole Foods, which is also mini and organic and comes in a similar bag. (They’re very different from the Whole Foods Chocolate Chip that I reviewed earlier.)

These have actual butter in them, and usually I am not looking for a buttery taste in a packaged chocolate chip cookie. And indeed, these flirt with the verge of tasting like shortbread with chocolate chips, which is NOT the same thing as a chocolate chip cookie.

However, I seem to keep eating them without stopping. Unlike the Keebler they are slightly brown on top, which is good. The biggest problem is that distribution of chips is uneven. I don’t like a cookie that has too many chips - if I wanted to eat a chocolate bar, I’d eat a chocolate bar - but some of these individual cookies have hardly any chips, not enough even for me.

I will have no trouble finishing this bag, but I doubt I will buy them again.

Neither of these brands have usurped Chips Ahoy in my estimation. But despite this blow to my confidence in Consumer Reports, I really have to find those Health Valley cookies. I later looked up the ingredients online and compared these Whole Foods cookies to the Health Valley. They are similar but not identical, so they’re not a close copy. I am curious about whether they are equally wrong and, yet, hope springs eternal. The quest continues….

• Keebler Website
• Whole Foods Website

Buy Keebler Chips Deluxe Cookies Online:

• at Amazon.com

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