A rep from Fresh Beginnings contacted me last week telling me she would send me a customized cookie tin! Fresh Beginnings specializes in freshly baked cookies (although they have other stuff too like pretzels and nuts) and they make tins with pretty designs as well as logos and messages on them. I sent her a picture for the tin that I knew my mom would like.

Quick background story before I get to the video: Moms Nguyen went to Penn State in the 70′s as a refugee, married my dad, had my sis, quit college, had more of us, became an amazing amazing amazing single parent, all the meanwhile dreaming of the day she could go back and obtain her degree but putting us first (and putting UP with us first) always. FINALLY in 2007 my younger sis went off to college as a Triton (UCSD!) which gave my mom the go ahead to go back to school. After some mild drama getting back into school; LOOONG nights; walks in the hard rain, wind and snow; and LOTS of papers (emphasis on LOTS), she not only obtained her bachelor’s but my mother now holds a Master’s degree in American Studies from Penn State University — a dream my mother has held for over 30 years!! (Fun fact for you college football buffs: In the 70′s, Joe Paterno was coaching the Nittany Lions. When my mom went back, he was still coaching!) This is a HUGE deal to the fam, and we are all so proud of her. Thus, the cookie tin. Watch and see! (Remember my mom didn’t know who it was from or what it was or anything!)

And here is Moms saying thank you to Fresh Beginnings

One thing we found out after is that there was a handwritten card accompanying the cookies! Ok, I’m special, but not *that* special. A handwritten note comes with all of them. Soooo personalized!

And some shots of the tins. Really, the pictures don’t do the tins justice:

The great thing about it is that I supplied the company with the picture and what I wanted it to say. They chose the design and the cute background! They certainly have an eye for what looks good.

And now for the cookies! As mentioned in the video, there were chocolate chip and chocolate dipped chocolate chip cookies in here. Here’s what I dug into first, the chocolate covered chocolate chip cookie:

I read the reviews on the Fresh Beginnings site that highly praised the cookies, but I don’t believe it until I taste it. And now I believe it. They definitely deserve the 5 stars. My work friend commented that there is one THICK layer of chocolate on this cookie.

I’ve had chocolate covered sweets before, but none that taste like this. The chocolate complements the rest of the cookie so well in such a way that adds another level of taste to it, unlike other foods where the chocolate layer is really much more independent and doesn’t fit the rest of the treat exactly right.

Now, about the actual cookie:

(Apologies for slightly lower photo quality.. I took this picture with my camera on my phone) This is one of those cookies where you do a double take and go, “holy crap, this IS good!” I think the best thing about these cookies is that they’re soft and gooey on the inside (thanks to the fact that they’re freshly baked). They’re not crumbly and they hit the sweet craving (you know, the one you didn’t know you had until you bit into this cookie) just right. Funny thing is that even though there is only a medium amount of chocolate chips in here (and I require a LOT), I’m not complaining about that this time around. It’s probably because the rest of the cookie tasted so good.

Oh, and by the way. THE COOKIES ARE ONLY 90 CALORIES EACH!!! The chocolate covered ones have 170. I totally ate one of each today but it was SO worth it. And the tins are so awesome and totally reusable. For more cookies, of course.

HOWEVER. One thing I don’t like is that these cookies have partially hydrogenated oils in them. Probably one of the reasons why they taste so good! If they did away with the hydrogenated oils I would like them so much more. Also, the chocolate gets on your hands when you touch it. For normal people it would be ok because you would just hold it by the non-dipped part. But for us cookie bloggers who hold the cookies in the palm of our hands for comparison purposes, it’s just something we’re bound to notice.

Fresh Beginnings
More custom designs: http://www.freshbeginnings.com/Photo-Tins-W8C23.aspx
Twitter: @FreshBeginnings
Facebook: Fresh Beginnings
Or, you can message me / leave a comment if you want me to hook it up for you.

• Taste: 10
• Crust and center moistness: soft and gooey!
• Value: $20 for 20 chocolate chip cookies; $33 for 40 chocolate chip cookies. It’s an extra $3 for the customized tin, then there’s shipping from Georgia. GREAT price!!! TOTALLY worth it!
• Overall: I’m pretty picky about my food, so the partially hydrogenated oils are a turn off. But on the other hand, this would be more about the cookies AND the tin rather than just the cookies. (Also, it’s worth mentioning that the hydrogenated oils wouldn’t stop me from buying them from others.. nor does it stop me from eating them.) Anyway, I know that most other people don’t care about the hydrogenated oil, so this would make a wonderful gift for family or corporate! BUY! 9 for the partially hydrogenated oil, 10 for everyone else besides me.

OMG!! I was looking forward to this event for WEEKS. Or like weeks and a halfs.

Cookie Showdown 2010 was put on by Hello Drama and Nylon Pink and took place in August’s Downtown LA Artwalk. If you’ve never had the pleasure, DTLA Artwalk has become a MASSIVE event for hipsters, yuppies and normal people too to hang out. Art galleries stay open late but they have to since it’s so crowded it takes forever to get inside one and see everything (ok, that was only a little exaggerated). There is live music, restaurants stay open later and a HUMONGOUS array of food trucks that have taken over LA streets.

I lost track of how many cookies I ate but I think I ate around 9 (my record is 11). AAAAAAANNNDDD I didn’t get a stomach ache!!! Since we walked around and revisited bakeries over and over, I’ve organized this blog post by bakery and not chronological order. I also must apologize for the bad picture quality. My camera’s been having issues lately and inside it was either too dark or too light to take good pictures. (I didn’t want to put ALL the pictures on the blog, so more pictures can be found on my Facebook album.) Also, I’m pretty sure all of the sample cookies weren’t true to size of real cookies you’d buy, so I didn’t take that into consideration in my review except for one of them (see below).

BAKING BETTY’S

If you remember my post about Baking Betty’s S’Mores Cookie, you’ll remember that I received a scrumptious lookin cookie in the mail and.. did not eat it all because I don’t eat marshmallows. I was SO stoked to hear that they were here! And OMG, ok, Baking Betty’s def gets the award for BEST OUTFITS EVER:

Emily and Taryn were the sweetest and let me in on their secret cookie that they had been tweeting about all day: white chocolate oatmeal cinnamon. Or oatmeal white chocolate cinnamon. Not to sound ungrateful but I thought I had the worst luck with them. First I get a non-vegetarian cookie, then they give me a cookie with oatmeal in it. But ‘OLY CRAP that was not what I was expecting. This cookie was freakin good! Hah, I actually ate the whole thing this time.. even after begrudgingly offering Scott some.. I think he knew how much I was enjoying it so he said no.

(That is the secret: take someone on a cookie outing with you who doesn’t eat cookies. Luckily Scott is a cutie so I hang out with him. I don’t normally associate with people who don’t like cookies.) I have ALWAYS had problems with cookies with cinnamon in them. There’s never, ever, ever enough cinnamon, and this includes cinnamon sugar cookies. I’m like, dude, if you’re going to make a cinnamon cookie, put some freakin cinnamon in it. Baking Betty’s got this one right and the soft, moist interior of the cookie had exactly enough cinnamon for me to say FINALLY! A cookie with enough cinnamon! The white chocolate complemented the oatmeal very well (which is HUGE coming from someone who doesn’t like oatmeal). I will admit though that the oatmeal in this cookie was downplayed (otherwise I probably wouldn’t have liked it). I do love the fact that they focused on the cinnamon and white chocolate aspect of this cookie as they were in danger of completely overpowering the flavors with each other. I would totally get this cookie again. I got this cookie out of the sweetness of their hearts, without using one of my tickets. At the end though I wanted another… so I used my ticket this time

A legit chocolate chip! Just as soft and just as tasty as the white chocolate oatmeal cinnamon. I will admit that this cookie is better than the select cookie parts of the s’mores cookie. Perhaps it was fresher? thinner? softer?

SNOOKIES COOKIES

Thankfully they have nothing to do with that Snooki girl from Jersey Shore. Whew. Now that I got that out of the way, we stopped by the half Laker-colored booth and the girls there were SO sweet and gave us cookies without taking our tickets. I grabbed a white chocolate chip and Scott got a chocolate pecan cookie:

The chick there was my type of girl. When Scott refused a free cookie, she MADE HIM. THAT is a WOMAN I ADMIRE!! She put it in a plastic bag for him and we walked around. FAUX PAS! He dropped the cookie. Well, no, the cookie is just so soft and moist that when he was holding it by one end, half of the cookie fell off onto the floor. THAT is how soft it was. Both cookies were DELICIOUS.  There weren’t that many pecans in the chocolate chip pecan cookie though. Or maybe the floor ate them. There was definitely enough chocolate to go around in these cookies and their recipe is top notch. Just like with Baking Betty’s, I went back later and used my ticket to get a milk chocolate chip cookie:

…which of course was excellent. Soft, moist, buttery delicious.

PLATINE BAKERY

My sister told me to get cookies from here for Moms, and also when we were checking ourselves in, there was a random girl outside who told us that we had to eat their sandwich cookies. So that is what I got!:

They have a few varieties of these. They have one that is like an Oreo, this one like a Golden Oreo and another that has I think chocolate filling. This was good! It kind of looks like a macaron huh? But it’s denser and not as fragile. I took a bunch of these + their regular cookies home, planning to take pictures for this blog when it was daylight. …But the cookies are now gone (and not by me!). I estimate I bought around 10 or so cookies and there were two left 24 hours later. I guess that shows you how good the cookies are!

ESSENTIAL CHOCOLATE DESSERTS

This table was on the more quiet side. They got my attention because they had a really cute Cookie Monster stuffed animal advertising their ice cream sandwiches! But since ice cream has too much ice cream and too little cookie, I opted for the chocolate chip cookie:

and ew. This cookie was hard and dry and tasteless. I could have done without it.

FRESHLY BAKED

Freshly Baked defines themselves as making “gourmet cookies with attitude.” Their non-conformity leads them to special creations with funny names rather than the run-of-the-mill chocolate chip. They have oatgasm, demolicious, your mom, kiss my rosie white… I was really annoyed with them though because they gave us LITTLE ITTY BITTY TINY samples on a TOOTHPICK in exchange for a ticket.

Since I had extra tickets and I wanted to try cookies from all of the bakeries, I tried their chocolate pretzel cookie. It was good. I think. Yeah, it was good, had a crunch and nice flavor. …kind of wish I had more of it, like the other bakeries gave.

HYGGE BAKERY

Hygge Bakery is a Danish bakery in downtown. They had a bunch of European pastries on their table! We got this “empenada” as Armando called it:

which was actually a raspberry.. or strawberry… filled pastry with almond slivers and sugar on top. It was very sugary! Crispy and crunchy, but not enough filling. It was yum Our ticket also allowed us to get another since they were small. The dude behind the table had me at “cocoa powder”:

This one was not incredibly tasty. The other one was better. Kinda hard, kinda not, nuts and sugar on top.. nothing too exciting.

B SWEET CATERING

Somehow B Sweet got their own little room with a window display, of which we promptly found out we weren’t supposed to stand in front. Uh, okay, sorry for blocking the view of all of your cupcakes. The place was so crowded as it was but nooooooooo standing in front of the window. I grabbed a cookie from inside:

This cookie was good, nothing too crazy, just a cookie with chocolate syrup and a white chocolate chip on top. Soft, moist, tasty.

It was really hot and crowded inside so we emerged from the building after 2 hours of stuffing my face with cookies. As we stood on the sidewalk I realized I was double fisting. I had my two favorite cookies of the night in my hand and we started debating about which was better: Baking Betty’s chocolate chip or Snookie’s chocolate chip:

Baking Betty’s / Snookies

Armando liked Snookies’ more because it was more buttery. I preferred Baking Betty’s because I thought it tasted better. We did a blind taste test with Scott.. that did not turn out to be so blind because due to our descriptive arguing, he knew which one was which. and eventually sided with me. YEAH BABY! And Chloe the Cookie Monster wrapped it up.

RESULTS:
B Sweet Catering won the contest with their red devil cookie sandwich and angel chocolate chip cookie (which is I guess what we got?). In my opinion either Baking Betty’s or Snookies should have won. Ah, you win some, you lose some; such is life! I had a great time! One of the best nights of my life (uh oh, I hope none of my ex-boyfriends reads that..) Onward to Cookie Showdown 2011!

and don’t forget.. you can re-live the experience vicariously through me here.

Oigh. Facepalm

I feel really stupid. I got contacted by Baking Betty’s (an OC bakery!) and was so busy I didn’t check the website before I received them. Well next time I know for sure to make sure to check the website and let the bakers know I am vegetarian! Otherwise I may receive another scrumptious looking cookie, …with marshmallows…

…which are not vegetarian. Ok, so I just ate around the marshmallows:

The marshmallows were still completely gooey and slightly toasted when I got them The cookie parts without the marshmallows were good too. Slightly crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, considerable amount of chocolate chunks. I’m not sure if there are actually any graham crackers in here, but if there were, I couldn’t taste any.

The price for these cookies are $2.99 each or $28 for a baker’s dozen. They have this kind, regular chocolate chip and double s’more (more chocolate it looks like). It’s a pretty thick cookie but that’s also a pretty steep price. I don’t know anyone else who makes s’more cookies though!! They sell in some stores around OC and online, and even do gift baskets. Overall, a better-than-average cookie; the novelty of the s’more concept is the hook here. The regular chocolate chip is ok, probably good to mix in if you’re getting a variety with the s’more cookies.

Baking Betty’s official website
Twitter: @BakingBettys

• Taste: 7-8
• Crust and center moistness: very moist! crunchy and soft at the same time… if that makes sense?
• Value: $2.99 for one, WOW expensive; $28 for a baker’s dozen. Given the novelty, size of each cookie and taste, I’d say it’s kind of worth it if you get the s’more cookies. I mean, not for vegetarians of course.
• Overall: The chocolate cookies are definitely high up there, but I wouldn’t choose to get them alone just because I can find cookies that are just as good around me that are cheaper. Buy these and take them on a camping trip! 7

Soooo this cookie review is a month overdue. During my trip to SF, we stopped by Boudin Bakery Pier 41. I think. It was on a pier and it was followed by a number. ANYway. There are a few locations, but only other Boudin I’ve ever seen is at Disney’s California Adventure next to Disneyland, and I’ve never gone in. Apparently, Boudin is known for its sourdough and sourdough bread bowls. The SF sourdough bread is unique to SF just because the yeast that grows up there is the only yeast of its kind due to their unique environmental conditions that makes that yeast in that bread taste really good. or something.

Here’s a picture of inside their bakery, which is downstairs from Bistro Boudin. They make tons and tons of bread as you can see, even in cute shapes like bears and turtles!!! I had their sourdough bread and to be completely honest, their sourdough bread tastes the same as bread in LA. …and their cookies didn’t really stand out much either:

Ok this is a REALLY BAD picture taken through plexiglass, but I wanted to show you the different kinds of cookies they had. I wanted to buy both the white chocolate and chocolate chip cookies, but they were kind of pricey so I just stuck with the chocolate chip.

Pretty freakin huge cookie! This chocolate chip cookie was soft and sweet. I always have a sweet tooth after I eat lunch and this definitely hit the spot. Again, nothing too special about this one, just your standard cookie.

Boudin at Fisherman’s Wharf
boudinbakery.com
(multiple locations)
160 Jefferson St.
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-928-1849
Sun – Thur: 8 am – 9 pm
Fri – Sat: 8 am – 10 pm

• Taste: 7
• Crust and center moistness: soft but not chewy
• Value: $1.99, expensive
• Overall: Stick to their bread if you can actually taste the difference. 6

Where’s T-Pain when I need him? I’M ON A BOAT!

..er, okay, I *was* on a boat. Chloe Day consisted of vegetarian food, Catch Phrase, driving the boat AND the Jeep (stickshift baby!), going on a boat and seeing ducks and very importantly, COOKIES!!!!!!!!!

Meg was raving about this cookie since the previous day. We ate our food and let the cookies re-bake in the sun. Meg wasn’t kidding about these cookies. They are SO GOOD!! SOOO tasty, with really good chocolate, AND a mouthful of chocolate in every bite. Just to warn you — I love very sweet things. This cookie is indeed sweet sweet sweet! buttery and soft and chewy and the chocolate melts in just the right way. Sorry for the blurry picture below but I want to show you how thick it is too:

It’s like CAKE! But a COOKIE! With LOTS of CHOCOLATE!

• Taste: 10
• Crust and center moistness: very moist
• Value: I forget.. Probably around $2 considering it is Whole Foods. ..this might actually be worth it…
• Overall: Buy this cookie. 10

Have you ever had one of those times when you’re in Beverly Hills and you’re like man, I could really use a giant $4 cookie right now?

I did. And it was gooooooooooooooooood.

I was on Wilshire and Beverly (or somewhere around there) and I parked in the hotel parking lot on Canon. On the way back to my car, I saw Bouchon Bakery and had to stop by for a cookie.. I’m glad the bartender didn’t get angry because I asked him what cookies they had and he said, “chocolate chip oatmeal raisin” and I had to clarify that he meant chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal raisin cookies, not chocolate chip oatmeal raisin cookies. cuz that woulda been ew.

hmm..wonder why their bags don’t have Beverly Hills on the list of locations… it’s also missing on their website.

This cookie is GIGANTIC so it’s partly worth the $3.75 pricetag. I split it in half and ate half one day and half the next. I was VERY pleasantly surprised! It’s crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside — just the way I like them! This cookie was fluffy and melted in your mouth. And there wasn’t a shortage of chocolate chips, either:

(I gotta remember that if my cookie blogging career doesn’t take off, that I could be a hand model)

You can actually kind of see what I mean when I say that the cookie is crisp on the top and bottom and soft on the inside. It was so sweet, and SO yummy.

WHOA! Apparently, you can buy a chocolate chunk cookies as a mix from Williams-Sonoma. Read the review about them from Lucy Baker from SeriousEats.com here.

**I just found out possibly why the website and bags don’t have the BH location. Apparently they just opened up in November. That was 8 months ago though! Too bad I didn’t really see what else they had; I was just really focused on the cookie selection and thought it was weird that I was getting a cookie from a bartender. FYI, the reviews of Bouchon Bakery in Yountville, CA has almost 5 stars and 575 reviews.

Bouchon Bakery
235 N Canon Dr
Beverly Hills, California 90210
(310) 271-9910

• Taste: 10
• Crust and center moistness: crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside
• Value: $3.75 for a huge, delicious cookie. ..this cookie was probably meant to be shared (or split in half as I did) but I am usually down for downsizing portions and pricetag. Given the bourgeois location, the size of the cookie and how the cookie tasted, $3.75 isn’t actually that bad but it is still a lot to fork over.. 8
• Overall: If you’re in the restaurant and you want a cookie this is a definite must. Just stopping by would be good too if you have the money and don’t mind how big it is. 8