Kelley’s Kookies were nice enough to reach out to me and ask me to review their cookies. I stopped by their location at the Westside Pavilion and came across:

a very clean, neat, and bright store. The first thing I noticed about the store is that it’s not like a typical cookie store that have lots of bright colors and other baked goods. Kelley’s Kookies store was very nicely organized with the cookies clearly in display in neat packages. There was a clear connection between the way the cookies are packaged and the store — I think anyone who receives a package of these cookies will know exactly the feeling and look of the store before even walking in. I didn’t bother the 3 gentlemen maintaining the store at first.. I wanted to take a walk around and breathe in the cookies! Kelley’s Kookies pride themselves on containing only natural ingredients and no preservatives. There were so many different kinds:

Lemon shortbread, macadamia chocolate chip, shortbread, sugar cookies, Kelley’s Delight, melting moments

Pecan shortbread, Guava dreams, krispy oatmeal, neapolitan delight

Guava Dreams

Neapolitan Delight

Others I saw are chocolate chip krispy oatmeal (actually contains crispy rice cereal), raspberry dream (the “dream” cookies are a shortbread sandwich cookie with fruit filling), pecan shortbread, and macadamia ice box (mac nuts and vanilla). Varied and unique.

Here was my present, just in time for my birthday!

This box was like a little version of the store, I told you! When you take off the sleeve and open the box, you’re greeted by a little paper that tells you how much love went into making each of the cookies and that they are all natural and don’t contain preservatives:

Past the paper obstacle is what you’ve been waiting for:

The first package of cookies were my favorite:

This was kind of like a shortbread with a little more flavor. Of course, being a chocolate lover, I wish that the whole thing was covered in chocolate, but I get that this is prettier. This tasted great! And that chocolate layer was thick:

I thought the ratio of chocolate to cookie was great in that half of the cookie. My only criticism would be that the cookie is too thick. I think it would have been better if there wasn’t so much height to the cookie; it added thickness and cakey-ness.

The sugar cookies were by far the prettiest:

(Don’t mind the powdered sugar.) The sugar cookies had sprinkles on top which was such a nice addition to an otherwise plain cookie. Firstly it’s very visually pleasing. I love bright colors! Secondly it was a good partner in terms of texture; the cookie itself was crunchy with small crumbs and pieces while the sprinkles were slightly bigger and harder.

Next, macadamia chocolate chip:

More macadamia nuts!!! These were the favorite among most of the people I shared these cookies with.

You can see in the image specks of the macadamia nuts. I don’t feel like the flavor of the macadamia nut stood out enough. Need more macadamia! I’m not sure if anyone who didn’t  read the label knew that there were macadamia nuts. But like I said, people had the most compliments about this cookie; everyone seemed to love the bite-sized aspect about this cookie, and hey, they tasted great too. If you don’t mind crunchy cookies, this cookie is for you.

These powdered cookies were the most messy! But what can you expect from cookies that have powdered sugar huh:

Each paper cup contained two of these cookies:

These were the least “cookie” of the four. This is a walnut mixture covered in powdered sugar. They were my least favorite for a variety of reasons: they didn’t really taste like anything and they were super crumbly, but I’ll admit the reason I didn’t like these cookies was because the powdered sugar got EVERYWHERE. And I don’t mean only while I was eating it. My friends and I didn’t eat these cookies in one sitting which means I put the cookies back in the box to transport them and when I opened the box again, powdered sugar was all over the inside of the box. I know this doesn’t have anything to do with the taste of the cookie or anything, but it did have an effect on my, erm, cookie experience. I would have liked a resealable bag to house these cookies. Luckily, the box itself didn’t allow for leaks (that thing is sealed shut when it’s closed!), for which my car seat and dining room thank you.

…and the best part! Mention my blog in one of the bakeries, spend $10 and get an awesome dawesome spatula!!!! You know you need one!!!

• Taste: 6-7: pretty average
• Crust and center moistness: crunchy cookies
• Value: $4.50 – $5.50 per pack; $18 for something like I got above and goes up to $43 for the Grand Gift Box, which contains 9 packs of cookies (a savings of an entire $2! but you get the nice box with a bow in which to package them.). A little much for my wallet, despite the “natural” and “no preservatives” claims — I mean what does “natural” mean anymore? I’ll admit everything on the ingredients list was everything I could pronounce.. including “hydrogenated oil.”
• Overall: These cookies provide for a great-looking present, and I love the variety of flavors. The gentlemen in the store were incredibly nice and helpful. I just wish that the powdered cookies would have resealable packaging because that’s something that would discourage me from buying those specifically. My friends and I enjoyed eating these. While they weren’t exactly spectacular, I think they’re worth a visit!

Kelley’s Kookies (they’ll ship, too!)
Bakeries located in the Westside Pavilion, Santa Anita Mall, and a location in Stanton on Katella. Their cookies are also sold in Mitsuwa and Marukai and a variety of other places: Kelley’s Kookies locations

Not sure what was in the stars but Cara Pearson of Pacific Cookie Company had really good timing, sending a heartbroken girl two dozen cookies. TWO DOZEN! 24! Helped lift my spirits a little bit:

Pacific Cookie Company is gourmet cookie gift basket and boxes company based out of NorCal. (Haha, remember that post where I was like, what makes a gourmet cookie?) They have a retail store too! They use high-quality, natural ingredients with no trans fats (you hear that? straight butter. none of this “hydrogenated oils” crap in these cookies!). The pb they use in their pb cookies is Skippy. And the chocolate they use is Guittard chocolate — just as fancy as Valrhona chocolate, which I ate earlier at LAMILL! Fun facts (thanks wiki): Guittard chocolate is Frenchy, and they were the first company to make chocolate chips. They also use pure cane sugar as opposed to regular white / refined sugar, which ensures the eater of said cookies that there is a lot less chemical activity involved in these ingredients. Amen to them. Another piece in limiting the number of chemical interactions with their ingredients comes in their unbleached and unbromated flour, which is, obviously, flour that doesn’t have potassium bromate. I’m sure you totally knew that.

LOL, jk. Wow, I’m learning a lot today! Unbromated flour is a higher protein baking flour that yes does not contain potassium bromate, which is typically added to bread flour to help the elasticity of the baked product. UNbromated flour is more stable due to its higher concentration of gluten obtained from more proteins and is desired by bread bakers in general as well as those in higher altitudes. Some say it’s even safer than regular flour since the bromation (…wow.. that sounds like two dudes hanging out. bromance. bromation) might maybe possibly cause cancer. I would like for my cookies to not give me cancer…

Here’s the breakdown of the cookie list. Oh, the variety!!

(green hearts mean all natural and red hearts means 0 grams trans fat.)

K so she gave me 4 varieties of cookies. The first one I dug into was Cahootz! (white choc mac nut):

This was super yum. The mac nuts are HUGE! The cookie was soft with multiple mac nuts in every bite. Sometimes the nuts even split in between bites because they were so big. Once in a while I ate a white chip but to be honest I was so busy being amazed by the generosity of the mac nuts. There’s coconut in here fyi but I couldn’t taste any. Unfortunately for me the cookies were wrapped with the lemon cookie and the flavors definitely seeped through the plastic so the smell of the lemon and the taste of the cookie kind of meshed. After a couple of days though when I put the cookies apart, the lemon went away and the cookies were better. I was feeling shitty that day and I totally ate this with Lovin’ Scoopful ice cream and found out that this cookie would make a really good other half to an ice cream sandwich because it’s soft and not too sweet!

Shared some of this cookie with my buddies:

This was the lemon drop that partially contaminated my Cahootz!. It looks like this cookie has the smallest ingredient list. My friends really liked this one! They said it tasted like candy and likened it to a Starburst! I don’t particularly like lemon so I made sure that as many other people could try it as possible. It wasn’t popular with the sisters though, unfortunately. So, mixed reviews on this one. I ate a piece, and the lemon doesn’t kick in until a second later. I think my sisters didn’t like it because it was very sweet.

I was excited about the dark chocolate cranberry:

This cookie was good. Browned to perfection here. The Guittard chocolate was smooth and wasn’t bitter like other dark chocolates. The texture was not too soft but not crunchy either — a really good in-between. The dried cranberries made your teef sticky though, but I didn’t mind. I love dark chocolate! Another cookie with a simple ingredient list.

Then came the almond joe:

I think it was this cookie that the boss boss at work called “un-fucking-believable” (verbatim). Well if it wasn’t this cookie it was the dark choc cranberry. Anyway, man, this cookie is like a circus in your mouth! Semi-sweet choc, almonds, coconut. I was hesitant about this one because of the coconut (both shredded c0conut and pure coconut flavor) but I didn’t really taste it or it didn’t bother me that much. In other words the coconut flavor is not overpowering the rest of the cookie. It was definitely more about the semi-sweet chocolate and nuts in this one for me. I think I actually preferred this one over the dark choc cran because the texture throughout the cookie meshed better. In contrast to the Cahootz! cookie, the nuts in this one were smaller in size which made a good balance for the choc chips.

One major drawback is the huge amount of calories each one has. Over 200 calories each cookie! Well, I mean, it *is* a cookie, and I’ve definitely eaten cookies that have more calories, but it’s something I wouldn’t choose to do. My personal preference is 180 cals for one cookie max whereas a chocolate chip cookie from Pacific Cookie Co would have almost 250.

Pacific Cookie Company
(See website for order information)
1203 Pacific Ave.
Santa Cruz, Ca 95060
831.429.6905

I just have to open this up by saying that Pepperidge Farm cookies are *the* go-to supermarket consumer packaged good cookie for me. I packed a bag of these when I went to China, and thank goodness I did, because apparently these types of cookies are not an Asian thing (see post below about Chinese cookies).

They have several different varieties; I really like the Chocolate Chunk line (except the one with pecans in it — not a huge fan of any other nut besides macadamias in my cookies) and the next line I’m going to get into is the Soft Baked one. I haven’t tried the 100 Calorie packs yet though, I’d be interested in trying those too.

This review will be about the Chocolate Chunk Tahoe White Chocolate Macadamia cookies, since these saved me so badly when I was sans-”normal” cookies:

The cookies are on the large side, definitely; there’s 8 cookies in each bag.

I absolutely love the color on these cookies. Perfectly baked. AND, there’s the exact right amount of “toppings” in the cookies; every bite has more than one chip or nut so you get a mouthful of yumminess rather than a mouthful of just dough sometimes. Don’t think that these cookies are overly sweet though; the dough is not too sweet (just slightly buttery), which balances out the sweetness of the other components. The chocolate chunk ones are the crunchy ones, and believe me when I say to listen to the label. These are very crunchy, which do translate into crumbly, which leads to a mess on your shirt and your mouth (and the dining room floor). In addition, because these are so crunchy / crumbly, sometimes pieces break off that you didn’t bite into (I hope you have fast reflexes. Or don’t listen to the 5-second rule). Another slightly annoying thing about these cookies is that they (moreso than other cookies) leave a lot of cookie on your teeth so your tongue gets a good workout. Other than that, these cookies have a great flavor and aren’t too dry. Pepperidge Farm is also the only brand I can think of that make milk chocolate macadamia nut cookies too, so they definitely get points from me regarding that.

• Taste: 10
• Crust crunchiness: 10 for very crunchy
• Center crunchiness: 10 for very crunchy
• Value: when they’re on sale at Ralphs for $2.50 or $3, 10; remember, there’s 8 cookies in this bag! They’re normally $4 or $5, and I’m cheap, and I don’t buy them unless they’re on sale.
• Overall: 10, for being my go-to grocery store cookie

Check out Pepperidge Farm’s other cookies here.

WOW! My first post! I’m so excited! I LOVE COOKIES! So much, in fact, that I decided to start this very blog.

A cookie blog would not be complete without mentioning the Cookie of all cookies, the cookie masters, the worth-the-wait-in-the-long-line-that-moves-quickly cookie store, the place that brings USC Trojans down to UCLA territory, Diddy Riese. A Westwood special, this tiny store is packs hot dogs and brownies but is best known for its freshly made cookies. The prices are VERY CHEAP: an ice cream sandwich that you can make with choices from 10 different kinds of cookies and 12 different kinds of one of my favorite ice creams, Dreyer’s, comes out to $1.50. 3 cookies for a buck, a dozen for $3.75. A perfect special treat when you’re having a gathering.

The cookies are moist, not too crunchy, not too chewy. They taste delicious because they’re freshly baked everyday, although towards the end of the night (12AM Sunday – Thursday, 1AM Friday and Saturday) they start to run out of cookies. These cookies are the best cookies I’ve ever had, and with that price tag, they deserve the ever so rare 10 rating.

Location: Westwood; 926 Broxton Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024-2802; (310) 208-0448
Website: http://www.diddyriese.com

Taste: 10
Center and Crust moistness: Not too much difference between the crust and the center, with a moistness of medium
Value: 10
Overall: 10!