There are very few aromas that are appealing as fresh baked cookies coming out of the oven. Of course, to get cookies hot out of the oven you’ve got to invest in some quality ingredients and take the time to precisely measure and combine those ingredients. It’s much easier to just tear open a bag of Uncle Eddies cookies, but it’s not quite the same.

For those who want fresh baked cookies but don’t have the time or desire to make them from scratch, Eat Pastry makes a several varieties of refrigerated vegan cookie dough that will have hot cookies coming out of the oven in less than 20 minutes. It’s as simple as scooping the dough onto a cookie sheet and sliding it into the oven.

So can a pre-made store bought cookie dough compete with cookies made from scratch? In this case, not quite. I opened a container of Eat Pastry’s Chocolate Chunk cookie dough and of course had to taste a spoonful before scooping the dough onto a cookie sheet. The raw dough tasted great and I was confident that it would make an excellent cookie. But what came out of the oven was a disappointment.

The first thing I noticed was that despite being named Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough, this dough has chocolate chips, not chunks. It may seem like a minor quibble, but there is a difference. Those who are expecting chunks, which given the name would probably be everybody, will be disappointed.

The flavor of the cookies was pretty good, but where the Eat Pastry cookies fell short was the texture. I’m partial to soft chewy cookies, but these were soft and dense. Not dense like a good fudgy brownie, but dense in a way that made chewing seem like a chore. Eating cookies should never, EVER be a chore (as if I even needed to say that). I saved one cookie for the next day and it had an even more unpleasantly dense texture.

The dough that remained in the container after that first batch of cookies never found its way into the oven. It gradually disappeared over the next few days, spoonful by spoonful. I really enjoyed the taste of the raw dough. If I was making a batch of cookie dough ice cream, I wouldn’t hesitate to use Eat Pastry dough. But the next time I’m craving fresh baked cookies, I’ll be making them from scratch. Otherwise, I’ll just get a bag of Uncle Eddie’s and keep the oven turned off.

Eat Pastry Cookie Dough is available in the San Francisco bay area at Mollie Stone’s and Rainbow Grocery. It can also be found all over California at Whole Foods Market.

Eat Pastry Cookie Dough
eatpastry.com

Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough

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