The Asylum

In the next saccharin installation of the epic cookie saga, I ordered a six pack of Crumbl cookies from a box-shaped industrial kitchen with tall spinning ovens. The environment was uncanny and sterile. Just a bunch of pink boxes that said Crumbl everywhere. I feel like I'd have existential nightmares working in this place. Even Walmart's bakery had bread to look at.

The one employee who came out and handed me my social media-flavored confection was polite enough. No complaints as far as customer service goes. The closest Crumbl cookie was an hour away from where I live. This became something of a bizarre and meditative adventure.

The first smell that hit me from the box was somewhat chemical, which already wasn't promising. It occurred to me that those six cookies together may have more calories and sugar than a dozen Dunkin donuts, which is wild to me. Those donuts would have been cheaper and tasted better, too, but not nearly as novel. Just ol' reliable, as far as mass-produced sweet vendors go.

I think a dozen Dunkin donuts would have been a much better purchase for its cost, but I digress. Back to cookies.

On the bright side, because this cold box of doomed rotating ideas is so far away from where I live, it's just one more barrier to entry between me and an unhealthy binge-eating habit. I did this to thoroughly satisfy curiosity.

So myself, my mom, my partner, and some friends sampled some cookies tonight. Here's my personal ranking from best to worst.

Chocolate Chip Cookies From Scratch: 1 1/2 cup flour, 3/4 tps baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 room temp egg, 1/2 cup (one stick) softened unsalted butter, beat into a sticky dough, fold in 1 cup chocolate chips - bake 350F 10-12 minutes until bottoms turn golden. Cool on a rack. That's my recipe. I found it on YouTube and committed it to memory years ago. I'll try to find the video, but yeah. The cookies come out soft, they're not too sweet. You can taste the butter, vanilla, brown sugar, chocolate bits. It's nice. Sometimes I put nuts in these cookies. Today I kept it simple, and these were the winning cookies. I think lots of people are capable of making these cookies, too. For the cost of six Crumbl cookies, you can purchase most if not every ingredient I just listed and yield about 18-24 cookies per batch, depending on how big you make your dough balls. That's a lot more than six.

Pillsbury Funfetti Cake Mix Cookie: The dough came out of the freezer in perfect condition. It was only frozen a few days, but being frozen didn't hurt it in any way. I don't know how long I can freeze the dough for, though. Well, anyway. The Funfetti cookies baked well, came out the same as before, and I still like the flavor. It had a soft texture, kind of cakey, but a little more dense. I predict other cake mixes will taste better as cookies than this one. I'm already getting a little burnt out on this artificial birthday cake flavor now. Nevertheless, genuinely prefer this cookie over all the Crumbl cookies I sampled today. For its cost, the taste and texture of this treat is pretty good. I can see this being fun for kids to do as well, or anyone stuck at home with nothing better to do.

And now, the Crumbl cookies, all of which I divided into six pieces each. Despite only sampling 1/6th of each cookie, they were difficult to finish. Some portions went in the trash the next morning, mostly the chocolate chip cookie:

Peanut Butter Cup Cookie feat. REESE’S: The best tasting of the six, second best texture after the OREO cake. It was a basic peanut butter cookie with not too much milk chocolate drizzle and minimal REESE'S candy chunks, making it peanut butter forward overall. Good choice. Less is often more with dessert garnishes. The dough was (unsurprisingly) a little underdone, though, but that didn’t deter me much. I didn't taste flour or anything funny, so this cookie was fine. I think I can make a better one, though.

OREO Cookies & Cream Cake: The next best tasting dessert was this little OREO cake that collapsed into the box a bit on the drive home. Cookies & Cream is hard to get wrong. This had a decent flavor and texture. It was the only frosting that wasn't too sweet, and the cake base was less cloying than the cookie bases. This reminded me of whoopie pie. It wasn't bad. It was fine. Inoffensive compared to the rest of the list, where I start getting critical.

Lemon Bar Cookie: Now we’re getting into territory where I feel underwhelmed, disgusted, and/or disappointed. The base of this lemon bar cookie was like sweetened sand! Not nasty per se, but also like, deliberately bland. I don't know how else to describe this. Sweet bland? Is that a flavor? Anyway, it was too crumbly and greasy, too! It gave off artificial mass produced cookie product. Here's the saving grace, though: the lemon icing tasted just like lemon pie filling you can buy in a can. Hmm. Well, it did kinda balance out the sweet cardboard grease cookie overall. I think I understand what they were going for, but for its price it was poorly executed. I get that the lemon is the star, but your cookie base shouldn't be sugar sand, mmmkay?

Churro Cookie: It was with this cookie that I knew I would never purchase another Crumbl cookie. As a lover of “pumpkin spice” (particularly my own blend of cinnamon, powdered ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves) I thought I’d enjoy this cookie more. I love a cinnamon dessert. Alas, the frosting was piped way too thick for my liking, the spice profile was way too bland for me (or maybe it's just the dry cookie), and I just... how does this one cookie cost more than $1? Literally how? I'm paying Crumbl's very expensive rent is what it is. It didn't taste much like a churro to me either. I just wasn't impressed. Oh well.

But WAIT! There's MORE!

Chocolate Chip Cookie: I don’t like this cookie at all. The chocolate chunks are way too sweet. The whole thing’s actually kind of gross, although the texture is OK. As suspected, this did not stand up to my cookies from scratch. In fact, it’s a pathetic contender. So pathetic, I would also say it doesn’t stand up to premixed cookie dough you can buy at the grocery store either. Frankly, it reminds me of something you can buy at Walmart’s bakery. It’s got that stale/chemical/way-too-sweetness to it.

Pink Sugar Cookie: This cookie sucks! It was the worst one by far. Sometimes it's sand. Sometimes it's almond-extract flavored sand. Whatever it is, I don't like it. It's sweet sand frosted in almond extract slurry and I'm not a fan.

Here are our reviews:

My 72 year old Mother: "Those cookies sucked! Tasted like cahdboard (cardboard) and dust!" Although she enjoyed the Funfetti Cake cookie. Thought that trick was pretty neat at least. Was deeply unimpressed with the $25 price tag of the Crumbl cookies. This is going to be an inside joke in the family now.
B: My partner reports that he thought the OREO one was delicious, and liked the lemon one, too, but disliked or wasn't interested in the other cookies.
B2: B's buddy. Says these cookies are very "rich" in an unpleasant way. Gravitated toward the simple chocolate chip cookies I whipped up from scratch instead. Dang. LOL.
T: B's other buddy. Thought the lemon cookie was delicious, sampled the Funfetti Cake Mix cookie and liked it. Also gravitated toward the cookies made from scratch. Avoided the other Crumbl cookies.
M: B's brother. Already knows what Crumbl cookies are. Snacked only on the cookies I made from scratch because he's a picky eater. Had no interest in any Crumbl sugar bomb.
Myself: Umm. I wouldn't go as far as to say any of these "cookies" were delicious. Two were decent. Two mediocre. Two awful. Atrocious quality food product for its cost. I would give the cost to quality ratio a solid 0 out of 10. I cannot, for the life of me, justify another purchase of these cookies. I'm not going to inhale them for YouTube or TikTok just to complain about them week after week. Sounds like a fantastic pipeline into Type 2 diabetes and/or heart disease. No thank you! One purchase was necessary for the knowledge, the experience, and now I have it. The end. Never again, Crumbl Cookie. Walmart's bakery is better than yours by a hair, and that's embarrassing, but at least the prices reflect the product better at Wally World in this case.

And that, my friends, was my grand adventure with Crumbl cookie. I'm going to eat a salad next time. Bye!