I Bought Crumbl Cookies For The First Time And Loved Them
There are certain givens in life, things that everybody knows, but never truly understands until they happen to them. Raising teenagers is hard, stepping into a fire ant nest is painful, stuff like that. Well, you can add one more truism to the list: Crumbl cookies will get you hooked. Everyone told me it would happen, but I'd never had the cookies myself, so I was skeptical. In fact, since I live in a city full of top-notch independent bakeries (Milwaukee, in case you're one of the vast majority who never clicks on the author bio), I didn't see why I should bother driving out to the 'burbs to patronize a chain that only offers six cookie flavors at a time. Okay, there are actually seven, since milk chocolate chip is an every-week offering, but that's beside the point here.
Still, I eventually gave in to peer pressure – my fellow food writers are a pretty persuasive lot – and made my first trip to Crumbl. As you've probably already gathered from the title of this piece, it most definitely will not be my last. Depending on the coming week's flavors, I might be heading out there again in a day or so. Oh well, it's not like I can't say I wasn't warned.
The ones with chips
I started off with the one cookie I expected to like the least: the butterscotch chip. While it was, in fact, a bit too sweet for my liking – I'm not a big fan of butterscotch for this reason – the cookie had an unexpected hint of salt that helped to offset some of the sweetness. I wound up liking it a lot more than I expected to. While I probably won't order it again, I'd still rate it 3 stars on the standard 5-star customer rating scale.
The oatmeal chocolate chip muffin mystery cookie, on the other hand, is something I expected to enjoy, but that wasn't the case at all. The problem I had with it was in whatever spices were used to make it muffin-y. Perhaps I overlooked this part of the name, or at least didn't think what it might mean, since I was expecting a standard oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, Crumbl-style. There'd maybe be some cinnamon, which isn't something I'm all that crazy about in combination with chocolate, but I was prepared for it. What I wasn't prepared for was the strong flavor of – I'm not quite sure what the other spices were, but I think nutmeg and maybe some cloves. While the texture of the cookie was great and the semisweet chocolate chips tasted fine, the spice just seemed to overwhelm the other flavors so I'll have to go with a 2 for this particular cookie.
The sugar cookies
You can hardly go wrong with a big fat frosted sugar cookie. Even the ones that come in plastic containers from the supermarket are pretty tasty, so of course I expected Crumbl's to be amazing, and they did not disappoint. The first one I tried was the mallow crème with Lucky Charms marshmallows. While I'm actually kind of icked out by sugary cereal, the cereal itself wasn't involved here, just the marshmallows, and I'm fine with these in a non-cereal context. The cookie itself was wonderful, tasting of sugar, butter, and just a little salt and underbaked just a bit to the point where you could still taste the dough. The frosting, too, didn't taste like marshmallow cream so much as an actual toasted marshmallow, which makes me wonder if Crumbl does a s'mores cookie. I'll definitely have to keep an eye out for that since this frosting would be amazing on a chocolate cookie. Four stars.
The other sugar cookie had a similar base, but the frosting was more of a standard buttercream. I liked it even better than the marshmallow creme one because it's just everything I've ever wanted in a sugar cookie – soft and fat and sweet and perfect. Plus, the chocolate gelt on top couldn't be cuter! I'm going with 4 ½ stars here as I have to save a little something for the best kind of cookies at all (to be revealed in the next slide).
The ones with chocolate
Yes, for me, the very best cookie is always going to be a chocolate one, and Crumbl had two such cookies in the rotation this week. One of these, the cookies and cream, wasn't anything like what I expected. I thought it might be a sugar cookie filled with Oreo-type crumbs, but instead, it was a swirl of dark chocolate and vanilla. There was also a white chocolate drizzle on top, but it was not excessive and didn't drown out the rich chocolate flavor. This cookie was also slightly thinner and crispier than the others, which made for a nice contrast with the heavier frosted cookies and made for another 4 ½ star-offering.
The real standout was the mint brownie, the one chilled cookie in the bunch. It tasted every bit as good as it looked, which was gorgeous. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a St. Patrick's Day special -– I purchased it the day before the holiday – but it tasted like a cross between the mint-frosted chocolate cupcakes I remember fondly from elementary school parties and the kind of fudgy brownie that I won't turn down at any time of year. This was a 5-star cookie for sure, and I'd order it again in a heartbeat.
The ice cream
Even though ice cream is a sideline for Crumbl, it does go very well with cookies – or rather, with small slivers of the same, since Crumbl cookies are very filling all on their own. I wanted the complete Crumbl experience, however, so in addition to my sampler box of six different cookies, I also picked up a half-pint of Crumbl Cream in fudge brownie flavor. Kudos to Crumbl for their package labeling here, acknowledging that the entire container is a single serving, since who's going to stop at just half? (Well, me, but I was really, really full from eating about ¼ of each cookie by the time I dug in.)
I will say that the fudge brownie Crumbl cream is not quite as good as my all-time favorite, Baskin-Robbins fudge brownie, due to the fact that its ice cream base is a much lighter, creamier chocolate than the dense, dark Baskin Robbins fudge. Still, B-R's fudge brownie seems to be just a regional flavor and it's not offered in my current region. When it comes to ice cream, it's always best to love the one you're with, and it wasn't the least bit difficult to fall in love with Crumbl fudge brownie. I didn't even bother to look up the calorie count since I didn't want to ruin a magic moment: just me, my spoon, and a small tub of amazing ice cream. (I looked it up later, though, and 470 calories for 8 ounces isn't too bad.)
The verdict
I'm a budget-minded shopper who's always on the lookout for the cheapest deals, so much so that I've been known to buy groceries at Dollar Tree. So why, then, am I contemplating driving almost 10 miles across town again next week to spend over $4 on a cookie? Damn it, Crumbl, you got me. I would like to note in my defense that buying one $4 cookie may be a better use of my time and resources than baking an entire batch that I may wind up having to eat all by myself. As for the driving distance, I'll stack and pack my Crumbl run with other errands (it's not too far from Save-a-Lot ...) as we've all learned to do with gas prices ever on the rise.
It's a Sunday as I write this, and I'm excited to see this week's new flavors. I've been googling past flavors and there are at least 15 ones I absolutely cannot miss (yes, there is a s'mores one!) and a bunch more that I'm also quite likely to be buying in the future. Guess it's just as well I signed up for the loyalty program since I'll be earning those Crumbl Crumbs faster than I ever expected to. In fact, I'm already ¼ of the way to my first Crumbl Cash payout, which will get me two free cookies, or maybe one cookie and another carton of ice cream ... Yep, I'm hooked on Crumbl cookies, but it works for me!