What makes the
perfect chocolate chip cookie? Some may say that the chewier the cookie, the better. Some people love a lot of chocolate chips, and some don't hardly like any chocolate chips. It is all different for every person. For this taste test, I decided to test 3 popular pre-made cookie doughs.
The three types of pre-made dough are: Pillsbury, Nestle, and Hill Country Fair. I also made sure to get the most basic option for chocolate chip cookie - nothing like "extra chocolatey chip." for starters, it is very difficult a variety of pre-made cookie dough in a small, rural grocery store. Thank goodness HEB has their house brand of Hill Country Fair. The one problem, though, was that I couldn't get all three in the pre-cut squares, so it made it more difficult to do the taste-test completely blind.
To start with, I had my boyfriend label the packages of dough and the clothespins to keep it clear on the cookie sheet. He marked each package with "A," "B," or "C" then did the same with 3 clothespins. He discarded the packages and I rolled the Hill Country Fair Dough into small cubes so that those cookies would cook similarly to the Pillsbury and Nestle brands. Once I had them in matching cubes, I went to the other room while he placed them on the cookie sheet and clipped the labels onto the edge. At this point, I didn't know what letter was assigned to what dough.
Lucky for us, each dough had the same baking instructions, so we were able to bake them all on one pan, rather than waiting for the same pan to cool between batches. Each one baked relatively well and were all done after 11 minutes in the oven. Once I pulled them out and let them cool for 2 minutes, we tasted our creations.
The Pillsbury cookies came out golden brown and fairly thick, but they were crumbly. They tasted like sugar cookies with chocolate chips in them, so the chocolate wasn't overwhelming. Also, they were very soft and the chewiest of the 3 cookies.
The Hill Country Fair cookies came out the thickest and the softest. They also tasted the most like a classic chocolate chip cookie. The chocolate chips were soft and not crunchy like they were in the Nestle cookies. These were also the softest and pulled apart the easiest. The dough tasted chocolatey, but the chips weren't too rich to make it too much chocolate.
The Nestle cookies baked very thin. There was very little dough in comparison to the amount of chocolate chips. Additionally, the chocolate chips were very crunchy. Overall, these were also the most chocolatey and it really became way too much and we were quickly overpowered by the chocolate flavor.
To ensure that there was not a growing flavor of chocolate as we tried each cookie, we ate crackers between each cookie and drank some water so that we started each cookie with a fresh palate. The overall rankings from best to worst are as follows: Hill Country Fair, Pillsbury, and lastly, Nestle. This is because we felt like we could eat the most Hill Country Fair cookies without getting sick, or feeling like we were eating crunchy cookies.
I did not know Hill Country was a house brand of HEB’s. I salute the strong start. My only suggestions would be “everyone has their matter of preference” instead of “it is all different for every person” though it is just a tweak and not wrong, in terms of grammar. I would definitely change “chewier” into” more chewy” or “more chewable” as well as “chewiest” into “most chewy (or chewable)”. I would take back the chewy suggestions if they are intended for matching the usual “adorable” blog persona on some bakery blogs. Other than that, I enjoyed the read. “It’s better crunchy than burnt” are my two cents.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was overall a great taste testing post. You went into each aspect that was expected for this post and beyond with the time it took to bake each cookie brand. I liked your introduction paragraph, it made the whole post feel like something you'd read on a cooking blog. Your taste descriptions were heavy on adjectives which was great since we obviously aren't all testing the same foods. Overall, you did a great job on this blog post.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a good job describing each type of cookie. The pictures really help to show the differences between the cookies. I didn't know that HEB had their own brand of cookies so being that they tasted the best I will have to try them. I like a softer cookie so by you describing them helps to know which one I should buy. One thing that may have been helpful was to add prices. I don't know if one was more expensive or if they were all relatively the same. It would be interesting to see if the most expensive one tasted the best.
ReplyDelete