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Tag: cookies

Tate’s Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies review

March 11, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Not bad, but too sweet

Tate’s cookies were on sale at Safeway, and while I’m not usually a cookie buyer, I was curious to give these a try. They looked pretty fancy and the regular price was quite high. I thought they were good for a commercial cookie, but not something to write home about.

The cookies are smaller than similar ones – those from Pepperidge Farms, for example – which is not a bad thing for those who want an occasional sweet treat and can limit themselves to just one. They are crispy, which I enjoyed, though they also sell “soft” cookies. Flavor wise there were hints that reminded me of the homemade cookies my aunt used to make, but just hints. Mostly, they were sweet. They didn’t have enough walnuts – or large enough pieces of walnuts – for either their flavor or texture to push through.

I did like that the cookies have mostly natural ingredients: unbleached flour, semi-sweet chocolate chips, butter, white and brown sugar, walnuts, eggs, salt and baking soda. It does have added “natural flavor,” whatever that is, and I think it probably takes away rather than add to the quality of the cookie. There is a lingering sour/metallic taste that I don’t quite like (it could be from too much baking soda too).

I appreciate that they come in an easily resealable package so that they can stay fresh. Each portion of 2 cookies has 150 calories, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 11 grams of sugar (21% of daily value!) and 9 grams of fat.

Overjoyed Madelines Review

October 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

A nice take in a favorite

My daughters love Madelines. I started getting them for them when they were very little and we’d stop at Zocalo coffeehouse for a snack and play. The little cookies/cakes were the ideal size for toddler and preschoolers and even elementary age kids. Plus being small, they weren’t too expensive.

For quite a while now, Safeway has been selling these overjoyed/Safeway Select madelines boxes, baked by Sugar Bowl Bakery. I buy them for my daughter when they go on sale for $5, which happens every few Fridays. She loves them. They taste very much like the ones she remembers from her childhood. They are like a dryer, denser sponge cake, hard enough to withstand dipping but soft enough to eat on their own. Flavor wise, they are better and much cheaper than the ones we got at Trader Joe’s.

Trader Joe’s Lemon Baton Wafer Cookies Review

August 4, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Delicious!

Trader Joe’s Lemon Baton Wafer Cookies are special treat. If you are restricting sugar or calories, or simply watching your wallet, just one cookie provides such a burst of flavor – in addition to a satisfying crunch, to satisfy a craving for sweets. While the lemon flavor is very intense, it’s neither overly sweet or sour, just perfectly lemony.

They come in a very well sealed tube. At $2.30 for the tube, they’re pretty affordable – as long as you don’t eat them all in one sitting (which I’m proud to say, I didn’t).

UeNo Dora Magical Tales: Coconut Flavoured Egg Rolls – review

November 11, 2020 / / 0 Comments
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I picked up these snacks at our local Asian market. They’re made in Malaysia, and they are sort of an Asian version of pirouline. They are much shorter, however, and a bit thinner. They come in many flavors, but I chose the coconut ones.

I was a little disappointed. They don’t have enough filling, so they’re pretty dry. The filling is fine, though maybe not as coconuty as I’d liked.

They were around $1.50, I believe, but they still felt overpriced given how few there were and how small they are. Still, if they hadn’t been as dried I might have given the other flavors a try.

Rolled Butter Cookies – Best Recipe so Far

December 17, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Camila wanted to make Christmas cookie, and while I have a pretty good recipe, it called for some ingredients that I didn’t have at home. That was fortunate, because while searching for another recipe I came upon this one, from butter company Land 0’Lakes.  I like it more than my regular recipe, specially with the frosting.

Without the frosting the cookies are too dry.  That’s because of all the extra flour you use on them while you roll them.  Making them thicker helps – mine were too thin.  The icing, however, helps tremendously.  The best part was that the kids didn’t like them that much – Mika found them too dry and while Camila likes to make baked goods, she doesn’t really like to eat them.  The flavor was very good and, yes, you need all that vanilla extract.  All the recipes for rolled cookies I’ve found call for orange juice or lemon juice, so I suspect the citric acid element is needed for chemical reasons.

The key to making rolled cookies is getting the dough at the right temperature to make them rollable. It takes 2-3 hours in the fridge, but I’ve noticed that 45 minutes in the freezer also do the trick.  Work with dough in small batches.  As soon as one gets too soft, put it back in the fridge and get another one.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup salted butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tbsp. orange juice
  • 1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups flour + more for dusting
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 4 1″ squares of plastic wrap

Icing

  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup salted butter, softened
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1-2 Tbsp. milk
  • Food coloring, as desired

Instructions

For the cookies

With an electric mixer at medium speed, cream the butter with the sugar and the egg.  Add the orange juice and vanilla extract and continue mixing until combined.  Add the flour and baking soda and mix at low speed until combined.

Wrap 1/4th of the dough. with each plastic wrap square. Flatten slightly.  Refrigerate until firm, 2 to 3 hours.

Heat oven to 400°F.

Lightly flour a working surface and a rolling pin.  Roll out one package of batter to a 1/4″ thickness.  Cut with cookie cutters.  Place 1″ apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake for 6 to 8 minutes.  It’s ready when the edges of the cookie start to turn brown.  Remove from oven and let stand for one minute before transferring to cooling racks.

Repeat with the rest of the dough.

For the Icing

Using an electric mixer at low speed, beat together the powdered sugar, butter and vanilla.  Scrape the sides of the bowl often.  Add enough milk for your desired consistency.
Divide into small bowl and color each one with food coloring.  Spread over cookies and allow to dry.
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Swiss Delices bakery – Castro Valley – Review

September 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

A few weeks ago I got a $20 voucher for $10 for Swiss Delices fine bakery & pastry through GotDailyDeals.com.  I hadn’t tried the bakery before, but it got fairly good reviews on Yelp.  After having tried a couple of their offerings, my conclusion is that it is fairly good, but overpriced.

Once I got to the bakery I realized that the voucher was only good for “morning pastries” (e.g. danishes and scones), bread and full cakes.  Neither the beautiful looking individual dessert cakes (~$4) or the cookies (75-cents) were included.  That was a pity because that’s what I was most interested in getting.  We ended up getting a dozen cookies to take with us to an event, and a small chocolate mousse cake to enjoy yourselves.  Cakes start at $28, so even with a voucher you end up paying $18 + tax for what is a relatively small cake.

I enjoyed both the cookies and the cake but I wasn’t awed by either.  The cookies (peanut butter and chocolate chip) were a bit dry, though they had a good flavor.  The same can be said about the cake, though the mousse did provide needed moisture.  It was very chocolaty, my oldest daughter enjoyed it but my youngest didn’t like it.  As good as it was, I much prefer the triple chocolate mousse cake from Safeway.

Swiss Delices uses organic flours, real sugar and free range eggs, which of course ads to the cost.  In all, I’ll go again because I have another voucher, and if I lived in Castro Valley I’d buy one of the individual desserts to try them out, but I wouldn’t otherwise go out of my way to get something there.

Update

I returned to Swiss Delices in December just before my voucher expired (though it turns out that vouchers don’t expire in California).  I was planning to get a cake to serve with Christmas Eve dinner, but the ones they had were all around $38 and I knew they wouldn’t be worth it.  Instead, I got a bunch of morning pastries.  My favorite were the cream cheese (or was it custard?) danishes, they were very flavorful.  The cinnamon rolls were good, but a bit dry, while their bread pudding was too heavy for my taste.

If you are interested in giving them a try, you can get a $10 voucher for $5 on Valpak.  This voucher seems to cover all types of pastries.

Swiss Delices
20669 Santa Maria Ave.
Castro Valley, CA
510-881-8669

http://www.swissdelices.com/

Marga’s Restaurant Reviews

Safeway Peanut Butter Chewy cookies – Review

September 8, 2011 / / 1 Comment

The Safeway in downtown San Leandro offers children a free cookie from their bakery.  This is a great strategy by Safeway, not only does it create good feeling on parents but it means that kids rae eager to actually go grocery shopping with the parents. Parents shopping with kids are more likely to buy stuff they wouldn’t otherwise.

Yesterday, my kids (and I!) got a Safeway Chewy Peanut Butter cookie and I have to say it may very well have been the most delicious cookie I’ve ever had.  As promised, it was very chewy, it almost felt like it had caramel inside (but I don’t think it did). The flavor was out of this world, not too sweet, not too peanut butterish, with a chocolate chip here and there to balance the flavor.   Even though it was so chewy it did feel a bit dry (a common problem with peanut butter cookies), so I think it’d be best eaten with a cup of milk or coffee.

These cookies retail at Safeway for $4.50 for a dozen (I think) – almost twice as much as their “regular” cookies cost (on sale). But as they’re twice as good as their regular cookies, I can’t complain. I just wish they sold them by the unit, as good as they are I can’t expect to buy a box and not eat them all (so I won’t).

I found a recipe for chewy peanut butter chocolate chip cookies at the Safeway site, I’ll try it and hope it’s the same one they are using.

 

Trader Joe’s Swiss Almond Crunch Cookies

July 13, 2004 / / 0 Comments

They’re so good they are evil. Mike warned me against getting them. He knew I’d not be able to stop myself from eating them. He even took them off the cart (but then went and got himself some shortbread!). But I had to have them.
They are sooo good, so crunchy, they taste just like you expect them too.
Obviously, I won’t be buying any more tubs.

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