Biscuit? Cookie? Cracker? It's a Treat!

The world is full of delicious, irresistible goodies. Being a type 1 diabetic diagnosed before a good majority of today’s fantastic gadgets and medications, I’m careful about how often/how much/HOW I enjoy them. And yes, I can have them, and so can you (portion control, medication, and planning is key!).

Obviously it’d be difficult to remember, and then track down the makers of all those cookies that were shown out for the taking. I’ll say first that I am 100% a chocolate addict, and not a fan of either caramel or soft cookies. If you have a hard time finding crunchy cookies, here’s a list of some of the more notable cookies that I’ve had in my home at some point or another:

1. David’s Cookies – Peanut Butter Chunk and Triple Chocolate Chunk

These babies come in 2-pound tins at $36 a tin. I got them as a Christmas gift from my boss, who later apologized for sending cookies to a diabetic. I assured him that this is 100% okay – that they’re delicious, I shared them with family, and that I can have goodies with the appropriate planning and control. They’re huge, surprisingly crunchy, delicious, and very filling. The best part is that they did not skimp on either the peanut butter chunks or the chocolate chunks. My suggestion is to have these in either half cookie portions with coffee or tea, because I’ll say again – they’re huge. Or maybe a whole cookie and skip out on other carbs for the day. If you crave nuts or chocolate, they’ll fill those cravings easily.

2. Pepperidge Farm Cookies

We all know Pepperidge Farm as the maker of Goldfish crackers. Did you know they also have a ginormous assortment of cookies and biscuits? I love the thin and crispy cookies. There’s a healthy chocolate chip content in these as well that doesn’t detract from the crunchiness. I like that the thin and crispy version lets me eat 2 cookies for a serving size (20g carbs). I recently received a couple of the double Chocolate Nantucket dark chocolate cookies for Christmas. Here, I only got to eat 1 per serving size (20g carbs). Of course, I had mistakenly assumed the same nutrition content as the thin and crispy and didn’t realize that I was eating double what I should have – that mistake required more insulin. These weren’t as crunchy due to the sheer thickness of the cookie. They’re filling but lack that nice taste of being thoroughly baked. Personally, I won’t be purchasing the double chocolate Nantucket over the thin and crispy for myself anytime soon, but free is free. My suggestion for a drink pairing is tea on these guys to balance out any cookie related heartburn.

3. Keebler Fudge Stripes

Not sure how many of you enjoyed these chocolate fudge-striped babies as a kid. Do not for the love of all things good, leave them in the heat. They melt and turn into a soft, gooey mess. If that’s your thing – more power to you. Personally, these were best to me when kept frozen. Then dip in some creamy peanut butter for a nice Reese’s-treat effect. I don’t buy these more than about once every 5 years as an adult, but my memories of having these with my sister means I’m always down if she is.

4. Chips Ahoy

Next on the mass-manufactured cookies list is Chips Ahoy. Traditionally, I’ll have these in those little snack packs you see at barbeque/field trip events. I don’t find these overly notable, I just remember having them. They’re a little hard for me to eat because there’s some kind of synthetic taste to them.

5. Famous Amos

Cue repeat of the Chips Ahoy comments, on all fronts. Not real sure if size may be a factor for the two of these – there’s a strange scalability effect that occurs in manufacturing and cooking that some of you may be familiar with. When the recipe works at a certain scale but needs major refinement at a smaller or larger to get the same results.

6. Girl Scout Cookies

Everyone is familiar with Girl Scout cookies. If you haven’t at least heard of these in America, you’re probably pretty oblivious to the tables covered in cookie boxes, or haven’t been at work or at home being accosted by co-workers parent to little girls in Girl Scout troupes, or little girls going door to door while their parents hang back at a supportive distance and their kids stutter or confidently put out a sales pitch. My oh my does the road to salesperson start at an early age.

There’s a number of available flavors – Tagalongs, S’mores, Do-Si-Dos, Trefoils, Thin Mints, Toffee-Tastics, Samoas, and Lemon-Ups. Personally, I think the combination of mint with chocolate is a crime against nature worse than the combination of caramel with chocolate (take Thin Mints off my list). Lemon-Ups are a good choice for my mother and sister who both struggle with the enamel being chewed off their teeth from too much lemon and lime consumption. They however comment that these are much too sweet, and would much prefer the sour-ness of the natural fruits.

If we’re going down through the list, I recall some of these being coconut and peanut rich – Samoas and Tagalongs. These are each on my “do not buy” list, being both soft and heartburn inducing. Do-Si-Dos hit the spot just a little better for peanut butter, but still suffer from being soft. Toffee-Tastics are similarly soft, but with have a distinctively offensive toffee hardness that some grandmothers who aren’t invested in either thin mints or Lemon-Ups may enjoy.

Which brings us to Trefoils, which are shortbread; and S’mores which are, well, S’mores. I don’t blame you if you’ve already stopped reading since I’ve knocked on all the other ones. But if you’ve continued to this point, I’m sorry to say that Trefoils rank only slightly above Walkers shortbread; and under my mother’s shortbread. I’d say you should give me a pass on that if you’ve thoroughly hated this section – we all have our love of our mothers’ cooking. I do thoroughly love the Girl Scout S’mores cookies and since I neither have girls coming up to my door nor my own gal, I try to support my coworkers’ daughters by purchasing S’mores cookies. I do have a friend who buys a significant amount of all Girl Scouts cookies each year to consume, which probably makes that girl’s day, and win the sales quota challenge and associated award.

7. Kirkland European Cookies

Congratulations on getting through my utter disdain for all Girl Scouts cookies except S’mores. I’m not sure if it’s the generous use of high fructose corn syrup, or the early start in the soul crushing sales field that has me disliking those. In any case, we’ve got a nice break from the traditionally American cookies, into Kirkland’s European Cookies. These babies are seriously addictive with the combination of Belgian chocolate. Still figuring out if I eat these for the chocolate or the cookie. More likely the chocolate.

8. O-reo Cookies

Who isn’t aware of O-reos? Some people eat these for the center; I eat these for the crunchy outsides. In fact, I’ve been known to sit with a packet of these and do nothing but remove the insides so that I can enjoy the outsides with either peanut butter, Nutella, or nothing at all. One of my favorite things about these, besides the crunch, is that if they do go stale, they can be ground up and used instead of graham crackers for the pie or cheesecake crust and up my baking game.

I’ve only ever had the originals up until the recent past, where I tried the white/golden ones – didn’t care for them. Double stuffed is pretty useless for me if I’m scraping out the insides regardless of flavor. I highly appreciate the thin ones if you haven’t caught on yet. I am curious and excited to try some of the new flavors (slowly of course given the health considerations so stay tuned!). Was pretty disappointed on missing out on the Lady Gaga O-reos, so I’ll probably end up paying a premium price to try them.

9. Nutter Butters

This is perfect for the nut lover who also wants cookies. Of course, these are sweeter than nuts, but see my above comments on being able to blend them up into a powder to use in substitution of graham crackers for a pie/cheesecake crust. Love these with Nutella or another hazelnut chocolate dip.

10. Kroger Maple Sandwich Cookies

Last but definitely not least in the sandwich cookie/cookie list is Kroger’s Maple Crème. Unlike O-reo and Nutter Butters, I don’t usually scrape the insides out. I do however enjoy dipping these in maple pecan flavored coffee, or warm sugar free cider. They taste like fall and all things cozy.

That’s it for today folks! Part 2 starts in on the nuances of biscuits vs. cookies, since fortune cookies aren’t listed here. I’d argue that some of these cookies could be considered biscuits when the filling is removed, but then the difference of sugar content remains. In any case, I hope you found something new to try! Stay tuned!