Category: Pepperidge Farm

Disco and bananas: these are my two cravings when summer rolls around. Not hammocks. Not reruns of Seinfeld (a year-round craving). Not ice cream. Well, yeah, ice cream. But also bananas.

So it was with great delight that I spotted these Pepperidge Farm Coffee Shop Banana Nut Cookies while bobbing my head to the tune of “Dancing Queen.” It felt like destiny.

Having just come off of an immensely satisfactory sugar rush triggered by Pepperidge Farm’s Cinnamon Bun Cookies, my hopes were set high. Like 40,000 feet above sea level. Up with the goats. And the yodelers.

And when I popped open the bag, the smell didn’t let that hope down: wafts of bananas, sugar, and maybe some subtle honey-flour-preservative dust, echoed into every pocket of memory that involves banana bread, a jar of peanut butter, Saturday mornings, and Reading Rainbow.

But the taste couldn’t quite sustain the same level of nostalgia-induced delusion. Sure, the cookie was soft without being spongy, cakey without being dry, and the taste wasn’t half bad: there was definitely some sugar, maybe a dash of vanilla extract, yet, while the whole “banana” part existed, it felt dulled out like a wafty ghost in the back of my throat. I do not appreciate having banana ghosts in my throat.

Thankfully, the hunks and chunks of walnuts brought me back down to Earth, providing soft, crunchy nubbins with hints of bitterness to contrast the half-hearted-bananainess of the cookie. The whole experience wasn’t bad, but it’s just not enough to satisfy my Inner Banana Monkey. And my Inner Banana Monkey wants bananas. Must. Have. Bananas!

No joke: these cookies are NOT the most innovative fare. They don’t involve liquid nitrogen. They don’t provide you with a magical wizard who will pay for your car insurance. Heck, they don’t even have chocolate chips. However, it is this very trait of boringness that makes them a spectacular base for other, more creative projects. One chomp and I found myself living in a perpetual, five-step cycle: 1) Eat cookie, 2) Allow visions of peanut butter and banana cookie sandwiches to flood brain, 3) Make peanut butter and banana cookie sandwich, 4) Chomp, 5) Repeat process as often as possible.

If you, too, find yourself undergoing a similar pattern, you may come to the realization that there are so many options: Crumble them on your parfait! Smoosh them with Nutella! Make a Breakfast Sundae! You, fine reader, are surely more creative than me. Expand. Grow. YOU CAN DO BETTER.

Whether you’re feeling like a bum or undergoing a temporary bout of psychosis, cookies are good, and these Pepperidge Farm Coffee Shop Banana Nut Cookies exemplify a solid, if somewhat boring, reflection of said philosophy: nice texture, soft-ish nuts, mild taste, and peanut butter sandwich cookies good enough to get you down at the discotheque.

Plus, bananas have potassium, right? So no shin splints. And that’s okay for today, but count this as a first strike in mediocrity, Pepperidge. You’ve got two more to go. Two more.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cookie – 130 calories, 45 calories from fat, 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 135 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 10 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Pepperidge Farm Coffee Shop Banana Nut Cookies
Purchased Price: $3.49
Size: 8.6 oz.
Purchased at: Met Foods
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Strong banana smell. Soft chew. Walnut bits add texture. Good base for creative dessert escapades. Could prevent shin splints. Magical Wizards that pay your car insurance. Reading Rainbow. Goats on the mountaintops.
Cons: Below moderate banana taste. Boring by itself. Walnut pieces are teensy weensy. Absence of chocolate chips. Ghosts of bananas in your throat. Nostalgia-induced delusion. Bad disco. Unfulfilled Inner Banana Monkey.

Like a phantom Girl Scout here to haunt me, Pepperidge Farm cookies make themselves available year-round in an increasingly baffling number of varieties, rendering me (the consumer) into a primal mental state of chaos and delight I like to call, “The Paint Swatch Effect”: the mental state that unfolds when one is bombarded with an infinite amount of choices, be it paint samples, Oreo cookies, or high capacity power drills.

When under the spell of the Paint Swatch Effect, one tends to undergo a spontaneous craving to try as many new things as possible, conducting an inner dialogue that goes to the tune of, “So many options! Everywhere! Must try them all! ALL!!”

It’s a nutso, frightening, wonderful way to live.

Which was perhaps why I stood, once again, under the shadow of Milano planks and Xtra Cheddar Goldfishies by the Pepperidge Farm display. But I was not after the square Cheesmen Shortbread, nor those dashing Milano Melts. Nay. My eyes were locked on the newest stud, the sole snagger of my heart.

Breakfast will never be the same.

Like a traumatic childhood experience or a very good buddy movie, finding a spectacular packaged cookie is a rare, fleeting moment. To find one that can also gracefully glide across your palate in the wee hours of the morning? Mark it in the History books for that is a moment that should be treated with respect as it brands its gooey, cakey, fudgy-wudginess into the nostalgia of your taste buds. Eating this bag of cookies qualifies as one of those Historical Moments.

At first snag, the cookie feels light and nimble as though it could morph into a back-flip-twisting, baton-twirling Rhythmic Grand Prix gymnast at any moment, yet, once bitten into, the texture holds a dense, doughy crumb that’s delightfully more fudgy than some of the other Soft Baked specimens I’ve experienced. Not too fluffy nor styrofoamy, the end result sits in you like a brick. A tasty, tasty brick made of carbohydrates, sugar, and questionable vegetable oils that, when put in the microwave, it becomes a goopy, melty, warm brick. Where are the architects to build me a house out of such materials?

And that’s just the beginning: the top, with its layer of brown-beige speckles, looks like a pastry-itized reinterpretation of a 1934 Oklahoma landscape after a Dust Bowl storm. If that dust storm was made of cinnamon sugar. Said sugar not only brings sweetness and a sandy texture, but also tows a comfy warmth from the cinnamon without going into the Hot Tamale realm.

Bringing the cinnamon experience even further are little crunchy cinnamon chippies mixed in the dough that are dense with cinnamon and crispity enough to put Snap, Crackle, and Pop to shame. And those white “confection” chips? While I have no clue what they’re made of, they melt like butta. A slight zing of artificial vanilla and sugar is all it takes to knock it home as the chip melts away into goopy sweetness. When all the elements combine, you have sugar, cinnamon, goo. The whole experience is as comfortable as lounging on a couch playing Super Nintendo in bunny pajamas. The ones with the footies.

Across from the U.N. Headquarters in New York rests a tiny shop that states itself as the, “United Nations Plaza Dental Care Facility.” I imagine that, if each of the world leaders were given a bag of these cookies, the number of cavities elicited from the consumption of said cookies would result in enough cavities to pay the shop’s rent for the next 15 years. A steep price to pay for a little cookie…

Or is it?

I dare say, if I were a world leader, it’d be worth it. The offer of dense doughy cookie? Of cinnamon, sugar dust with sugar-frosting fudgy nubbins? All pre-made and wrapped in a little baggie just for me? Put a microwave in the room, set one in there for 5 seconds, and you get a warm, gooey circle of world peace. Who doesn’t want a warm, gooey circle of world peace? Isn’t that what the United Nations is all about? I dare say it is! Maybe, to bring peace, you just need a little sugar. And a toothbrush so you don’t have to visit the Dental Care Facility.

So, world leaders, bring your toothbrushes and we’ll provide your bag of cookies! Pepperidge Farm has a new offering and it may just be good enough to unite us all.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cookie – 130 calories, 40 calories from fat, 4.5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, Less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 85 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein.)

Item: Pepperidge Farm Coffee Shop Cinnamon Bun Cookies
Purchased Price: $3.49
Size: 1 bag/8 cookies
Purchased at: Met Foods
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Great reason to have cookies for breakfast. Soft chew. Fudgier than some other Soft Baked specimens. Thick cinnamon sugar crusting. Melty confection chips scattered in good ratio. Crispity cinnamon chippies. May result in world peace. Super Nintendo. Bunny pajamas with the footies.
Cons: Lots of funky oils. Still not as good as homemade. What are white confection chips really made of? And why are they so good? 1934 Oklahoma dust storms. Phantom Girl Scouts.

Hi, my name is Blade and I’m here to review some cookies.

You may have heard of me. I am also known as the Daywalker—I am a vampire. Well, I was born half-human, half-vampire. So I have all their strengths and none of their weaknesses, except for the blood thirst. But I manage to keep that in check with a serum, and I can walk around in the sunlight like all the rest of you. I’m basically a regular human being with super strength, reflexes and a healing factor.

To be upfront, I think some of those qualities make me superior to human beings and perhaps transcendent to human rules, but the IRS doesn’t agree, and subsequently I’ve run into tax problems, which explains why I’m writing about baked goods on a website. And I’ve eaten human flesh, which means my tastes are more adventurous than yours, I’m sure.

However, I do have a sweet tooth. Love those snacks. They come far second on the list of cravings, though, behind human blood. To recap: Number one craving with a (silver) bullet, human blood. Number two, baked sweets. My aunt used to make these snickerdoodles that were sublime. You guys tried cronuts yet? The real ones from New York. Amazing, right? Dominique Ansel done changed the game! How about pureed frozen bananas? Stuff tastes just like ice cream! Yeah, I love sweets. Number three is probably gas station Spam musubi, believe it or not.

Being half something and half something else, the folks at this site thought it would be a good idea for me to review the Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Cookies, because it’s half a cookie, half a brownie. Here is the question: Does this product combine the strengths of the cookie and the brownie? Or is it all weakness, like those new Spider-Man films? The short answer is no, this cookie is not awesome like me. It is just okay.

It is soft, so soft and chewy, like the best cookies. The initial bite has a light, bitter cocoa sting with a hint of sweetness, like a brownie! It’s pretty good. And the cookie never gets too sweet, either. I like my chocolate on the bitter side and I like my Avengers movies quippy. The problem is that the cookie doesn’t go anywhere else. There’s no depth of flavor. It’s not rounded out by a torrent of butter or balanced with any other sensation. It just keeps hitting the bitter note over and over, which gets tiring. It’s also chewy but not gooey, like a brownie would be. The density is of a supermarket mass-produced cookie, and not of a deep, cakey, homemade casserole-dish brick of cocoa goodness.

You can see chocolate chips in the cookie, but you can’t really taste them in the product. The chips get lost in the shuffle somewhere, overshadowed, so seeing them there is like being teased. I bet it’s sort of like being imbued with an unquenchable thirst for human blood and seeing humans walking around literally everywhere, walking, dancing, taunting, necks exposed, welcoming, and never once taking a sip. Or maybe like a chocolate lap dance. It’s disappointing that the cookie does not live up to the Frankenstein potential of a cookie-brownie, but the flavoring spins so far out of control in one singular direction it doesn’t even function that well as a cookie-cookie.

The Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie will not be making it into Blade’s cookie rotation. It’s a valiant attempt at combining brownie powers and cookie powers into one thing, but it’s a little bit of a reminder that the X-Men are special, and, really, most genetic mutations end in early death and not in telekinesis or the power of flight. I guess against all odds companies will always try to harness the warm, homey goodness of a brownie into items. “Motherfudgers always trying to ice skate uphill.” That’s a quote of mine that I altered to appropriately fit into this piece.

Thanks for reading, folks. And a quick reminder I am immune to garlic so I am available to review non-Olive Garden Italian cuisine. And vampires don’t sparkle! Gosh, Twilight is my Madea. I guess Madea is also my Madea. Shout out to Joss Whedon. I’m available for the next Avengers. Or Ant-Man! I’ll take Ant-Man! Edgar Wright, I loved Shaun of the Dead. It should have been vampires and not zombies, though. Everybody check out Let the Right One In. Check out all my movies too. I’m not in Blades of Glory, though. That’s not me. Hmm, actually, also, I’m only half human, so I should only pay half human taxes. Okay, I’m going to go re-fill out my W-9. Bye.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cookie – 140 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 11 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Cookies
Purchased Price: $2.50
Size: 8.6 ounce bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Not too sweet. Chewy, soft. Not terrible.
Cons: Flat flavoring. No depth. Goes nowhere. Boring.

I think it’s safe to say Pepperidge Farm’s Milano is America’s second favorite cookie that ends with an O. Every year, 558 million Milano cookies are made. But did you know the Milano was the result of a happy accident, like Post-It Notes, penicillin, and, maybe, you or your siblings?

According to the Milano’s Wikipedia page (yeah, take that Encyclopedia Britannica), the sandwich cookie was created after their open-faced cookies topped with chocolate, the Naples, fused together in the packaging when sent to areas with warm weather. This problem caused the Naples cookie to evolve into the Milano.

That happened over 50 years ago, but Pepperidge Farm has been around much longer than that. In fact, this year, the company is celebrating its 75th anniversary and to honor the occasion they’ve released a Milano Cookie Cake, a two-layer vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream icing and sprinkled with crumbled Milano cookie pieces. The broken up Milano pieces make the top of the cake look like it’s used as the catch pan under Cookie Monster’s mouth to make cleaning up after him easier.

Measuring 5 3/4 inches wide and 2 1/4 inches tall, the Milano Cookie Cake’s size might have you thinking to yourself, “I probably could eat that whole thing in one sitting.” But, looking at the nutrition facts, I’d highly suggest against it. If you’re eating it by the slice, it’s prepared by cutting the portion you want, leaving it out at room temperature for 20 minutes, and then enjoying it.

As it sat in my freezer, waiting to be devoured, I dreamt it would be an awesome dessert, but after eating my first slice, that dream was crushed, like the Milano cookies that top the cake. The Milano cookies are what drew me to this cake, but they take a backseat to the chocolate buttercream icing. I’m not talking Mini Cooper backseat, I’m talking Greyhound bus backseat.

The Milanos do nothing to enhance the flavor of the cake, instead it appears they’re like truck nuts in that their purpose is to decorate and annoy. How can a Milano Cookie Cake not have a little bit of Milano cookie flavor? It’s like buying a Playboy magazine and it’s filled with only words.

As a whole, the Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookie Cake was decent. The vanilla cake was, as expected for a frozen cake that’s been thawed, dry and crumbly. The dominating chocolate buttercream icing was rich and decadent. But this cake doesn’t do the crispy Milano cookie any justice and it’s extremely disappointing. It’s definitely not worth consuming the two grams of trans fat each slice provides.

The Milano cookie deserves better than this.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/8 cake – 250 calories, 130 calories from fat, 15 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 2 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 135 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 20 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, 2% calcium, and 8% iron.)

Other Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookie Cake reviews:
Peanut Free Food Reviews
Huffington Post Food

Item: Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Buttercream & Crumbled Cookie Milano Cookie Cake
Purchased Price: $6.99
Size: 18 ounces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Milano cookies. Happy accidents. Great if you like chocolate buttercream icing. Post-It Notes. Penicillin.
Cons: Milano cookies don’t do much in terms of flavor, but do add decoration. Two grams of trans fat per serving. Dry and crumbly cake. Pictureless Playboy magazines.