Trader Joe’s, the quirky grocery chain known for its fanatical following and Hawaiian shirt-clad staff, has recently decided to test the boundaries of chocolate indulgence with their new Super Chocolatey Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough. Now, before you rush out to hoard this dough like it’s the last lifeboat on the Titanic, let’s be real: it’s just cookie dough. But not just any cookie dough, mind you. This one apparently went through a chocolate overdose in the factory, emerging with chunks so large, that they could easily be classified as mini chocolate boulders. So, let’s preheat our ovens and our skepticism as we delve into this latest cocoa concoction from the eccentric aisles of Trader Joe’s.
My family are serious cookie aficionados. We have numerous cookie baking cookbooks and it seems like almost every other weekend, especially in the winter, we are baking up a new batch of our favorite cookies. The kids love them and help all the time and are now branching out and baking their own cookies on special occasions. Which is quite an accomplishment for teenage boys!
We were very sad to see the Trader Joe’s Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough disappear from the shelves last year. It was one of our favorite ready to bake cookie doughs and we liked it so much I rated it 9 out of 10. It seemed like we had a package ready to go in the fridge all the time. I especially loved how there was chocolate in the dough and not just the chocolate chips. Double chocolate. We loved it. But you know how Trader Joe’s is. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Then Trader Joe’s introduced a few months later a Gluten Free Super Chocolatey Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough and while they were good, we thought they were a sad replacement for the non Gluten Free ones and thought Trader Joe’s was off their rocker for replacing such a good product with a Gluten Free one that is good but not great like the original ones.
Then, lo and behold, while shopping in the store the other day, we spied a new cookie dough next to the Gluten Free one and it was almost the same packaging as the gluten-free cookie dough but clearly was the new replacement for the old chocolate chip cookie dough with lots of gluten.
We danced a little jig when we saw them and immediately bought a couple of packages of them.
On their face, they look just like the old ones, except there isn’t chocolate in the dough, just the chocolate chunks and some mention of salt.
When we got home, we immediately fired up the oven to 350 degree and got out the baking sheet and parchment paper.
We tossed the baking sheet into the oven and waited 12 minutes, because we wanted them a little on the softer side and the edges just started to turn brown and pulled them out.
You could see the large chunks of chocolate in the cookies but they didn’t look much different than homemade cookies.
Final Thoughts
The cookies smelled heavenly when they came out of the oven, but they always do so it wasn’t much different than baking regular cookies.
After letting them sit for 10 minutes they had cooled enough to eat a warm gooey cookie.
All of us really liked these cookies! The chocolate chunks are obvious, but not much different than dark chocolate chips. We liked the chunks because there is less sugar in them than regular chips with more milk chocolate. I could not make out the salty thing they were talking about on their packaging.
They are not nearly as chocolatey as the old version of the cookie dough. That is a major downgrade in my opinion. The older ones were a step closer to brownies but I liked that. Maybe everyone didn’t. But for what these are supposed to be which is chocolate chip (chunk) cookies they are really really good. Maybe a smidge worse than homemade but not far off and so easy which is the point of these cookies. Just heat up the oven and put these cookies in there and bake. No mixing. No measuring. No mess (or very little mess).
We liked them good enough, but they are not as good as the old ones and for all the reasons mentioned We are going to rate these cookies 8 out of 10!
BAKING INSTRUCTIONS:
CONVENTIONAL OVEN:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Remove the desired number of cookie dough portions from the package and place on a parchment paper lined or lightly greased baking sheet. Leave at least 3 inches between cookies.
Place baking sheet on center rack of oven for 10 to 14 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
We know it’s tempting, but please do not eat raw cookie dough.
Ingredients
UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID, ENZYMES), SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE (SUGAR, UNSWEETENED CHOCOLATE, COCOA BUTTER, DEXTROSE, SOY LECITHIN [EMULSIFIER], NATURAL VANILLA FLAVOR), BROWN SUGAR, SUGAR, BUTTER (CREAM, NATURAL FLAVOR), EGGS, NATURAL FLAVORS, BAKING SODA, SEA SALT, BAKING POWDER (SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, SODIUM BICARBONATE, CALCIUM CARBONATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, CALCIUM SULFATE).
- CONTAINS MILK, EGG, SOY, WHEAT.