Review: New Keebler Simply Made Chocolate Chip Cookies & PEDS! PEDS! PEDS EVEYRWHERE!
Junk Food Nation, the biggest news in baseball last night / this morning is the announcement that Major League Baseball will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to the Miami-area clinic Biogenesis at the heart of an ongoing performance-enhancing-drug (PEDs) scandal, including Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun. This is based on cooperation by the sleazy-former-owner-yet-somehow-still-sleazy Tony Bosch, who ran Biogenesis before it was shut down. Of course, he’s cooperating because he’s trying to get out from under his own BS, so all the information provided on “cooperation” needs to be taken with a grain of salt. This whole thing sort of feels like a witch hunt…
….except we’ve been through this before, first with steroids, and now this. Who can forget Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger at Congress stating he never did steroids, or Sammy Sosa suddenly being unable to speak English? And then it turned out they were BOTH roid-heads, and they vanished from the public eye? Or Mark McGwire constantly repeating “I’m here to talk about the future, not the past.” Or Canseco’s book, or Pettite and Giambi’s admissions, or the litany of OTHER instances where stuff like this has bubbled to the surface? So when a clinic comes out stating they’ve been injecting players with testosterone – is it THAT surprising?
Maybe it’s the former-prosecutor in my coming out. My defense friends will certainly call me out for damning these players before anything has finished and the process completed. Fine. I will ATTEMPT to reserve judgment. But I feel like out next Rafael Palmeiro moment is coming, with Ryan Braun having said, “I’ll bet my life that these substances have never entered my body.” Really? Your life? ….Ok. You wagered it, not me.
What do you guys think? Let me know below.
Today’s junk food: New Keebler Simply Made Chocolate Chip Cookies!
New Keebler Simply Made Chocolate Chip Cookies: The Money Shot
New Keebler Simply Made Chocolate Chip Cookies are part of Keebler’s new line of products made from “the same simple ingredients you’d find in your pantry.” All I have is Frank’s Hot Sauce in my pantry, keebler. Try again.
See ingredient statement for complete list?
New Keebler Simply Made Chocolate Chip Cookies have, according to this nice cursive list, nine ingredients. I feel like something must be missing, or else these cookies would expire in four days, no? Maybe I don’t know baking science. Let’s take a look at the full ingredient list…
Simply made = still 70 calories a cookie. Oof
Hmmmm
Well, the ingredient list on these New Keebler Simply Made Chocolate Chip Cookies MATCHES the handwritten list. I’m still skeptical. What are these “eggs” you speak of??? Sounds preservative-y to me.
What do you think – do they look simply made? Kinda look like the same old cookies to me…
Nice and lumpy
These New Keebler Simply Made Chocolate Chip Cookies smelled sweet as soon as I opened the package. Like fresh made cookies? I guess…in that fresh made chocolate chip cookies smell sweet. I did not get an overwhelming chocolate smell.
Big ol chips
I took a bite of one of these New Keebler Simply Made chocolate Chip Cookies, and …hmmm. First, texture. These were not, in any way, SOFT-baked cookies. So simply made doesn’t necessarily mean super soft and chewy. Which, in a way, was a good thing – less preservatives and less oils meant less of that gooey chewy feeling in any and all climates. So, despite them being sort of crumbly/crunchy, this was likely reflective of less bad stuff. Score.
Honestly, these really just tasted like a standard chocolate chip cookie. And they were good! Nice sweet cookie dough, a decent amount of nice sweet chocolate chips, and a non-greasy finish to it all. That’s basically what these ended up being – just chocolate chip cookies with good solid basic flavor that didn’t leave my mouth feeling like they were coated in oils. There was canola oil, but I have to be honest, these were the least oily cookies I’ve had in a while.
Simple cookie, nothing special except for the fact that it’s not oily. Worth eating? Sure – they reminded me a lot of cookies my sister’s used to bake – no frills. Worth a re-buy? Meh, I probably won’t. But I like what Keebler has done with this line. Good move.
Bonus pictures!
New Keebler Simply Made Butter Cookies: The Money Shot
Not reviewing these butter cookies, but took a few pictures. These are the other variety in the “Simply Made category.” These might be TOO simple for my taste.
New Keebler Simply Made Butter Cookies: 7 ingredients!
New Keebler Simply Made Butter Cookies: What Natural Flavor? It’s BUTTER!
PURCHASED AT: Both flavors could be found at Giant
COST: $3.00 on sale
Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s do this.
Sincerely,
Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 20 Comments
Why would you market these cookies as being made with all-natural ingredients, pointing to the fact that ALL your other cookies are made with chemicals and badness? I guess people still want that preservative-laden “soft” cookie experience…
@Teresapalooza: SUCH A GOOD POINT
@Teresapalooza: This is similar to Domino’s “look, we know our pizza sucked, but we made it better” campaign, except that they continue to sell the shitty pizza too.
@Shorneys: I tried the “new” Dominos pizza a month ago. yeah…it wasn’t great. it WAS indeed, BETTER than previous. But still not great. That DiGiorno’s frozen PIZZERIA! pizza was better
I’m curious…if you liked them, why wouldn’t you buy them again?
@Sarah: Good Q – And I’m not trying to be contradictory. It’s more like, I didn’t hate them at all and they tasted good, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to look for and buy them. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff in grocery stores that I like and don’t buy – more of that category. So not “I WOULDN’T BUY THESE BECAUSE THEY ARE BAD,” more of “I wouldn’t buy because I’ll prob spend my money on other things.” Er…does that clear it up?
I am a little curious about the shelf life. I bake a lot and, yes, these are basically what you’d make at home. And they’d last maybe a week before the slow trip to stale began. So what makes these last longer? All I can figure is that the two types of fat helps, plus the fact that they seem pretty dry. Still, it’s a little weird. The butter cookies have soy lecithin, so they’re a little easier to understand.
I guess for the ‘I want homemade, but can’t be bothered to stir together a half dozen or so ingredients’ crowd. Brings to mind the report I heard on the radio this morning, people are apparently buying more bags of ready-to-eat popcorn because they can’t handle waiting 3 minutes for microwave popcorn.
@A.Dana – I think you hit it on the head, it’s really just for lazy people. I’m sure they DON’T have a great shelf life.
I just bought a package of these today, & would buy ’em again – if I had another coupon & they were still on sale! They are very crumbly, lightweight & generally tasty, ’nuff said. There are simply too many varieties of products these days to be head-over-heels over any *one* – marketing of food has become totally senseless. I.E., the venerable 83-year-old Hostess Twinkie; there are none to be had at our local grocery after their resent resurrection. Why? The Twinkie is familiar, tried & true – like a ’57 Chevy…neither of which aimed to please the politically-correct, but people love them ’cause they know what to expect. Billions of dollars are wasted yearly on marketing failed products trying to reach “niche” markets – rejected by the masses. Give me a new cookie on sale, with a coupon, & I’ll buy it once – next month I’ll go back to Fig Newtons or Oreos…whichever is on sale!
@Jimmy: LOL I kind of feel the same way. Personally, I think the most successful products, and as a result, products with staying power, are ones that deliver on what they promote, even if it is niche. Because if it delivers (like how white cheddar Cheezits TASTE like white cheddar), then people will continue to know what to expect, just like you stated.
Do the butter cookies tastes like the old fashion butter cookies that we use to get in school?
@Geraldine: Haven’t tried the butter cookie variety yet, sorry!
The Simply Made Butter Cookies aren’t as light and buttery as homemade or as delightful as Mrs. Field’s brand cookies from the mall. Their taste was quite bland to be honest. Quite drab. Very disappointing.
@Ferris: Drab is the correct word for this
I’ve tried both the chocolate chip and butter varieties of these cookies. I would NOT buy the chocolate chip ones again. They’re okay, but they don’t resemble home made cookies at all. They are really just one step above a standard, mass produced chocolate chip cookie which, for me, isn’t worth eating. (Even Pepperidge Farms’ cookies with chocolate chips and nuts are just okay, and I love PF’s other “distinctive” varieties such as the Milanos and Chessmen.)
I DO think the butter “Simply Made” Keebler cookie is worth repeating, though, since it does more closely resemble the taste of what one would make at home: Good butter flavor with a hint of vanilla.
@Jeff: I wonder if they will make any other Simply Made flavors?
I had high hopes for these cookies. After all, when I make my own chocolate chip cookies, they’re still great even after they’ve gone stale. But I was extremely disappointed that, even on the day of purchase, these Keebler cookies tasted no different from “Chips Ahoy.” They were hard, but even worse, they had no hint of the richness you would expect of a butter-containing cookie. Instead they tasted very flour-y, again just like Chips Ahoy. I’ve only found one store-bought product that tastes home-made: 600-lb Gorilla cookie dough. No preservatives, but it’s just the dough. You keep it in the freezer til you’re ready to bake. Giant carries them
@Ge KI: Yeah…I’ll be reviewing the most recent release – peanut butter chocolate chip – soon. Hopefully those will be better.
have not eaten a keebler product for 40 years because of bad ingredients
congrats to them,maybe more people will buy them now.most people i know don,t want hydrogenated cottonseed oil and atrtificial color and flavor.
I will NEVER buy them again. I thought they tasted like crappy cardboard. Even the grand kids wouldn’t eat them.