Who’s Your Sugar Daddy?

A guest review by Steve’s friend Vic!

Faithful (attentive) readers will remember that Steve mentioned his fondness for sugar cookies in earlier Sweetoberfest blogs.  After two failed attempts to identify a sugar cookie that would meet his high standards, I (as his supportive friend) thought I would try to find one on his behalf.

The search took me to Karen’s bakery in the Northern California town of Folsom.  For those of you who may not be familiar with Folsom, it is a mid-sized community located about 25 miles east of Sacramento.  Folsom has a rich history which includes gold miners and railroads; however, it is most famous for being home to a large lake and one of California’s state prisons (Folsom Prison).  If this sounds familiar, you’re probably remembering that Johnny Cash recorded Folsom Prison Blues in 1955, and subsequently recorded an album at the prison in 1968.

Karen’s Bakery has a large selection of food and pastries and is as good a bakery as you’ll find anywhere.  So I thought they would definitely have a nice selection of sugar cookies.  They did have lots of cookies, including chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, gingersnaps, etc., but nothing that looked like a sugar cookie.  They did have cookies that were decorated to resemble candy corn and, when I asked if those might be sugar cookies (since candy corn is a big Halloween item), the attendant hesitantly stated that they were, in fact, sugar cookies.  Based on that shaky recommendation (which I was not overly confident in), I picked up three of the candy corn cookies (if you’re not sure whether a sweet treat is the right thing you’re looking for, it’s best to limit yourself to just three of them).

What follows is my (guest) review of the Karen’s Bakery candy corn sugar(?) cookie.

1. Packaging. Packaging for the cookies came in three stages: in the display case at the bakery; in the plastic container they were shipped home in; and in the bag we were given to take them home.  Full disclosure, I did not take a picture of them at the bakery, so I recreated the scene at home, showing how they were displayed at the bakery. The interior of the bakery had a couple of minimal Halloween decorations on display (a witch and some pumpkins) but, other than that, they didn’t do anything special to celebrate the big day.  They also didn’t have any special decoration for the plastic container or the bag they sent them home in (e.g., bats, floating eyeballs, Dracula).  So they missed an opportunity to get some Halloween decorating extra credits.  However, the display case and container clearly showed what we were bringing home, so let’s give them points for packaging.  2 points.

2. Appearance of the Treat. They did a great job with the appearance of these cookies!  First of all, they look like candy corn, which is about as Halloween-y as you can get.  The frosting looks great-it’s well-proportioned and there are little rectangular patterns on each layer of frosting which shows that they paid attention to detail when decorating the cookies.  The cookies are large, measuring 3 inches across and 4.5 inches top to bottom.  This is no little mini cookie, or something intended to give you just a “taste”-.  It’s the real deal!  I think they hit it out of the park on appearance!  3 points

3. Taste.  Tasting the cookie confirms that it is, in fact, a sugar cookie.  That’s a good thing—it’s what we were looking for!  The cookie itself (minus the frosting) is very good, with a background taste of vanilla that really hits the spot.  You could definitely taste the sugar, but it didn’t overpower you with sweetness.  The cookie was fresh, but it still had the perfect amount of crunchiness.  I was not in danger of damaging a molar (see Steve’s “Mummy Dearest” post), and when I sliced one in half (as Steve did with his mummy cookie), it softly separated, as opposed to cracking like a…cracker.  However, the frosting was too sweet.  They literally missed the “sweet” spot, where you would have just the right amount of sugary flavor, without having it overpower you!  After a couple of bites, I scraped off some frosting and, after trying the unfrosted cookie, confirmed that the cookie itself was very good.  However, adding the frosting produces a cookie that is overly sweet and not what you want in a sugar cookie.   Because of this disappointing combination, I’m giving it one point.  Sorry Steve, the search for the perfect sugar cookie continues. 1 point.

4. Value. Each cookie (weighing in at 2.6 ounces apiece) costs $2.00.  That’s a good deal  considering their appearance, large size and freshness, all of which would make it a great value.  However, the value rating takes a hit because they don’t rate very well on the all-important taste category (which when you get down to it, is the most important one).  Based on all of the criteria (including cost) I’m giving it 1 point for value.  1 point. 

Vic’s Sweetoberfest (Guest) Score: 7 out of 12 points, which makes it a minor TREAT .