Taking a Walk on the Wild Cider

That’s the only apple-related pun I could come up with. I mean, there are others, but they’re pretty core-ny.

Anyway, whenever I think of October treats, my mind conjures up visions of apples, orchards, and scarecrows.

Anyway, today I visited a place called Shorty’s. It’s a family-run bakery and gelateria in Placerville. It’s been open about a year now, and it’s been featured on Good Day Sacramento. The show featured a bubbly interview with owner Morgan Hunter. Check it out:

It’s a small shop, but they have a good variety of high-quality, homemade treats. I went for the apple caramel cookie. You know the drill:

Conceptual Soundness: The basic idea here is to convert a caramel apple into cookie form. Caramel apples are one of those fall/Halloween treats that combine classic tastes of fall into a single stick-mounted food that is fun to eat. (Check out my earlier review of a caramel apple here.) This could be hard to actually achieve in cookie form, but I like the idea of it. It deserves the full 4 points.

Appearance of the Treat. It’s an attractive cookie with a large, perfectly-baked cookie base, a generous topping of butter cream frosting, and a playful drizzle of caramel sauce. It looking tempting and fun. My only complaint is that the caramel sauce got a little mussed when they shoved it into a little paper sack. Seems a small plastic or cardboard box would have been a better way to transport a treat that’s as attractive as this one. I’m going to ding it a point for that. 3 points.

Taste: This reminds me of a cross between a caramel apple and a slice of apple pie. Either way, it’s delicious. The cookie base is soft, with a consistency almost of cake. The cookie dough is mixed with apple pie spices, which definitely come through in each bite. On top of the cookie is a rich butter cream frosting which has a thick consistency almost like cream cheese. One of the bakers told me it’s made with house-made, fresh apple juice, which helps to evoke the apple-on-a-stick experience. On top of the frosting they’ve drizzled a sweet caramel sauce that adds depth to the taste experience. Put it all together and this is a solid four-star cookie.

Value: Five bucks for a cookie seems a bit steep. But it’s a very large cookie, it’s hand-made in-house, and the ingredients are obviously fresh. Let’s give it a mid-range score of 2 points for value.

Total Treat Score: 13 points out of 16 points. If you find yourself in Placerville looking for soul food and a place to eat, swing by Shorty’s for a cookie and/or some gelato!