Crumbl- where Less is Less

I’m a dessert person, but I’m poor and frugal. So when it comes to desserts, the notion of Value For Money gets a lot of attention. Pricy components and proper attention to detail can, with care, make what looks thoroughly mundane both justifiably expensive and extraordinary. That was the sort of thing I focused on when reviewing the local cookie shop Butter Pecan. Partially because I enjoy portable desserts like cookies, and partially because you can buy just one cookie without blowing your budget. …Most of the time.

A friend made a mention of getting cookies from a place called Crumbl “Just to see what all the fuss is about”. His resultant glowing review led me to look them up, discover their home storefront was in the next town over, tell myself ‘what the hell, it’s for science’ and get in the car.

Over the course of getting there, getting cookies, and getting home my “Sure, what the hell” had turned into “…wait, what the hell?”.

The shop itself is pastel pink, white, and sterile looking. It’s not remotely friendly aside from the smell of buttery fresh-baked sweets- which is cheating anyway. There are people behind the counters, but none of them are looking at you or even anywhere close. Everything from order to payment is done via kiosks, which led to a Big Problem for me. I got bait-and-switched.

The order kiosk has icons for both Large Desserts and Mini Desserts. The image on the Mini Desserts is of a hand holding what is apparently a Large one. I didn’t find that out till later because there was no actual product visible from the customer accessible area. What sort of bakery does *that*? One that’s not expecting professionals with standards, I suppose. I ordered my cookies- a mini cookie 6-pack because that gave me the maximum opportunity to test the flavors. Three bucks apiece, rounded up, before tax and… tip?. The ‘tip’ calculator was, of course, gibberish math. Plus, who tips big at a place that’s 100% takeout and has no counter service? It’s designed to get people to pay extra for nothing, and I don’t approve. Rather like most modern restaurant websites where you can’t even look at the menu until you start an online order- that’s poisonous as hell.

Anyway, they called my name a minute or so after the order went in, and I was handed a box that was approximately half the size I was expecting. I opened it and looked. Then I closed it and left to go home. 

Upon my return I got out my scale and set to work.

The subconscious value calculations a lot of us do come down to size and weight if we can’t precisely gauge quality. In this case I can do both, but I wanted to start with the easily quantifiable.

Six cookies, five different varieties, just under 250 grams. What the hell? That’s tiny!

The diversity of the cookie styles left me with a wide range of weights, which was even more of a surprise. The Confetti was smallest, weighing in at 29g. Most others were in the 30-35 range, but the Chocolate Mint Mallow swung up to 60g.

Disparity aside, we take the average, and we’re talking about something in the neighborhood of $35-40/lb for these. In the past I reviewed another cookie spot (review linked at the top) and did similar math. Those cookies were $3.75 each, and averaged out at 100g. Quick math, rounds up to $17.00/lb. Crumbl charges literally double what Butter Pecan does based on weight of ingredients.

So yeah- what the hell?! These had better be some absolutely incredible cookies!

They weren’t.

The universals are mostly good overall:

-Deliberately underbaked to extend the shelf life. Totally normal, and I like a soft cookie anyway.
-Doughs are salted for balance to the point where you can taste it. Just a whisper shy of too much.
-All the cookies are S W E E T. Tons of sugar, hence the aggressive saltiness. (Sugar’s cheap.)
-Lots of butter flavor. It comes through very strongly, adding richness to help balance the sweet.

The individual cookies, however, all had their own problems:
“Churro”: way too heavy on the cinnamon, and topped with a swirl of what could almost be buttercream- plenty of powdered sugar in it for that. Sans the cream it’d have been a fine snickerdoodle. I'd rather have had that.
“Milk Chocolate Chip”: The chips were large, bulking the cookie out some but not enough. They were more milk than chocolate, with a rapid-melting texture and a flavor reminiscent of astronaut ice cream. The cookie component was a fairly basic dough, probably also used in some of the others.
“Confetti”: Bog-standard. I’ve eaten many like it. It was a high-quality incarnation of what I expected.
“Peanut Butter”: Despite the massive fat content it still had that sandiness that peanut butter cookies are reliably known for. That said, there were no whole nuts or pieces (in a cookie that small, who’d dare?) so the texture was pleasant.
“Chocolate Mint Mallow”: A very odd sandwich of chocolate cookies with what they claim is a mint marshmallow filling between. The filling tasted more like buttercream, but the mint flavor was milder and more subtle than I expected. Since most mint products go waaay overboard, this left a good impression. The cookies were very dark chocolate and very soft, almost tacky to the touch, which had me considering other preparations. I’d happily have rolled portions of that dough in spiced sugar before baking and sold them accordingly. Perhaps a chipotle sugar? Beautiful with dark chocolate. Less worry for cross contamination too.

Speaking of that, it was the final worry I had. Mint and peanut are both somewhere in that facility and I didn’t see any way to avoid allergen or flavor contamination. The chocolate chip cookie had a faint whisper of peanut come through on my palate, and that’s Not Good.

Overall, I’m not sure how Crumbl got past its first store, much less expanded across the country. It has all the trappings of a vanity project sponsored by someone with deep pockets- niche product, high prices, minimalist décor, tech-heavy processes, minimal human interaction. I don’t like it one bit, but it’s on the main drag in a college town so it probably makes bank. 

I’ll leave Crumbl to the UCB kids who don't know any better and get better product for a better price at Butter Pecan.

They took aim at a childhood treasure.

Someone reeeeally put their foot in it with this one.

Eater: Are Rice Krispie Treats Overrated?

First of all? No!

 

Second of all? What manner of imbecile in food media management tells someone whose whole shtick is Jewish food to give their opinion on something that uses gelatin? You, know, that thing they usually make out of pig's feet?

Immediate facepalm.

Now, a casual reader wouldn't have twigged to that so it's potentially forgivable. And the article starts with A fairly robust bit of background to give a viable shape to the tale. The author is, like myself, a product of the 80s and 90s, when the Rice Krispie Treat was as omnipresent as the Jell-O Jiggler (A different fad which, mercifully, passed), and makes a distinct mention of 1995, when Kellogg's first released the individually packaged version I personally abhor- far too expensive for what you get, even there at the start.

Similarly, when the first recipe showed up on the box in 1941 it was both different and objectively better tasting. The author correctly surmises that the (regrettable and immature) shift in dietary concerns has led to a lower-fat incarnation becoming the standard, which in turn aggressively and adversely affects the quality of the dessert.

But... so? Who actually follows the recipe on today's box? They don't even scale to the measurements of the packaging any more! Marshmallows are now sold in smaller bags, cereal in smaller boxes, and neither of them ratio properly. The first version of that recipe I remember- one I cut off the cereal box and put in my grandma's box of recipe cards when she wasn't looking- called for one bag of marshmallows (at the time 12 oz, now they're 10), half a box of Rice Krispies (you measure one time and then you just know), a third of a cup of melted butter (round it up to 6 tablespoons), and a splash of vanilla. Grandma, in a prescient move, added a pinch of salt. Delicious!

The "recipe" now? Half the butter, no vanilla, more cereal. Of course it doesn't taste as good! They want you to buy the packaged ones!

"So perhaps there’s nothing inherently wrong with Rice Krispies Treats after all. Maybe our moral panic over weight gain and heart disease simply ruined a good thing." she says. Way to walk back the clickbait, lady. You earned your ad revenue, have a cookie.

The article finishes with additional deflection, this time to something valid that I've spoken about in the past- adjustments. The humble Rice Krispie Treat is one of the desserts that I sometimes call Baselines. Perfectly good on its own, but also neutral enough to be highly flexible in terms of flavor combinations. Mentioned are some pedestrian tweaks (Browning the butter? Adding salt? How remarkably innovative...) as well as a more interesting one (a dash of sesame oil and some toasted black sesame seeds) all of which serve to make clear that making impactful changes doesn't require making the recipe any more difficult. 

For a dessert where everything about making it is designed to be simple, what higher compliment could there be?

It's never fair, but sometimes it's reasonable.

 Pursue a life of reckless and irresponsible enjoyment with no regard for your physical, mental, and emotional well-being?
Do not be surprised when your body betrays you.

Sympathy comes hard when you took all the easy ways out.

This is why I still get up early in the morning. I stretch. I exercise. I read and learn new things. I do my part to make the world a better place. 

My life is terrible, but I am not- and provably so.

Knowing there are endless obligations to me that will never be fulfilled, though? Tiring. 

Didn't want to, but...

Apparently I have to. 

I've been reading so many things in food publications lately that I want to throw rocks at. Quite deliberately, I am sure- the relentless trend of sensationalist media continues to fabricate conflict.

Underneath though, all it's doing is endorsing ignorance.

Rule one of writing on a subject: Be well informed.

The audacity of some of these people to put pen to paper, and of other, even worse people, to publish them!

I have to go back a little ways to get a proper head of steam going, but there are exhausting unacceptables aplenty for me to do something about.

I look back and sigh in disgust

I don't want to talk about AI. But as an educator, I have to. It's one of those Great Old One concepts, where the more you talk about it the more power it has to adversely affect its surroundings. Conceptually it's a bunch of gibberish, built by people who think in hours instead of centuries and powered by the ever-shrinking rainforests. It's an objectively unacceptable misuse of resources. Yet it's the Trendy Bullshit of the moment, picking up the slack left by fading or hiding crypto.

So. Consider one of my degrees: a B.Sci in Foodservice Management from Johnson & Wales University. It wasn't hard to get. The technical skills are largely a matter of repetition, but somehow the majority of the student body had trouble with the academics, something I found as astonishing then as I do now. Nobody who comfortably got through middle school in my hometown would have had any trouble with them. 

It was difficult to imagine how some (most) of the students in my classes were ever admitted to university in the first place. Often, as I proofread and (desperately) edited my classmates' work, it really just felt like "Can/will they sign the loan documents?" was the only real requirement, and that soured me on "higher education" quite profoundly. 

My distaste for industry-wide deceptive advertising and predatory loansharking aside, there was very little recourse for the students once enrolled. Either graduate and leverage the degree to try to get a job, or leave and hope for a wealthy benefactor or other miracle that lets them pay the bill. To that end, many instructors understood the limitations of the student body and resigned themselves to making the best of a bad situation. Now, though, things are very different.

The massive upsurge in AI-generated plagiarism and fabrication has left principled staff and faculty grasping at straws for keeping the learning process going and curricula moving forward. Grading has become an obligatory verification process before it gets to become what it's actually for- an improvement process. Instead of being spent improving the students' understanding of a given subject matter, that time is wasted making sure there's any hint of understanding to start with rather than fabricated and parroted bullshit artistry.

What, then, does one do about trade-centric schools, where academic classes are already unlikely to be paid beyond lip-service? I can almost guarantee that current JWU students are taking judicious advantage of AI to fake their way through academics even more desperately and empty-headedly than before, and graduating with even less understanding of / utility to the world they're being inflicted upon.

If they'd hired me like they ought to have, I could fix the problem. 

But they didn't- and there's no way they can. 

Bit of a shame though. If they'd learned how to do research properly they'd have made better choices. Irony.

On the Validity of References

Someone I am vaguely acquainted with tried to make a point about the misuse of the media to create a 'both sides' narrative, rather than directly creating a path to a positive and comfortable future.

He went with Dante Alighieri. 

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."

A fine phrase, and one that makes the point perfectly. Yet it's also one that exemplifies a robust quandary for me, as it should for many.

So much perfectly sensible philosophy, even laudable rational thought, springs up in the most absurd of places. The Divine Comedy is, at its core, no different from something like 50 Shades of Grey. It's self-insert fanfiction based in the universe of a story that was never worthy to be told in the first place- proven over and over again by the thoughts, words, and deeds of some of its staunchest advocates. 

But does the poisonous origin invalidate the impact of the works that follow? Where does one draw the line for where you draw the core tenets of your way of life? How profound a turn of phrase can come from the last place you might ever think to look?

"Do you think God stays in heaven because He, too, lives in fear of what He's created here on Earth?"

If you don't know where that quote is from, take some time to think and then make your best guess. 

Look it up afterward.

A moment of exasperated philosophy.

Lately I've been seeing lots of variations of the "I'm starting to realize that the 'what would people think' barrier is holding 99% of people back from their dreams." bit. How disappointed such notions make me is hard even to quantify, let alone express. But not for the reason most would expect.

Whether you do something or not should only have one qualifier: That you earned the privilege. Doing something because you want to? Fine- if you're finished. If you're worthy of autonomy and choice.
And if not? Doing what you want is simply wrong. Your existence does not have intrinsic value. It does not automatically make the world a better place. Assuming otherwise is a dangerous and terrible but unforgivably common habit.

Do the work to validate your existence before inflicting it upon others and wasting resources that might otherwise be better served.

Don't poison the world for those who put in the time and effort- those that can prove we deserve to be here.