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.

"Butter Pecan: Best Cookies in the Bay" - ? Let's See.

 

Any time I see an establishment "Best XYZ in (region)", I'm rightly skeptical. 

I've lived in Philly, and saw that claim argued between plenty of cheesesteak places- they've all got similar signs on their windows staking that claim, and will defend that honor with a brash and uncompromising fervor that does Gritty proud.

I've lived in New England, where chowdah, clam cakes, and fried calamari are the subjects of debate heated enough to make people forget about the reliably miserable winters.

I grew up in Jersey. I've literally seen (and been thrown into) fistfights over pizza opinions. And don't even ask me what my favorite diner is.

So yeah. I see 'the best' and my first reaction is to call BS.

Enter 'Butter Pecan'. I first saw this place driving home one day and had a few immediate thoughts: They're probably going to be expensive, fairly simple, and might have some sort of gimmick. But, if they can keep a storefront open on cookies alone, they've got to be pretty good. Or they do corporate catering. Or both.

So I went to find out more. The Hollis Street branch was empty at 2:30 on a Wednesday. Not necessarily a surprise, and a point that made me think they do a lot of catering. 

(Relatedly, most desserts are easy money when it comes to that. All sorts of handheld individual desserts are no trouble to batch, and many also freeze well in various states of readiness, so day to day it can be as easy as chiller, sheet tray, oven, box, done.)

I looked at the pricing and was immediately vindicated in my price worry. 3.75 a pop. Twenty-one dollars gets you six, and thirty-six dollars gets you a dozen. That sort of price point leads quite readily to catering being the backbone of the operation. Being sans a day job at the moment (though open for catering, consulting, and all manner of things), I went with the 6-pack to stay within reason (that's more than my entire weekly budget for food). They have ten varieties as their baseline offerings, and a couple more that change month to month. Some are classic combinations like 'Dark Chocolate Sea Salt', and most others are cookie incarnations of other desserts, like 'Strawberries and Cream' and 'Banana Pudding'.

Now I'll be the first to admit it- I do not like nuts or nut pieces in cookies. Or in my desserts at all, really. Ground up for almond or hazelnut 'flour'? Sure. Marzipan? Love it. But if you put peanuts in my peanut butter cookies, expect me to be a little grouchy.

But the place's name is Butter Pecan, so for integrity, and for science, I went for it anyway. Got one of those, plus two of the Dark Chocolate Sea Salt, a Birthday Cake, a Cookies and Cream, and an Oatmeal Raisin Pecan.

The cookies themselves are fairly large, between 90 and 110 grams each. Yes, I weighed them when I got home. I take my job seriously, thank you. Then I split most of them in half to share with my beau, and got to nibbling.

I'm not going to get into too much detail about the flavors, but they all do the things they say they'll do, and do them quite well. Their baking technique appears solid, they're all slightly underbaked to maximize gooiness, and while their butter tastes quite high quality (and quantity!), they don't brown the butter first except when it's listed (one of their staples is Brown Butter Pecan).

Butter Pecan says "Best cookies in the Bay", and after trying them, I can't immediately argue. They're pretty damn good cookies. Price-wise they're definitely the Five Dollar Shake of the cookie world so I'm not likely to make these regular purchases, but I'd readily and happily endorse it for people with the disposable income to go for it once in a while.

...Wait- crap! I can't even USE that reference any more, can I? A shake at any fast-casual chain is probably way more than five dollars now. Even a large at Jack In The Box is about that much. Oof!