Whenever I ‘m in Zabar’s or Westside Market I’m always amazed at all the new brands of cookies, scones and other baked goods from small regional companies. The problem is they all kind of blend together and it’s hard for the sweet consumer to figure out which one will be the next Tate’s (makers of very good chocolate chip cookies and based in South Hampton NY). I guess that’s really why DessertBuzz is here. To be your guide. To take one “for the team”.
One of my favorite small local brands is the Sara Snacker Company. You could easily miss their little clear boxes of cookies and that would be a shame because these guys really get it. They didn’t come in and try to unseat established products by trying, for example, to make the best classic chocolate chip cookie. Instead, they launched all kinds of unique new cookie flavors that sound really gimicky at first but are actually really delicious and novel.
Their whole line of cookies is excellent but their best flavors are the “T.W.ookie”and “Chipen’etzel” which hit the salty-sweet thing perfectly and the new “Lemonade” cookie which has exceptional lemon flavor. The Chipen’tezel also comes in a dark chocolate dipped version which is really good.
The Chipen’etzels, like the name suggests, combine potato chips and pretzels inside a nicely baked cookie. The “T.W. ookie” (stands for the “world’s best..) is a thin oatmeal cookie with white chocolate chips, which I am not usually a big fan of, but they added a bit of coarse salt and it just makes these things into a truly excellent cookie.
The Lemonade cookie is also very good. It has an outstanding lemon flavor in the frosting and cookie itself – I actually can’t think of a lemon flavor on or in a cookie that’s as nice. This kind of strong flavor usually only comes in jelly or filling-based products (like a Linzer torte).
The Vanilla shake cookies are also good but a bit sweet for my tastes although some may like the unique frosting which is hard, like dots candy from back in the day that comes on that paper.
I haven’t tried any of their non-cookie products such as the hand-dipped Twinkie’s or Devil dogs – so if any reader has any feedbeack please shoot me an email.
Recommended: Chipen’etzel (especially dark chocolate dipped) , T.W. ookie and Lemonade cookies.
The Sara Snacker website and a listing of New York City locations is here.
these look awesome!
Left by jessica on July 6th, 2010