DiGiorno has always done right by me. Their Supreme Ultimate Toppings could rival a lot of the major pizza delivery joints in texture and toppings. They’ve recently come out with some…interesting new products, putting pizza and a side in the same box. First off, there’s Pizza & Breadsticks. A logical pairing; lots of people like breadsticks dunked in marinara sauce to go with their pie.
Then there’s Pizza & Wyngz. Again, chicken wings are a popular side dish with the pizza crowd. Of course, we can’t ignore the elephant in the room, but I think I’ve pretty much said all I have to say about “Wyngz” in this news post.
And then there’s the third pairing: Pizza & Cookies.
What?
I’m not even sure what to say about that. Pizza and cookies, together at last. It’s just so amazingly random, I can’t even imagine what that marketing meeting was like. The best I can come up with is a conference room filled with bong smoke so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.
Marketing Guy #1: “Oh, man. I am so fucking stoned right now. This is crazy.”
Marketing Guy #2: “Dude, I know. How long have we been in this room? What time is it? I feel like we’ve been in here for days.”
Marketing Guy #1: “Duuuuude, I know. I’m so fucking hungry. I could totally go for a pizza right now.”
Marketing Guy #2: “I would totally kill a dude for some cookies right now. I would hit the vending machine but I can’t get out of this chair. Have I always been stuck in this chair? Oh man I’m starting to freak out about this chair.”
Marketing Guy #3: “I could totally go for some pizza and cookies right now. That would be so awesome. I would take a bite of pizza, and a bite of cookie. Yeeeaaaah. Awesome. What was this meeting supposed to be about, again?”
Marketing Guy #1: “DUDE. That’s it! We were supposed to come up with some new pizza ideas! What if we put pizza and cookies IN THE SAME BOX?!”
Marketing Guy #3: “Oh my god you are a fucking GENIUS! That’s AWESOME! Dude let me feel your face.”
Marketing Guy #2: “Oh man we could do pizza and chicken wings too! Except instead of wings we’ll call them Wyngz. It’ll blow everyone’s minds.”
I guess everyone at DiGiorno is high all the time because this bizarre idea became a reality. You have your choice of three different pizzas: Cheese, Pepperoni and Supreme. All three come with Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie dough. I chose Supreme, because I like lots of toppings, and Supreme has sausage, pepperoni, red peppers, green peppers and onions. All good things.
I was interested to see how the pizza and cookies would be packaged. I was not expecting what I saw when I opened the box. At first, I thought the package of cookie dough was laying directly on top of the pizza, raising questions about hygiene, but when I cut through the plastic I saw that the pizza was actually double-wrapped, so there was a layer of plastic between the pizza and the dough. Not exactly environmentally friendly, but at least more hygienic, although I don’t know why they just couldn’t have let the dough package roam free in the box. How much damage can you do to frozen cookie dough? The box weighs over two pounds, I doubt anyone is playing Frisbee golf with this thing. Although…stoners…better safe than sorry, I guess.
I was under the impression that DiGiorno had worked some magic and engineered it so that the pizza and the cookies would cook at the exact same time. I was mistaken. There are two ways to make Pizza & Cookies: the first is “To Enjoy Cookies After Pizza”, which entails preheating your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, putting the pizza directly on the center rack, and baking 19-22 minutes. You then break up the scored block of cookie dough on a baking sheet and bake them for 10-12 minutes on the center rack. This makes sense, since you can eat your pizza while you wait for your cookies to be done. After pizza, boom! Warm cookies for dessert. Just don’t be a slow pizza eater.
The second method, however, makes less sense, but I chose it because I felt it had the most potential for disaster. “To Enjoy Cookies With Pizza” – again, I would call this the “stoner method,” but the fact of the matter is this is the more complicated of the two methods and I’m pretty sure somebody stoned would just choose to microwave a Hot Pocket instead.
“To Enjoy Cookies With Pizza”: Same preheat, but this time you place the pizza on the lower of the two middle oven racks. Bake it for 9 minutes, then put the baking sheet of cooking on the upper of the two middle oven racks. You are then instructed to stagger the two so the pizza is not directly below the cookies. Bake both for an additional 10-12 minutes and enjoy your pizza and cookies together.
The pizza didn’t give off much of a smell as it cooked, but once the cookies were put in, my apartment was filled with the warm, inviting smell of chocolate chip cookies baking. It reminded me of my parents’ house around the holidays. I’m not a sweets fan, so I’ve never actually baked anything in my oven, but it was a delicious, nostalgic aroma.
Both the pizza and the cookies came out just right. The range of quality in frozen pizzas is pretty extreme; you can pick up a Totino’s Party Pizza for around a buck and it will taste like a cardboard disk with meat droppings on top, or you can get a California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizza, which is generally full of flavor, has a good texture, and costs around seven dollars. DiGiorno falls on the higher end of frozen pizzas, depending on which variety you get. My Supreme pizza was quite tasty, with plentiful toppings that offered up acceptable levels of flavor, and a surprisingly crispy crust. As a frozen pizza, it was completely satisfying.
The chocolate chip cookies came out golden brown and, of course, smelling delicious. Straight out of the oven, they were warm and tasty, with a delicious soft center that was unexpected and just the right crunch around the edges. They came out just like if you’d baked a batch of Nestle Toll House chocolate cookies by themselves.
I honestly thought that, besides being a ridiculous premise, cooking pizza and cookies in an oven together would not go well. I figured the pizza, the cookies, or both would come out burnt or undercooked, or there would be some sort of disturbing flavor transfer. Instead, I got a well-cooked pizza, tasty Toll House cookies, and an apartment that smelled like my mom was doing her Christmas baking. I still think the whole pizza/cookie combo is silly and completely random, but at least DiGiorno’s Pizza & Cookies managed to get the final product right, even if the execution itself is clunky.
One other thing I thought was amusing: the box says there’s five servings of pizza, but 12 servings of chocolate chip cookies. I don’t think this will be a problem, however; stoners aren’t exactly picky about suggested serving sizes.
(Nutrition Facts – DiGiorno Supreme Pizza -1/5 pizza – 360 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 gram of trans fat, 30 milligrams of cholesterol, 840 milligrams of sodium, 38 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 4 grams of sugars, 14 grams of protein, 6% vitamin A, 4% vitamin C, 20% calcium and 6% iron. Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies – 1 cookie – 90 calories, 40 calories from fat, 4.5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 gram of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 12 grams of carbohydrates, <1 gram of dietary fiber, 7 grams of sugars, less than 1 gram of protein.)
Item: DiGiorno Pizza & Cookies Supreme Pizza and Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Price: $5.99 (on sale; regular price $7.49)
Size: 1 pizza and 12 cookies (2 lb. 1.4 oz. Total weight)
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Pizza had crispy crust and generous toppings. DiGiorno’s marketing team tripping balls. Cookies were golden and soft inside. My apartment smelling like the holidays. Perfect baking times.
Cons: Pizza and cookies in the same box what the hell. “Wyngz.” Execution of baking both was clunky. Frisbee golf. Pizza-to-cookies ratio was skewed.