REVIEW: Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Hi, my name is Blade and I’m here to review some cookies.

You may have heard of me. I am also known as the Daywalker—I am a vampire. Well, I was born half-human, half-vampire. So I have all their strengths and none of their weaknesses, except for the blood thirst. But I manage to keep that in check with a serum, and I can walk around in the sunlight like all the rest of you. I’m basically a regular human being with super strength, reflexes and a healing factor.

To be upfront, I think some of those qualities make me superior to human beings and perhaps transcendent to human rules, but the IRS doesn’t agree, and subsequently I’ve run into tax problems, which explains why I’m writing about baked goods on a website. And I’ve eaten human flesh, which means my tastes are more adventurous than yours, I’m sure.

However, I do have a sweet tooth. Love those snacks. They come far second on the list of cravings, though, behind human blood. To recap: Number one craving with a (silver) bullet, human blood. Number two, baked sweets. My aunt used to make these snickerdoodles that were sublime. You guys tried cronuts yet? The real ones from New York. Amazing, right? Dominique Ansel done changed the game! How about pureed frozen bananas? Stuff tastes just like ice cream! Yeah, I love sweets. Number three is probably gas station Spam musubi, believe it or not.

Being half something and half something else, the folks at this site thought it would be a good idea for me to review the Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Cookies, because it’s half a cookie, half a brownie. Here is the question: Does this product combine the strengths of the cookie and the brownie? Or is it all weakness, like those new Spider-Man films? The short answer is no, this cookie is not awesome like me. It is just okay.

It is soft, so soft and chewy, like the best cookies. The initial bite has a light, bitter cocoa sting with a hint of sweetness, like a brownie! It’s pretty good. And the cookie never gets too sweet, either. I like my chocolate on the bitter side and I like my Avengers movies quippy. The problem is that the cookie doesn’t go anywhere else. There’s no depth of flavor. It’s not rounded out by a torrent of butter or balanced with any other sensation. It just keeps hitting the bitter note over and over, which gets tiring. It’s also chewy but not gooey, like a brownie would be. The density is of a supermarket mass-produced cookie, and not of a deep, cakey, homemade casserole-dish brick of cocoa goodness.

You can see chocolate chips in the cookie, but you can’t really taste them in the product. The chips get lost in the shuffle somewhere, overshadowed, so seeing them there is like being teased. I bet it’s sort of like being imbued with an unquenchable thirst for human blood and seeing humans walking around literally everywhere, walking, dancing, taunting, necks exposed, welcoming, and never once taking a sip. Or maybe like a chocolate lap dance. It’s disappointing that the cookie does not live up to the Frankenstein potential of a cookie-brownie, but the flavoring spins so far out of control in one singular direction it doesn’t even function that well as a cookie-cookie.

The Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie will not be making it into Blade’s cookie rotation. It’s a valiant attempt at combining brownie powers and cookie powers into one thing, but it’s a little bit of a reminder that the X-Men are special, and, really, most genetic mutations end in early death and not in telekinesis or the power of flight. I guess against all odds companies will always try to harness the warm, homey goodness of a brownie into items. “Motherfudgers always trying to ice skate uphill.” That’s a quote of mine that I altered to appropriately fit into this piece.

Thanks for reading, folks. And a quick reminder I am immune to garlic so I am available to review non-Olive Garden Italian cuisine. And vampires don’t sparkle! Gosh, Twilight is my Madea. I guess Madea is also my Madea. Shout out to Joss Whedon. I’m available for the next Avengers. Or Ant-Man! I’ll take Ant-Man! Edgar Wright, I loved Shaun of the Dead. It should have been vampires and not zombies, though. Everybody check out Let the Right One In. Check out all my movies too. I’m not in Blades of Glory, though. That’s not me. Hmm, actually, also, I’m only half human, so I should only pay half human taxes. Okay, I’m going to go re-fill out my W-9. Bye.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 cookie – 140 calories, 50 calories from fat, 6 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 11 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fiber, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Pepperidge Farm Dessert Shop Chocolate Brownie Cookies
Purchased Price: $2.50
Size: 8.6 ounce bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Not too sweet. Chewy, soft. Not terrible.
Cons: Flat flavoring. No depth. Goes nowhere. Boring.