Food Science and Gonzo Baking
To the untrained eye, the Chips Ahoy® brand represents an authentic product line, a variety of chocolate chip cookies incorporating assorted flavor variations but essentially hewing close to a central identity of chocolate chip cookiedom. But closer inspection reveals the truth: Chips Ahoy® is an experimental product development platform, a bakery skunkworks devoted to testing ideas from the conventional to the bizarre, often masking the radical nature of the experiment by hiding behind the familiar safety of the Chips Ahoy name. If Nabisco were to release a soft citrus cookie with lemon-lime chips and a gelatinous lime-meringueish filling all on its own, a revolted public would flee the store in disgust. But if you were to call them Chips Ahoy's Ghostbusters Key-Lime Ectoblasts, the same consumers would probably shrug and throw them in the cart just to try them out.
The Turducken of Cookies?
This can-do try anything spirit yields a mixed cookie bag and in a future review we'll examine the mealy, grainy, perplexing fiasco that is the Chips Ahoy S'mores cookie. But today we'll talk about one of the unqualified successes, the Chewy Chips Ahoy Brownie-filled cookies. To start with, the mere appearance of the cookie is downright magical, for its completely convincing facade of a normal chocolate chip cookie turns out to be merely a micro-thin mirage of a wrapper, inside which is a super-intense double-chocolatey brownie filling. In this era of 3-D printing, it's not hard to imagine how this might be done. On the assembly line, an extruder would squeeze out a thin bottom layer of conventional chocolate chip cookie dough, a second extruder would squirt a dollop of brownie batter on top of that, and a final third extruder then ejects a layer of cookie batter camouflage to enrobe the rest. But even after understanding the technology behind the feat, the sight of a credible brownie tucked behind a film-thin layer of cookie is kind of amazing.
The Brownie Is Real
It wasn't that long ago that the Food Kingdom had a post on the extreme difficulty of mass-manufacturing a high-quality prepackaged brownie. How ironic that such a brownie should finally arrive encased inside a cookie. Is the secret to be found in the protective cookie shell? Whatever the reason, the brownie within the cookie coating is everything most mass market brownies are not: dark, deep, fudgy, almost European in its commitment to a high-cacao-content true chocolate taste. If you recall craving double-chocolate cookies as a kid, this is that next-level triple-chocolate taste you've been waiting for.
And Yet So Is the Cookie
The only drawback to the assertiveness of the brownie's chocolatey flavor is the way it dominates and overshadows the flavor of the cookie that's wrapped around it. I had just assumed that Nabisco put very little effort into that part of the cookie since it's only there to set up the power-packed surprise that's inside it. In the interest of due diligence, I did finally start nibbling around the perimeter of these cookies, just to see what the golden bits on the edges tasted like. Surprisingly, it's truly a well-crafted chocolate chip cookie with a blonde buttery flavor, a semi-crisp/semi-chewy texture, and the best overall taste profile of any chocolate chip cookie in the Chips Ahoy® line. Although the subtle golden brown-sugar notes of this outer cookie are completely overwhelmed in terms of what one consciously tastes when biting into these cookies, I can only assume that in some way they provide balance and complexity to the overall composite flavor profile. They should make a cookie that uses only this batter, but of course they almost certainly won't.
Conclusions
Bold, persistent experimentation does not always yield perfect results, but expect Chips Ahoy to keep unveiling new and interesting novelty flavors. And hope that this one stays on the shelf for a good long while.
To the untrained eye, the Chips Ahoy® brand represents an authentic product line, a variety of chocolate chip cookies incorporating assorted flavor variations but essentially hewing close to a central identity of chocolate chip cookiedom. But closer inspection reveals the truth: Chips Ahoy® is an experimental product development platform, a bakery skunkworks devoted to testing ideas from the conventional to the bizarre, often masking the radical nature of the experiment by hiding behind the familiar safety of the Chips Ahoy name. If Nabisco were to release a soft citrus cookie with lemon-lime chips and a gelatinous lime-meringueish filling all on its own, a revolted public would flee the store in disgust. But if you were to call them Chips Ahoy's Ghostbusters Key-Lime Ectoblasts, the same consumers would probably shrug and throw them in the cart just to try them out.
 |
| Limited edition flavors like these come along all the time and are usually here today and gone tomorrow. Nabisco is promising the technological marvel of a brownie inside a cookie. But is this just another lame gimmick? |
This can-do try anything spirit yields a mixed cookie bag and in a future review we'll examine the mealy, grainy, perplexing fiasco that is the Chips Ahoy S'mores cookie. But today we'll talk about one of the unqualified successes, the Chewy Chips Ahoy Brownie-filled cookies. To start with, the mere appearance of the cookie is downright magical, for its completely convincing facade of a normal chocolate chip cookie turns out to be merely a micro-thin mirage of a wrapper, inside which is a super-intense double-chocolatey brownie filling. In this era of 3-D printing, it's not hard to imagine how this might be done. On the assembly line, an extruder would squeeze out a thin bottom layer of conventional chocolate chip cookie dough, a second extruder would squirt a dollop of brownie batter on top of that, and a final third extruder then ejects a layer of cookie batter camouflage to enrobe the rest. But even after understanding the technology behind the feat, the sight of a credible brownie tucked behind a film-thin layer of cookie is kind of amazing.
 |
| Nothing about their outward appearance would suggest anything unusual. Going in, I was convinced that the supposed brownie interior would be a thin, unobtrusive and flavorless brown strip, the very same cookie dough stained a different color. |
It wasn't that long ago that the Food Kingdom had a post on the extreme difficulty of mass-manufacturing a high-quality prepackaged brownie. How ironic that such a brownie should finally arrive encased inside a cookie. Is the secret to be found in the protective cookie shell? Whatever the reason, the brownie within the cookie coating is everything most mass market brownies are not: dark, deep, fudgy, almost European in its commitment to a high-cacao-content true chocolate taste. If you recall craving double-chocolate cookies as a kid, this is that next-level triple-chocolate taste you've been waiting for.
 |
| Proving the doubters wrong, this fascinating experiment actually delivers what it promises. You can see that the brownie filling really is of a different texture and consistency from the crumbly, buttery-tasting cookie on the outside. And although the brownie dominates the overall flavor of this hybrid cookie, the golden exterior is a true cookie, not a flavorless casing. |
The only drawback to the assertiveness of the brownie's chocolatey flavor is the way it dominates and overshadows the flavor of the cookie that's wrapped around it. I had just assumed that Nabisco put very little effort into that part of the cookie since it's only there to set up the power-packed surprise that's inside it. In the interest of due diligence, I did finally start nibbling around the perimeter of these cookies, just to see what the golden bits on the edges tasted like. Surprisingly, it's truly a well-crafted chocolate chip cookie with a blonde buttery flavor, a semi-crisp/semi-chewy texture, and the best overall taste profile of any chocolate chip cookie in the Chips Ahoy® line. Although the subtle golden brown-sugar notes of this outer cookie are completely overwhelmed in terms of what one consciously tastes when biting into these cookies, I can only assume that in some way they provide balance and complexity to the overall composite flavor profile. They should make a cookie that uses only this batter, but of course they almost certainly won't.
Conclusions
Bold, persistent experimentation does not always yield perfect results, but expect Chips Ahoy to keep unveiling new and interesting novelty flavors. And hope that this one stays on the shelf for a good long while.
Bought these cookies at the store as they caught my eye. And they are so delicious
ReplyDelete