In my post about how I wanted to sample as many delicious chocolate chip cookies on vacation as possible, I also said I’d blog about them “in a timely manner”. Haha… does a month and a half after returning from vacation count as “timely”?
I must admit I didn’t do the most fantastic job with the tour. Most of the time we didn’t have the time or energy to go out of our way for bakeries, so I sampled cookies where they were convenient for people on the road, places like convenience stores and rest stops. Not very foodie-like, I know, but now I can give some recommendations as to where a road-tripper in America should go for a chocolate chip cookie fix.
Brioche Doree: This was a coffee place with baked goods at a rest stop in Pennsylvania. The selection of treats was pretty diverse and they all looked wonderful, but their cookie was not the best. The texture was pretty great– soft and just past the point of doughy– but the flavor was just vanilla and sweetness, and there were too few chips. (For some reason I don’t have a picture of this one– I think I was driving and forgot to take one).
Wawa: Wawa is a convenience store chain on the east coast. I love, love, love going there for a freshly made sub, but their cookie was sub-par. Although most it was also crumbly, which made it hard to eat, and the flavor was boring. I didn’t even finish it.
AmPm: As we were leaving the baseball game we attended in Columbus, Ohio, somebody was standing outside the stadium handing out coupons for a free cookie from AmPm. I was excited, even after my friend said, “AmPm is a gas station, you know.” I did, but when it comes to free cookies, I don’t discriminate. The next morning I went and redeemed my coupon, and you know what? The cookie was actually really good.
The texture was dense and soft with just a little bit of crunch from the sugar. The cookie itself had a nice toasty flavor that balanced the sweetness and the huge chocolate chunks were rich and delicious. Sure, it was a gas station cookie, but I liked it.
For my birthday Siret baked me a batch of vegan chocolate chip cookies. I failed to photograph them but I did freeze half the batch so they’d stay fresh and I could take them back to Estonia with me. They had an interesting texture– dense and sandy– and tasted buttery although there was no butter in them. She gave me the recipe for those cookies as well as an entire book (The Baker’s Field Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies) filled with delicious variations on the traditional chocolate chip cookie. So while I may not have tried all the best cookies America has to offer, at least I returned with plenty of inspirations for making more amazing cookies of my own.
The texture of vegan cookies was probably a bit off from the recipe, I messed up while baking them and forgot to add the milk, so went back and threw that in later, but think they came out weirdly. Still good though!
Exactly! I’m curious to try them myself but I need to find tapioca flour first. Luckily all the other ingredients are everyday things I have in my kitchen.
I had tapioca flour from making the gluten free cupcakes, which needed like four different weird flours. Probably by Bob’s Red Mill. I got it from my local organic market here, but of course no idea where you can find it there.
Do they ship flours internationally?
I guess you can ship flours. I should take a look at the natural and organic stores here first– they might have it.