Anyone who knows me well knows that oatmeal raisin cookies are my guilty pleasure. I was scrolling through my Instagram feed one time when I came across a "Cheetos cookie." I got in contact with the shop that makes them, Cookie Good, and Spoon UCLA took a trip down to their adorable cookie store in Santa Monica that serves a very unique selection of freshly-baked cookies.
The Cookie Good Top 5
My friend Rachel and I got nine cookies and two brownie bars, so it was actually quite a struggle to come up with my favorites (hey now, any cookie can be a good cookie). After many calories, I finally made a top 5 list based on taste and uniqueness.
#1: Cheetos Cookie
I went to Cookie Good for the Cheetos cookie, and let me tell you - it lives up to the hype. It was basically Cheetos in a cookie form, except more amazing. All that cheesy goodness baked into a dessert, I was ready to buy a dozen of them on my way out.
#1: Pancakes & Bacon
I actually couldn't decide what the "best" flavor was because the Pancakes and Bacon was just as unique as the Cheetos cookie. The cookie base was pancake dough stuffed with bits of bacon (oh man, so good), and then the cookie was coated with a caramel-maple butter glaze. I'd eat this cookie for breakfast everyday.
#3: Apple Pie
My favorite kind of pie has to be apple pie because of that warm feeling you get from all the baked apples and buttery pie crust together. Imagine all that goodness in one cookie (oh my). The apple pie flavor is a seasonal flavor for fall and the holidays so make sure you get it while its hot! (Apple pie is the fifth cookie from the top.)
#4: Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin pie is another seasonal flavor. All the sugar and spice of your favorite thanksgiving dessert comes through when you take your first bite of this cookie. I love the addition of silvered white chocolates too, which acts as whipped cream on pumpkin pie. (Note: I'm biased towards apple pie so I ranked the apple pie cookie higher, but the pumpkin pie cookie is definitely just as good.)
5. Caramel-Pretzel-Chocolate Chunk
I am not personally a fan of chocolate, but my friend vouched for the caramel-pretzel-chocolate chunk over the other cookies with chocolate that we tasted. It's a mix of dark chocolate chunks, chocolate chips, caramel, pretzels, and a dust of pretzel salt so you basically get everything you could ask for: salty, sweet, chewy, and crunchy. 10/10 texture and taste combination.
The Story Behind Cookie Good
We were very lucky to get a chance to speak with Ross, the baker and co-founder, about his love for baking and what Cookie Good means to him.
Question #1: Your bakery is called "Cookie Good." Why did you choose this name?
"Before we started Cookie Good, I was in the movie business for a very long time. I started off as an executive and then a producer. Then, I became a writer for 12 years. Being in the movie business was not easy and being a writer was certainly not an easy process.
But I love baking and when I made cookies- whether it was for friends, or parties, or for my kids- I never once questioned it. I just loved it. It was really fun to do, and really fun to think about. And at the end of the day, I knew that it tasted good. One day I was talking to someone about the writing process, I said that I wanted to feel 'cookie good' about my writing.
Our tag line is 'it's how you want to feel' and there's something about eating a cookie that it's hard not to be happy. It's not just your emotions; it's just the sensation of biting through something that's crispy and rich and chocolate-y or sweet or salty or whatever it is. There's just such a sensation that happens. It's hard to be sad. You want to feel the way you do when you take a bite of a fresh cookie."
Questions #2: You are a creative baker that makes very unique cookies. Where do you get inspiration for your cookie recipes?
"I often say that in a lot of ways I have a palette of a five year old. It's really from me. It's from things I like; whether it's Cap'n Crunch cereal or Apple jacks which were my favorites when I was a kid. If we go out to dinner and have dessert, I wonder if I can put it into a cookie. It's really based on things that are exciting or fun, or things that make me smile."
Question #3: Why should people come to Cookie Good? What makes it unique?
"I think we've always knew that we wanted Cookie Good to be really fun and the whole idea of it is kind of lighthearted. We always have the cereal cookie because I love cereal. We have a lot of fun flavors, Cheetos and different things. It's all supposed to be very fun and light. We want people to feel that it's completely approachable, nothing precious or dainty about our cookies. All of our flavors are meant to be very accessible; all based on things that you've heard of, but in cookie form.
Besides cookies, we do cookie milk - pre-dunked milk. We soak our cookies in the milk so the milk takes on all of the flavor and that's really really fun. We make cookie corn which is our version of caramel corn. Also, we designed our bakery so that it's all glass in the front. You can see everything that is going on in the back and become part of the process and see what we're doing."
Question #4: From our understanding, Cookie Good supports a lot of schools and charities. Could you tell us a little more about your story behind this good cause?
"It's again cookie good. We try to do as much 'good' as we can in the community and all over the place. We do a lot of drives for Breast Cancer Care & Research Fund which is something that is very important to us. Melanie (Ross's wife and co-founder of Cookie Good) had breast cancer a couple of times. Our kids grew up here and went to public schools so we are happy to support them too."
Question #5: What is your favorite cookie and why?
"Other than the Cap'n crunch cookie, I think anything with peanut butter. We do an old-fashioned peanut butter cookie; that's one of my favorite cookies that we make. We make a peanut butter cream that goes inside the cookie, so when you bite [into] it, you get a great peanut butter flavor on the outside and then inside is that cream and its a lot of peanut butter fun."I'd like to finish by thanking Ross and Melanie for having Spoon UCLA at their cookie shop and taking a break from their busy business to chat with us. It really is the dream to bake cookies as a career - just as Ross said: "we make cookies for a living and that's pretty cool. In a world where there are a lot of things going on, where there is a lot of stress; at the end of the day, we make cookies and it's a pretty nice thing."