As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I was thoroughly content and entertained by all the random content that it had to offer: quizzes on whether you had better grammar than a 5th grader, pictures of my cousins, memes and Tiny Kitchen videos. However, when I came across a video by INSIDER dessert claiming that they had found the "the most popular cookies in Orlando," I was shocked. I have lived in Orlando for a decade and had never heard of Gideon's Bakehouse cookies before. How could these cookies be considered the best if no person from Orlando ever raves about them? After I checked and saw there were over three million views on this video, I felt a moral obligation to investigate to find out if these viral cookies meet the hype and if they truly met the claim as the best cookies in Orlando.
INSIDER desert
To my surprise, Gideon's Bakehouse was not its own separate building. It was located in an outlet called the East End Market, which had a collection of trendy restaurants, bakeries and knick-knack shops. The East End Market is meant to be a neighborhood market and food hub for the food entrepreneurs, tradespeople, artists and chefs of Central Florida. There is almost every type of food offered to satisfy any craving from kombucha to artisanal breads.
East End Market
Once I found Gideon's Bakehouse section of East End Market, I knew right away that I needed to try to the Classic Chocolate Chip Cookie. My first reaction to receiving the cookie was how dense and heavy it was. They were not exaggerating when they said that each of their cookies weigh approximately half a pound. After I got some pictures for the Insta, I dug right in. I was expecting the cookie to be warm and gooey; however, all the cookies were made in the morning, so it was no longer super fresh by the time I ate it. Although the cookie was not warm, it still had a soft cookie-dough texture like the video explained. The cookie was covered in so many chocolate chips that it felt like I was simultaneously eating a chocolate bar and cookie. If you are not a serious chocolate lover, then I would totally pass on them. Yet, the most unique feature of these cookies was the salty flavor that you would normally not associate with sweets. If you look at the surface closely, you can see the salt granules sprinkling the cookie.
My Cookie
This cookie was heavy-duty and took me more than one sitting to finish. After fulfilling my quest to find out if these viral cookies meet the hype by tasting them for myself, I came to the conclusion that they in fact were very delicious. While I had never heard of them before, I understood after tasting them why they deserved a video promoting and praising their unique recipe. Although I was speculative about the claims about these cookies, I was happily surprised by how distinctive and rich these cookies tasted. When I first watched the video, I felt like I was deceived; it seemed like false advertisement. However, now that I know the truth for myself, I will definitely be less doubtful next time I watch a food video on Facebook.