Press Reviews

Easy, tasty cookies

Good news for the time-pressed: Chocolate-chip cookies made with store-bought dough can taste almost homemade.

Our trained panelists tasted cookies made from seven preformed cookie doughs, frozen or refrigerated, and cookies made from scratch using the Nestlé Toll House recipe. The best of the bunch, all from frozen doughs, tasted close to cookies made from scratch. They had a mix of buttery, caramelized, and other cookielike flavors, plus chocolatey chunks or chips that were especially big in dough from Omaha Steaks and Fat Boy.

Lowest-rated was refrigerated Nestlé dough, which made cookies bearing little resemblance to those from the recipe. They didn’t taste fresh-baked, did have a bit of old-fat taste, and were smaller than most. But even the lowest-rated from dough were better than typical store-bought packaged cookies.

Calories per cookie range from 100 to 150; fat, from 5 to 8 grams. They basically correspond to cookie size, listed below.

CR’s take. If you crave a sweet treat but want to avoid mixing and some cleanup, you’ll be a smart cookie if you try one of the very good doughs. Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are available in those stores; Omaha Steaks and Fat Boy are sold online or over the phone. David’s, rated good, is at their website.

If you want to tell Aunt Millie you used her recipe, it’ll be our secret.

Ratings

DOUGH, BOY!

Gourmet cookie mavens craving that “hot out of the oven” freshness needn’t make a special trip to the local bakery. Heating up a panful of OUTRAGEOUS COOKIE DOUGH from Bergen’s own FATBOY will provide that same melt-in-your-mouth flavor. The brainchild of Teaneck native Joel Ansh, Fatboy combines the delectable taste of the highest-end cookies with the ease of treats baked from slices off the cookie establishment’s ubiquitous rolls. These morsels come in precut cubes, one per cookie and packed 27 to a box, in six varieties ranging from America’s perennial fave, the chocolate “chunk” chip, to white chocolate macadamia to cranberry walnut, all with the finest ingredients available.

Ansh, the self-described Fatboy (“My friends used to call me that,” he says) has no cookie-cutter business here — he founded the company several years ago as a lark. But things began taking shape recently; now, Ansh has been making several thousand pounds of dough a month. Recently moved to Fair Lawn, the industrial distributor hopes in the near future to quit his day job and open a sizable retail outlet. For now, the dough — which has a six-week shelf-life when refrigerated, and a full year if frozen — is available only by mail. Order at www.fatboycookiecompany.com, or call (201) 796-1000.

YUMMIES - Fat Boy Baking

Teaneck native Joel Ansh says he got the nickname “fat boy” by scarfing food off friends’ plates. He sells a product that could earn others a similar moniker. Fat Boy’s Outrageous Cookie Dough comes in two-pound boxes of 27 frozen, pre-cut cookies in six varieties. Ansh learned baking from his mother, and in college cooked for friends. He runs an industrial products supply company, but in 2003 decided he could spread more joy with cookies. His Fair Lawn company churns out about 3,000 pounds of dough a month. The cookies will soon be available at supermarkets, but for now order from fatboycookiecompany.com or 888-fatboy0. Oh, and they’re good, real good.

FatBoy’s Outrageous Cookie Dough

Bake Your Favorites With Dough From The Freezer

Pair cookies warm from the oven, milk cold from the fridge. (Photos: Claire Freierman)

CAPSULE REPORT: You don’t need Mom or Grandma baking cookies in the kitchen when you have FatBoy in the freezer. If you know how to turn on the oven, you can bake delicious cookies and enjoy them warm from the oven in about 15 minutes. The company makes six different flavors, four with chocolate chunks and two with dried fruit (oatmeal raisin and cranberry). The all-natural cookies are certified kosher by the Orthodox Union. These are not your grandmother’s cookies; but there might be a job opening for her at the FatBoy Cookie Company. Its promise is, “if Grandma can do it better... she’s hired!” The company does a pretty good job without her, making thick, chewy, old-fashioned cookies packed full of all the good stuff Grandma would have used, assuming she was a great baker.

Owner Joel Ansh can be pretty kooky when it comes to his cookies. Like quite a few people in the specialty food business, he became a commercial baker when neighbors and friends couldn’t get enough of his cookies. Now, he sells the cookie dough frozen and ready-to-bake. The compact boxes fit easily into any nook of the freezer, ready to bake up the whole batch for a special occasion, or a single cookie, whenever you’d like a treat. FatBoy cookies are truly the apex of break-and-bake cookie culture. Forget the stuff from the supermarket: You can taste the quality of the ingredients in each bite. Just separate the pre-cut cubes from the block of dough The scent of baking cookies begins to tempt the senses, and ten to twenty minutes later, freshly-baked cookies emerge from the oven. The frozen dough stores for up to one year in the freezer or six weeks in the refrigerator.

The cookie dough comes in a pre-cut rectangle: Separate the cubes and bake.

WARNING: If you have a cookie dough habit, consult with your advisors before ordering this product. We can’t be responsible for what happens when a large block of delicious cookie dough arrives at your doorstep.

Flavors

The cookies are made with good butter — essential in our book. Each cookie has a classic flavor profile and plentiful amounts of its marquee ingredients: large chocolate chunks, raisins, cranberries, etc. Chocolate Chunk was our hands-down favorite (the owner’s, too), and would be the best-seller anywhere. But, we were impressed with each flavor.

Dutch Chocolate Chunk Walnut Cookies are double chocolate cookies — cocoa in the batter plus chocolate chunks.

The ready-to-bake frozen cookie dough is currently available in six flavors: Chocolate Chunk is the classic, with a generous amount of large chocolate chunks, no nuts Cranberry Walnut, packed with dried cranberries and walnuts and does not contain chocolate Dutch Chocolate Chunk Walnut, a double chocolate cookie with chocolate chunks and walnuts (see photo at left) Oatmeal Raisin is nicely accented with honey and cinnamon (and rolled oats are a whole grain!) Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk has PB mixed into the dough as well as peanut accents White Chocolate Pecan has big chunks of white chocolate plus pecans (serve these at bridal showers!)

The only oddity — or unique attribute, depending how you look at it — is that the dough’s original cube shape doesn’t quite bake out of all of the flavors, creating an unusual-shaped cookie. While the Dutch Chocolate Chunk cookies in the photo above, for example, have a regular form, the Cranberry Walnut at the right show the “squareness” that some of the other flavors exhibited as well. You may find this shape more interesting and attractive than the standard cookie — but you most likely won’t be able to pass them off as your own homemade. The FatBoy Cookie Company calls its product “Outrageous Cookie Dough.” FatBoy is the childhood nickname of the owner, bestowed upon him for his ferocious appetite. But in the current environment, some might find the company name a bit outrageous, as well. While the cookies are worth every calorie, in our childhood-obesity-sensitive culture, we might re-think that and keep the company name in very small print. These cookies are so good, we just don’t want the company to lose any sales because the name serves as a conscience-tweaker.

The cookie dough comes in a pre-cut rectangle: Separate the cubes and bake.

You’ll always be prepared with a box or two of these in the freezer. And anyone you know would be delighted to receive them as a gift.

The Fatboy Cookie Company OUTRAGEOUS COOKIE DOUGH Ready-To-Bake Frozen Cookie Dough In Chocolate Chunk, Cranberry Walnut, Dutch Chocolate Chunk Walnut, Oatmeal Raisin, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk and White Chocolate Pecan Certified kosher (dairy) by OU 2-Pound Box Makes 27 Cookies $15.95 $13.95 For 2+ Boxes Purchase online at OutrageousCookieDough.com Or telephone 1.888.FATBOY.0

Supermarket Standouts: Best Brands, Best Values

Best Supermarket Products

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Whether you seek flavorful coffee beans for your morning eye-opener or picnic plates that can stand up to mounds of fried chicken, you’ll find them in Consumer Reports’ round up of top-performing supermarket products. From food to snacks to household needs, click through our gallery to see which products CR names as supermarket standouts — and deserve a place in your shopping cart. Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Trader Joe’s Chunky Omaha Steaks Chunky Fat Boy Cookie Company Outrageous Chunk Chocolate-chip cookies made with store-bought dough can taste almost homemade. To avoid the prep work, try these.

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