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Craving a podcast that is as delightful as a freshly baked cookie? Tough Cookies is the podcast for you.
Friends Cam and Zach take listeners on a delectable audio adventure where they review various new cookie snacks they find. They also insert their takes on various topics at the beginning of the show before their cookie review.
Cookies they have reviewed include products from Trader Joe's, Feastables, Nutella, Circus Animals, Pepperidge Farms, and more.
In August 2023, the duo tried some of Classic Cookie's soft-baked and crispy cookie snacks for the first time. Check out their thoughts below.
Finding Peanut Butter Crispy Mini Cookies- August 2023
Recently, the two friends found Classic Cookie's peanut butter made with Reese's® peanut butter chips crispy mini bags at a local store. They brought the packaged cookie bags back to their studio for a review in Episode 91.
In the episode, Cam and Zach discuss how the Wiggles are one of the top earners among Australian entertainers, secrets to teeth, and different airplane hacks. After this discussion, they opened up the crispy peanut butter cookie bag and started to share their thoughts:
"Today, we've got crispy and Classic Cookie's delicious and mini peanut butter...made with Reese's®...made with real cane sugar, made with real butter, naturally flavored with pure vanilla extract."
"We got them at Gabe's...it's like a Reese's® brand, well it's made with Reese's®."
[Takes a crispy mini cookie]
"It's cookie classic. It's Classic Cookie brand. I wonder if...if I could like source this to like a...manufactured by Mannon Specialty Foods in Sevierville, TN?!"
"HUH?!"
"Wait a minute..."
"Hold up. Are these good cookies?"
"The Reese's® trademark and trade dress...I knew that. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. I don't know. I don't know. Let me get up in this."
"It's called Classic Cookies?"
"It's called Classic Cookie - it's the name of the thing."
"Let's see. (Takes another cookie bite) Classic Cookie. Mmmmm - these are pretty good."
"Mmm pretty good."
"How much is this bag? Let's see - oh! Do you recognize that? I feel like you recognize that."
"I mean, I look at 100 cookies a week. I don't, I don't know."
"Mmmmm - what did we pay for that?"
"Probably like $3."
"There's not a sticker on it with a price that says like 'Gabe's'?"
"Umm not that I can see. I bet it was on the shelf that it was on."
[Takes more cookies out of the bag]
"These aren't bad."
"These are not bad. These are...pretty good!"
"Mmmhmm."
"These are like, we haven't done like 'cookies' in a while."
"Yeah."
"These are like 'COOKIES.'"
"These are...it's like a bag of small cookies, very crispy...it's a fine bag. I don't know what else you want."
"...We talk about the container situation all the time, and this is a poor one because the ones on the bottom get crumbly dumbly."
"And there's no resealability. You just have to eat the whole bag."
[Mouth full] "Which is not a problem with these bad boys."
"You're not wrong."
"These are good."
"I do, however, take issue with one thing."
"Okay - I think I know what it's going to be. Is it that?"
"Uh...two things. Everyone, I just shook a cookie over the trash can and to get all the crumbs off."
"If you wanted to salt your dinner you could shake these cookies over them. Not with salt, but with cookie sugar."
"Mmmhmm." [Takes another bite] "These are peanut butter cookies with Reese's® peanut butter chips in them."
"Are they?"
"Mmhmm."
"So they are...I'm not against that at all."
"I feel like these would benefit from chocolate chips."
[Mouth full] "You see, I gotta disagree with you there, buddy. I think that would be a hat on a hat."
"They're very Nutter Butter."
"Yeah - these know exactly what they are. They're peanut buttery...they're sweet and peanut buttery and delicious and that's that."
"Really crumbly."
"Yeah they're really crumbly, but...they're not chocolate cookies. They're good cookies that are not chocolate cookies and that is a really great thing for me."
"Yeah - I'll give them credit for that."
"Yeah. They feel protein...there are probably a lot of protein in these because they're peanut butter and peanut butter has protein. I bet they are good for you."
"Let's see."
"Serving size?"
"I'm going to guess two."
"One...once ounce...there are seven servings in a container."
"Wait, it gives you the serving size in ounces?"
"Yeah. They give it to you in ounces because they know [the cookies] are going to be destroyed. Wait, does it say how many are in the bag I wonder. Per ser...no...huh. Yeah I don't know."
"What's the ounceage of the bag?"
"Okay - serving size one ounce. Net weight seven ounces. Yeah, there's seven ounces in a bag. But, I don't know how many cookies are in a bag."
"There's no way - a seventh of a bag."
"Every day, you can have a seventh of this bag for a week. You can make piles."
"Now hold up...oh boy...I'm on classiccookie.com."
"Ok - what do you got?"
"There's a section called Content Creators."
"Oooooooo."
"'Do you like reviewing or making fun social media content around snacks?'"
"Oh yeah we do!"
"Check out more details below...Well I guess I'm applying for the New Product Club."
[Fills out New Product Club Application with some more banter]
"Now that we've finished that, we can give an honest review of these cookies. It's pretty good."
"It's pretty good."
"They're pretty good cookies."
"I may have gone a little strong there with the, 'If these are minis...'"
"Yeah - what's a regular one?"
"Yeah, I mean these are like the perfect size exactly where I want them to be."
[More banter back and forth before giving a final score on the cookies]
"Awesome. So a seven?"
"I was going to give them an eight."
"Nice!"
"I was really going to give them an eight. These are good...I would've liked chocolate chips and probably would've bumped it to a nine."
"I was going to give them a seven."
"I like them."
"I like them too though a lot, so maybe a seven and a half?"
"You're saying seven, but there's not many cookies left in that bag."
"Maybe eight...these are great. These are really good maybe eight. I think eight might be better."
"Yeah - I think I'm going to land on an eight."
"Eight is true with what my heart and soul says."
Listen to the full Tough Cookies podcast episode 91 on any one of these streaming links
Reviewing Soft-Baked Cookies- August 2023
After enjoying their packaged crispy peanut butter cookies, Zach and Cam received a package of six Classic Cookie soft-baked flavors including, chocolate chip made with Hershey's® mini kisses, peanut butter made with Reese's® peanut butter chips, Cinnabon®, oatmeal crème made with Hershey's® white chips, oatmeal raisin, and macadamia nut made with Hershey's® white chips. They tasted all these packaged cookies and gave an honest review in Episode 92.
After talking about a variety of other topics spanning from tacos, grilled cheese, aliens, a $1 sponsor, and other items, the two friends shared their thoughts on the soft baked cookies:
"I just want to get this out there up front. [Classic Cookie], you might have given us these cookies, but we're going to be..."
"Brutally honest."
"Brutally honest."
"We're honest guys. Anyway..."
[After some more banter back and forth]
"We have a box."
"We are going to be brutally honest with this review though. I really want to stress..."
"We are going to do our normal review style with you."
"Listen, listen Classic Cookie - love the brand. If you sent us stinkers, oh boy...we're going to tell people they're stinkers"
"So let's talk about the box - this is a cardboard box with UPS Ground on it.
"Kind of an odd choice for cookies to come in a UPS box."
"...But I like it. It's new and interesting. It's exciting. [Laughs] ...Obviously, the cookies were sent to us in like a UPS-style box. We haven't opened the box yet."
"Heck yeah."
[Opens box]
"...WOAH...Woah."
"We got cookies in this bad boy."
"Woah."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"...We haven't done this yet."
"We haven't opened this yet."
"This is new on the show."
"We've got...we've got 'soooo sweet and buttery' double chocolate made with Hershey's® eight 3oz jumbo cookies individually wrapped Classic Cookie variety pack."
"Woah. Wow"
"It says on the box it says, double chocolate made with Hershey's® but on the top it's got a sticker that says 'variety pack' - oh, it's a variety."
"Do you think our friend [from Classic Cookie] packed this up for us?"
"Probably not."
"But, maybe?"
"He had the elves do it."
"The elves, well, I don't know if they are elves - they could be like woodland nymphs."
"Get out of here."
"...We've got the Classic Cookie variety pack. Beautiful. Full of cookies. This box does say 'oatmeal raisin' on the front."
"Yep."
"I've got to say. Soooo, we all know how you feel about oatmeal raisin."
"I'm not a fan. I mean like I don't hate oatmeal raisin. There are just better cookies than oatmeal raisin."
"There are better cookies, and some people like oatmeal raisin. Listen, I'm not an oatmeal raisin guy. If I wanted fruits in my cookies than I'd get a jaffa cake."
"Yeah. Exactly. I'm trying to find who this guy is."
[They start pulling out cookies]
"...Classic Cookie chocolate chip made with mini Hershey's® kisses. We've got Classic Cookie macadamia nut Hershey's® white chips. Oooo I love a macadamia nut cookie."
"Manny the Master Baker. That's his name."
"Oh, that's the guy [on the packaging]?"
"That's the guy - Manny the Master Baker."
"That's not an elf - that's a man."
"He's a man."
"That's a man. That's Manny the man."
"That's how you know."
"His name's not Elfy."
"There's Manny the man."
"The box drawing is a lot clearer than that one like side of a bag that we looked at."
"This is a big ol box. Corpo sent us this box."
"Yeah - big corpo sent us this."
[Pulling out more cookies from the box]
"We've got oatmeal crème. We've got oatmeal raisin, your favorite."
"I just think there are better cookies."
"We've got peanut butter made with Reese's®. We've been through this."
"Yeah"
"We've been through this. Old news. Woah. Cinnabon®. Baked with Cinnabon® cinnamon and cream cheese chips."
"I think they sent us two of all of them."
"Ohhhhhhh."
"Because you're a person. I'm a person."
"We're both people."
"And normally, most people don't share their foods like you and I do."
"Well, that was a cool trend we did. Then we got sick."
"We gotta blast through these cookies."
"Well, we can skip the Reese's® ones because we've done that."
"That's true - we did those."
"Those got like an eight [rating]. They were pretty good."
"Those were good."
"Yeah. Alright."
"Let's start with oatmeal raisin."
"Yeah let's start with oatmeal raisin..."
"...because I'm sure they'll be okay maybe good, but they're not gonna be...they're not...they're oatmeal raisin cookies I mean..."
"It's hard to do the packaging because we've been given these by corpo."
"Yeah."
"Big corpo sent us this, so...they're soft and chewy which is interesting because...soft and yummy...which is interesting because it's so hard to do that well."
"Yeah."
"Mmmhmm."
"Give it a bite."
[Takes a bite out of the cookie]
"I think they nailed it. Soft and, soft and yummy?"
"Listen, listen we gotta find something to say they're bad."
"Why?"
"Because people are going to think we're sellouts."
"Oh, we're selling out, but here's the thing - they're not salty like most soft and yummy cookies are salty. These are just good."
"Yeah, that's a problem is they are not salty."
"No that's not a problem. That's a good thing."
"I know. I know, but people are going to say we're sellouts."
"We're not sellouts."
"Do I have to eat this whole cookie?!"
"No!"
"I had so much."
"We're gonna have to eat four cookies!"
"I've had so much food."
[They grab a new cookie]
"This is the oatmeal crème made with Hershey's® premier white chocolate."
"Wait, do we gotta, do we do a number between each of these?"
"Sure."
"Okay."
"Well, what was the oatmeal, what do you think, hmmm...I've got a number for oatmeal raisin."
"Okay. Ummm. I gotta think. Ok, I got a number...Oatmeal raisin from Classic Cookie. They're Classic Cookie. I love this guy."
"Okay."
"Is that what we called the episode, the last one? Good."
"Yeah."
"Good, good, good, good."
"That one is a 6.5"
"I gave that a 4."
"Really?"
"I don't like oatmeal raisin. I don't want my cookie to be healthy."
"I think that's better than a Chips Ahoy, because the texture is great."
"Texture's good, but if I was at a party, and I saw a really good oatmeal raisin and a Chips Ahoy, I still think I'd go Chips Ahoy."
"But if I had that and I had a Chips Ahoy, I would go back for that."
"Don't try to put, listen."
"I'm just saying..."
"Don't put shriveled grapes in my cookies. Put cookies in my cookies. I'm going 4. I'm going with my gut. My gut said 4."
"Okay."
"That's where the cookie is."
"I said 6.5...Oatmeal crème."
"Oatmeal crème."
[Both take a bite out of their cookie]
"If we don't give the oatmeal raisin a 4, people aren't going to buy the Reese's® one because it's an 8."
"I gave it a 6.5."
[Continue to chew]
"This one's better."
"This one's better."
"This one's a lot better."
"It's better, but only because it has chocolate where the raisins were."
"I, what, hold on - let me see that."
"I almost handed you the cookie, but you have one."
[Continues to chew]
"Yeah, this is better."
"Yeah. Alright, I got a number, do you got a number?"
"Yep - I got a number."
"Alright, what's your number?"
"7."
"7 for me."
"Yeah."
"That one's a 7. Good job, Classic Cookie, you got a 7."
"Oatmeal, still not convinced oatmeal's the cookie medium of choice, but the cream part of it is pretty good."
[Both grab the next cookie]
"This one is a...I didn't read the back."
"Macadamia Nut!"
"Ah!"
Both: "I love a MACADAMIA NUT!"
"Here's a problem: is this one also oatmeal? No. I can't, I can't...the oatmeal is lost on me."
"You're all oatmeal."
"I'm all, I'm 100% oatmeal."
"Hmm. Mmmm."
"I'm all oatmeal all the time."
"Hmm. I'm so full of food."
[Both continue chewing]
"Okay. You know what, I tasted both and I get the oatmeal."
"Let me jump back into the oatmeal here."
"I understand where the oatmeal is and how it's existing."
[Both continue to chew]
"You get it now?"
"Yep."
"Yeah."
"Yep. Yep. Yep."
"I got a number."
"I got a number."
"8"
"6"
"Really? Worse?"
"Little heavy on the white chocolate chips."
"Never a fault."
"Certainly not bad."
"Not a fault. No. Too many chocolates? Not a fault. We're saving chocolate chip for last."
"Oh yeah, that's the classic cookie."
[Both pull out the next cookie]
"Cinnabon® bakery inspired baked with Cinnabon® cinnamon and cream cheese chips."
"I. AM. EX. CITE. ED."
"This one's got cheese in it. Just like our..."
"You could've taken that out with your teeth, huh?"
"This one's hard to open."
"Landed on your teeth teeth."
"I've got three cookies and my fingers are covered in sweat."
"Wow, wow, you..you opened that in such an insane way. I don't know how you did that."
"I opened it up like Tarzan."
"Alright, here we've got Classic Cookie Cinnabon® bakery inspired baked with Cinnabon® cinnamon and cream cheese chips. I feel like this one is going to be a winner."
"Hard to miss - I'm going to say it now...hard to miss with Cinnabon®. But, but hot hot..."
"Hochi machi"
"Hochi. Hot chocolate this one's good."
[Both chew on their cookie]
"Wow. This one's really good."
"That's a home run of a cookie."
"That's a GOOD cookie. Holy crap. Why...I mean Classic Cookie, I got a sincere question: Why would you ever make a different cookie than this one? This one is so good!"
"...Woah."
"It's really sweet."
"It's really sweet. We're splitting half a cookie each - thank you for sending us two [Classic Cookie friend]."
"Yeah. You probably didn't know that we were going to eat dinner and another dinner and then cookies..."
"I did have dinner pie, another dinner, and now I'm having cookies."
"This is your second dessert."
"And these are also not small cookies."
"Yeah - these are hefty boys."
"I don't know what the pricing is on these because obviously as everyone knows, corpo sent them to us."
"Yeah."
"But..."
[Both continue to take bites and talk]
"Ok, so, Cameron is finishing up his whatever one."
"This one I might down the rest of, because this Cinnabon® one is good."
"What's your number, my man?"
"It's an 8.5"
"I'm going to go an 8 I think it's pretty even with Macadamia Nut for me."
"The, the...I think it's better than the Reese's® one from last step."
"And to be honest, it's been a minute, but I'm sure we...there were some..."
"You can have some, they're in there."
"Nah, I think 2.5 giant cookies is enough for me tonight."
"This is a bomb cookie."
"Yeah it's good."
"It's chewy, but not...in fact it's like bordering beyond cookie. It's so chewy."
"Oh, I thought you meant it's like 'not meat.' Like it's beyond cookie - beyond meat."
"Yeah, I don't think there's meat in any of these. I hope there isn't. Classic Cookie, if there's meat, in any of the cookies, you gotta tell people."
[After some more banter, they pull out the final cookie]
"This is chocolate chip...chocolate chip, the cookie itself, seems to have suffered some sort of travel error."
"Yeah - it had a cookie goof. But I mean, it's sugar and flour and chocolate."
"It's smaller and thicker than the rest, but it probably just got squished in the box."
"Yeah."
"It's chocolate chip..."
"This is chocolate chip made with mini Hershey's® kisses. A lot of these have like brand collabs..."
"...I'm going to dive into this bad boy."
[Both take a bite out of the cookie]
"I gotta take. I gotta take on this."
"What's your take? Take on me. Take me on."
"You know the weird salt?"
"Mmmhmm."
"It's starting to sneak in. I think it's because chocolate chips are a little bit salty, and whatever they are putting in their dough to not make it salty is unbalanced by the chocolate chips. Chocolate chip soft cookies are like a little bit salty. Maybe that means when we get soft and chewy cookies, we should get not chocolate chip, we should get like peanut butter."
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm getting it. This is a little closer to like this is what I would expect..."
"A soft baked cookie."
"...a soft baked cookie store bought cookie to taste like. It's not bad, and I do like the mini Hershey's® kisses. Big ol' chunky chocos that's what is in this guy."
"Yeah, they're thick."
"I'm pretty into. I will say the texture of these cookies - it's good."
"Yeah. It's real good."
"If you're a soft cookie person..."
"This is fresh out of the oven texture."
"Yeah - it's not like mushy, but it is chewy...which probably doesn't make a lot of sense to people who haven't eaten a cookie every two weeks for the last 92 weeks."
"No - 184 weeks."
"Oh, 184 weeks! Which is understandable, I get that. But also, this cookie is a...6."
"6 was my number too. You'd think chocolate chip would be like the peak of this roster...it is not. Cinnabon® is the peak of the roster."
"Woah...it's insane because it's like it's unmistakably the Cinnabon® one...we're getting back into the Cinnabon® one."
"Yeah."
"I mean, it's, okay...it's a chocolate chip cookie."
"Yeah."
"It's a chocolate chip cookie."
"Of course."
"It's not bad, I gave it a 6. It's fine. It's good."
"Of course."
"This Cinnabon® one though..."
"Yeah."
"It is like gone beyond just a cookie. It feels like its own thing. It's cinnamony. It's got the cream cheese stuff."
"Yeah - it's bananas."
"It might have bananas in it."
[They banter back and forth more]
"There's water, and oil and milk and cocoa butter and iron and stuff like that..."
"...It's got nonfat dry milk."
"Nice. What's a shame is that the serving size is one cookie and not two-and-a-half cookies, because that's what we've had."
"So, something else, listen - we're going dive into the company here a little bit."
"Okay."
"One thing I like about this..."
"Yeah."
"'Manufactured by Mannon Specialty Foods, Inc. Sevierville, TN.'"
"Yeah."
"It's so easy to just get your like cookies from like...these are cookies from a cookie factory from in like cookie country, and bring them in...'the company is headquartered in Severville,' blah blah blah. No, getting these cookies right from Sevierville huh?"
"They didn't ship very far..."
"...This Cinnabon® one is really good."
"Yeah."
"There are a couple, I think the lowest [rated] one is a 6."
"No, you had a 4 for oatmeal raisin."
"That's a personal thing. The cookie itself was fine. It's just oatmeal raisin. C'mon guys. Don't, listen, nobody needs to buy an oatmeal raisin cookie."
"Because if you are eating an oatmeal raisin cookie, you might as well be eating a salad."
"If you are eating an oatmeal raisin cookie, it's like the same thing as having a raw cucumber...it's good for you."
"It's good for you - is that what it was?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Okay, it's good for you."
"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."
"If you are going an oatmeal raisin cookie, seriously, okay, seriously, if you are having an oatmeal raisin cookie, just have oatmeal with raisins in it. You're going to feel better."
"This is not a flaw of the Classic Cookie company. This is a flaw of the invention of the oatmeal raisin cookie."
"No, no, this is, listen. Any cookie company that makes an oatmeal raisin cookie, it's just money on the table - you could be making more of these Cinnabon® cookies. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"Do you think there's someone out there who is like I am crazy for oatmeal raisin?"
"Grandmas?"
"So far, what we know of these bad boys is that they make six types of cookies, and one of them is oatmeal raisin."
"They make at least seven because I see double chocolate Hershey's® there on the side of the box..."
[More banter between the two on the Classic Cookie box]
"...This is the box that goes like in the shelf.."
"In the fridge..."
"...at the grocery store and you go and pick yourself out one of these cookies."
"...and you go and grab one..."
[More banter on the box]
"...It's a smart box. It's smart packaging - one cookie per paper thing."
"Yeah, if you are going to sell big cookies as like a...cookie snack, that's a pretty smooth move. I like how the box is itself."
"It's good."
"I don't know what the average was for all of these because we did 50,000 cookies..."
"I'm going to give Classic Cookie, out of all the brands we've worked with..."
"Best brand we've ever worked with."
"Best brand we've worked with."
"I can say that right now."
Listen to the full Tough Cookies podcast episode 92 on any one of these streaming links
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