Ginger, one of Curious Cookie’s four sugar-free flavors.

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October 2005

Product Reviews / Diet Nibbles / Diet Cookies

Curious Cookie

Gourmet Sugar-Free Or Gluten-Free Cookies With Homemade Appeal

Curious Cookie is a relatively new company that bakes very tasty regular, sugar-free and gluten-free gourmet cookies using organic and natural ingredients. A retail bakery, their fresh-baked cookies bridge a look between professional and homemade—and that’s a good thing. Homey enough to give the brand a certain comfort appeal, yet uniform so as to look spiffy on a platter or in a gift box, it’s a nicely difference concept. The cookies will be especially appreciated by foodies with sugar or wheat restrictions. Both sugar-free and gluten-free lines are good adaptations of the regular cookies, and are so good that no one eating them need feel “restricted.”

Sugar-Free

The sugar-free cookies are made with Splenda (sucralose) and a little raisin juice fructose. The regular Belgian chocolate chips are replaced by maltitol chocolate chips. Currently, four flavors are made and all are worth trying (they are sold in a convenient assortment as well as in individual flavors). In order of our preference, they are:

• Mocha Chip
• Chocolate Chip
• Oatmeal Macadamia
• Ginger

The cookies have a nice chew, the ingredients are first quality, and there are no artificial flavors. The net take-away is a cookie that you could have baked yourself (although you couldn’t have made them look this perfectly uniform). There is a big however, which is that there is a very low level of sweetener. The result is a style that is more biscuit with a hint of sweetness than a truly sweet cookie. At this level of quality, while both sweet and savory options would be welcome, here we really want the sweet.

Sugar-Free Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies.

But these cookies are still very tasty. In Mocha Chip and Chocolate Chip the maltitol chocolate adds more sweetness; the macadamia adds nuttiness and texture to Oatmeal Macadamia; and ground ginger shines through all the more in the Ginger cookie, without much else to mask it.

Sugar-Free Oatmeal Macadamia Cookies.

The low level of sweetness can easily be offset by pairing the cookies with a sweetened beverage (they were lovely with tea) or sugar-free ice cream (we are partial to Breyers® Carb Smart).  This is not a low-calorie product: a one-ounce cookie ranges from 119 calories (77 calories from fat) for Ginger to 132 calories (93 calories from fat) for Oatmeal Macadamia.   Gluten-Free

There are four gluten-free flavors, and with the exception of perennial favorite chocolate chip, they are a curiously different assortment from sugar-free (or not so curiously—see the comment below about protocols to ensure gluten-free cookies are not mixed in or mixed up with the others).

The flavors (with their calorie counts) include:

• Ginger Cranberry/138
• Lemon Chocolate Chip/149
• Chocolate Chip/169
• Chocolate Chocolate Chip/172

While we do not typically eat gluten-free baked goods, we had no problem polishing off a box of these. If you expect a gluten-free product to “taste like one,” you will be pleasantly surprised. If you have friends with gluten restrictions, they will thank you for the introduction.

Gluten-Free Lemon Chocolate Chip Cookies.

While the gluten-free cookies are made in the same facility, gluten-free dough is made on dedicated days and in a special size to help eliminate potential identification mistakes. The cookies never are baked on single-use parchment paper and are packed with single-use sanitary latex or vinyl gloves. Some dedicated equipment is used. Curious Cookie is a peanut-free facility. There are macadamia nuts in other cookie lines, although not in the gluten free line.

Curious Cookies are all natural with no preservatives and no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils (organic non-hydrogenated palm fruit oil is used in the sugar-free cookies). The sugar-free cookies also are lactose-free and casein-free. Anticipating heavy gifting, Curious Cookie has an assortment of tins and gift baskets for every occasion.

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