WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: We're taste-testing store-bought chocolate chip cookies!
Welcome! We're veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, authors of three dozen cookbooks with more than a million copies sold over the years.
Our latest, out in November, 2023, is THE LOOK & COOK AIR FRYER BIBLE. It's a comprehensive look at using your air fryer to its full potential with over 700 photographs, one for every step of every recipe. You can find it here.
In this episode of our food and cooking podcast, we're taste-testing store-bought chocolate chip cookies. See which we think are worth the calories (and money) and which are best given a pass.
We've also got a one-minute cooking tip. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week.
Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[01:10] Our one-minute cooking tip: Fry in tall or deep pots to reduce the splatters.
[05:31] Our taste-tests of store-bought chocolate chip cookies. We'll rate them and let you know how the stand up to each other. Join in the fun!
[15:55] What’s making us happy in food this week? Pork ribs and half sour pickles!
Transcript
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Speaker:And I'm Mark s Scarborough.
Speaker:And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen cookbooks, including the
Speaker:latest, the Look and Cook Air Fryer Bible.
Speaker:It is out this November of 2023.
Speaker:If you're listening to this podcast in real time, that's still yet ahead of us in
Speaker:the future is a great Christmas gift, 704.
Speaker:Four photos, every single step of every single recipe photographed a complete
Speaker:air fryer guide to say the least.
Speaker:All hands are Bruce's and the kitchen where it's shot is actually ours.
Speaker:So it's actually a peek into our personal life.
Speaker:And for a peek inside the book, even before it comes out, if you're
Speaker:listening before November 13th.
Speaker:It is gone.
Speaker:Our tiktok channel.
Speaker:I have posted videos.
Speaker:You could see some of the stuff in the recipes there.
Speaker:Guess what?
Speaker:Our tiktok channel is named Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Speaker:Yeah, we did that on purpose.
Speaker:Anyway, today we've got a one minute cooking tip as is traditional.
Speaker:We're going to do a taste test of chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker:That's coming up and we'll tell you what's making us happy and food this week.
Speaker:So let's get started.
Speaker:This week's Cooking tip is about how to minimize the splatter and mess when you
Speaker:are frying, whether you're deep frying or just, you know, every now and then
Speaker:I just want to make, you know, cutlets.
Speaker:I want to make schnitzel.
Speaker:What a mess it makes.
Speaker:So here's the problem.
Speaker:We all tend to do this shallow frying in skillets, right?
Speaker:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker:That's how my mother did it.
Speaker:I know, but we all have.
Speaker:I have stock pots.
Speaker:I have roasting pans that can go on the stove.
Speaker:I have so many things that are tall and high sided and the taller and higher
Speaker:sided is the less of that splatter makes it up and out onto your stove.
Speaker:So I don't know my mother and grandmother fried and frying pans.
Speaker:Use a Dutch oven and use That's perfect, right?
Speaker:You can get your little bit of oil.
Speaker:You have to be careful about the oil.
Speaker:I mean, because I think you might tend to put more oil in
Speaker:a Dutch oven, a frying pan.
Speaker:Of course, the point is you can't put my grandmother didn't deep fry chicken.
Speaker:She pan fried it in about about three quarters of a
Speaker:shallow frying.
Speaker:It's called in the business.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's how she made fried chicken.
Speaker:So
Speaker:and if you shallow fry in a Skillet or a saucepan that has a two inch side, you
Speaker:are going to get splatter everywhere.
Speaker:It was the kitchen was always a disaster.
Speaker:If you do it in a taller pan, you do run the risk of splattering
Speaker:yourself when you reach in.
Speaker:So you have to be a little more careful, but you will save
Speaker:a kitchen from being a mess.
Speaker:Now, I saw this TikTok video where this guy said, Is your mother like
Speaker:this every time my mother fries?
Speaker:And this woman had covered her entire stove in tinfoil, leaving only...
Speaker:No, flame open.
Speaker:No, she was making eggplant parm.
Speaker:And every time she did it, she claims that her stove got gross.
Speaker:So don't use skillet use a dutch oven.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Again.
Speaker:My grandmother's kitchen was a wreck after she fried chicken.
Speaker:I now I'm going to tell you something that you may not know.
Speaker:Well, I think Bruce maybe knows it.
Speaker:I better know it after 27 years.
Speaker:My grandmother wallpapered her kitchen and in this really Peace.
Speaker:psychedelic, this is 60s, late 60s, this psychedelic floral wallpaper,
Speaker:even behind the stove, um, everywhere.
Speaker:And then she put a second, but this time reflective silver psychedelic wallpaper
Speaker:all over the ceiling, the entire room, even the ceiling was wallpapered.
Speaker:In psychedelic weirdness, big, giant flowers.
Speaker:And then she took some of those big flowers in the new, in the
Speaker:wallpaper and she cut them out and she stuck them randomly on,
Speaker:she glued them onto the wallpaper.
Speaker:So there was even more flowers.
Speaker:On the ceiling and on the walls.
Speaker:So even the pattern on the walls was disrupted by more flowers.
Speaker:The late sixties and early seventies was the best time for design ever.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:I'm so in love with that style.
Speaker:It was just imprinted on me when I was nine to 14 years old.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I think I suffered the wounds of wallpaper.
Speaker:So I think I'm out.
Speaker:Um, all right.
Speaker:Before we get to the next segment of our podcast, let me say
Speaker:that we do have a newsletter.
Speaker:It is sent out once every two to three weeks.
Speaker:I think we've been out three weeks now, but once every two to three weeks, it's
Speaker:not a constant thing in your inbox.
Speaker:But if you'd like to be a part of that newsletter, which sometimes
Speaker:has the recipes from this podcast, it sometimes has the books from.
Speaker:Authors of this podcast.
Speaker:It has all different kinds of information on it.
Speaker:If you'd like to be a part of that newsletter, you can sign
Speaker:up on our website, BruceMMR.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:And again, I don't capture your email or your name, all I see are numbers.
Speaker:So you can unsubscribe at any given moment.
Speaker:And I will never, ever, ever, in fact, I can't sell your email
Speaker:address to anyone else to spam you.
Speaker:So if you want to be a part of that newsletter, sign up and join the
Speaker:thousands of happy family people.
Speaker:Sound like Lucy's only happy peppy people who are part of our newsletter.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Okay, wait, that's Lucille ball for all those people who are
Speaker:not going to know who Lucy is.
Speaker:Cause you just throw that out like, cause we're old and old
Speaker:when you say Lucy, that's okay.
Speaker:But a lot of people aren't going to know.
Speaker:May I remind you that the photographer who shoots our books did not know who Karen
Speaker:Carpenter did not know Karen Carpenter
Speaker:and it wounded me.
Speaker:So what can I say?
Speaker:He's.
Speaker:I'm 37 and I'm a million, but still, I can't, I'm not old enough that
Speaker:I didn't see Lucy on when Lucy was on real, like in the evenings.
Speaker:I saw Lucy in syndication in repeats.
Speaker:That's how old I am, but it was still repeated every day.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Up next.
Speaker:Enough about Lucy for God's sake.
Speaker:Up next on the podcast, we are going to do a chocolate chip
Speaker:cookie taste test of store bought brands of chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker:This is not about homemade.
Speaker:Instead about the stuff you can buy at your supermarket, I wish you
Speaker:could be here in the studio with me.
Speaker:I am looking at a table full of bags of chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker:So here's what I did.
Speaker:I went to the supermarket and I bought five of the most recognizable and
Speaker:seemingly popular bagged cookies.
Speaker:Package chocolate chip cookies that were there.
Speaker:Some of them were fairly expensive.
Speaker:Um, and some of them were not expensive.
Speaker:We're not going to taste them in any given
Speaker:order.
Speaker:So I can just open any one.
Speaker:Just
Speaker:open.
Speaker:So he's reaching for the famous famous famous famous cookies started in
Speaker:New York as just a little I believe they started at Bloomingdale's.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:I know Mrs Field started at Bloomingdale's famous.
Speaker:Amos may have to was one little store and maybe then they were so hoping
Speaker:stores everywhere and now they're just in supermarkets and bags and I Loved
Speaker:them.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now I've opened the bag.
Speaker:I, I, I don't know.
Speaker:This is a famous Amos Belgian chocolate bite and says bite size cookies.
Speaker:These are the small ones.
Speaker:I didn't, I didn't read the label.
Speaker:So when I saw, when I opened it and looked down in the bag, the first thing I thought
Speaker:was chip because they're so tiny chip.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I love them because they are tiny.
Speaker:Um, but also.
Speaker:I have to say that the aroma coming out of the bag isn't all that appetizing to me.
Speaker:Oh, to me it smells like Famous Amos.
Speaker:That is the smell of Famous Amos cookies.
Speaker:Maybe it's just my southern roots and I don't get it.
Speaker:And
Speaker:Famous Amos cookies are the kinds of things you can even
Speaker:get in little gift size bags.
Speaker:It's sandy.
Speaker:It's sandy.
Speaker:I don't like it.
Speaker:You don't like that.
Speaker:No, I don't like it.
Speaker:It's sandy.
Speaker:Oh, I love these.
Speaker:Um, here's the thing.
Speaker:No, wait.
Speaker:Okay, here's the thing.
Speaker:The first ingredient is chocolate, which means there's more chocolate.
Speaker:Mark and I have a theory about chocolate chip cookies that there
Speaker:should be just enough dough to hold the chocolate chips together.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:And these...
Speaker:The first ingredient is chocolate and it's
Speaker:very chippy.
Speaker:I don't like the texture.
Speaker:It's too sandy.
Speaker:And I don't like soft cookies.
Speaker:But I like crunchy cookies.
Speaker:These are crunchy.
Speaker:So, so we just put, uh, so we, uh, wait.
Speaker:So, out of 10, what would you rate it?
Speaker:I
Speaker:would give those a 6 out of 10.
Speaker:I would give it a 3.
Speaker:5.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Alright, I'm gonna go.
Speaker:Now, okay, the Keebler.
Speaker:Now, everybody knows Keebler.
Speaker:Now, the thing is, I couldn't find just a plain chocolate chip,
Speaker:so these have M& M's in them.
Speaker:Oh, well,
Speaker:then it's better.
Speaker:So, um, get this open.
Speaker:Ooh, I love these kind of tear the open packages.
Speaker:You can see some are missing because I've already had some earlier in the week.
Speaker:Wait, you already are into this package?
Speaker:Now, these look like okay chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker:Um, mine has this M& M stuck to the side of it.
Speaker:Ooh, it's a tumor.
Speaker:Like a tumor.
Speaker:Yeah, and it's blue.
Speaker:I like these better than the Famous Amos.
Speaker:I have to say, I like them better.
Speaker:But I will tell you this about these.
Speaker:My first reaction to this is sugar.
Speaker:These are noticeably sweeter.
Speaker:They're much sweeter.
Speaker:I don't like them better than Famous Amos because of the sweetness.
Speaker:I want to look at the package and see what the first ingredient is.
Speaker:First ingredient is flour.
Speaker:It says more flour than anything.
Speaker:Now, see, I like the Famous Amos better.
Speaker:These are really sweet.
Speaker:But
Speaker:I like the overall,
Speaker:I just don't like this.
Speaker:I like the texture better.
Speaker:They're not
Speaker:soft, but they're still not crunchy like I homemade them.
Speaker:Um, so where would you rate it?
Speaker:These, if I gave Amos a 6, I would give these a 5.
Speaker:I would give
Speaker:these about a 4.
Speaker:5.
Speaker:It's a little better for me than a famous Amos.
Speaker:The overly sweetness of them kind of kills it for me.
Speaker:Okay, let's go to Pepperidge Farm, because Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:These are their Nantucket chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:Man, okay, now I remember Pepperidge Farm cookies from back in the day before
Speaker:I was an official cookbook writer.
Speaker:Um, I can say just looking at it that there are chunks
Speaker:of chocolate in this thing.
Speaker:Yeah, it's not
Speaker:chips, it's chunks.
Speaker:Great texture.
Speaker:Better texture.
Speaker:And also,
Speaker:not as sweet.
Speaker:Not as sweet, but not enough chocolate.
Speaker:I'm not getting as much chocolate as the Infamous
Speaker:Amos.
Speaker:Well, there were giant chunks of chocolate, but you almost have
Speaker:to plan out your bites to get the
Speaker:chunk.
Speaker:Flour is the first ingredient, once again.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then chocolate.
Speaker:Oh, these are made with butter, which is why maybe you like the flavor better.
Speaker:I do like the flavor better.
Speaker:And they're made with brown sugar.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, the butter and brown sugar give these a more homemade taste.
Speaker:So, would you rate it?
Speaker:I would give these a six and a half.
Speaker:I would
Speaker:give these a six.
Speaker:I would say if I said that the famous AMO were three and a half, what do they say
Speaker:in the The Keebler were a four and a half.
Speaker:You said?
Speaker:Four and a half?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I'd give these about a six.
Speaker:These are good.
Speaker:They're getting close to what I want to dunk in a cup of tea or a cup of coffee.
Speaker:So let's now go to Chips Ahoy.
Speaker:The Chips Ahoy.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Someone else has been into these already.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think Na, she's learned how to open the pantry.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't think our dog really.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now the look of them.
Speaker:It's not good.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:They look like elementary school packaged cookies.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Nah.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:I could tell you after one bite.
Speaker:I know neither of us even finished eating the cookie.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Mm mm.
Speaker:I put it back.
Speaker:Those, you know what those taste like?
Speaker:Uh uh.
Speaker:Those taste like the cookies that they give away free at the car dealership
Speaker:when I bring in the car for them.
Speaker:That's exactly what they are.
Speaker:They, they're the kind of cookies that places like , shyster lawyers
Speaker:and car repair places have out on the table with the coffee.
Speaker:I mean, those are really, they're, they're rather tasteless.
Speaker:Tasteless.
Speaker:I get almost no chocolate from it.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, it says real chocolate chip cookies, but I don't know what that means.
Speaker:I do taste a lot of sugar.
Speaker:I don't taste enough chocolate.
Speaker:I'm left actually in an aftertaste.
Speaker:As I'm sitting here with the aftertaste of flour,
Speaker:I'm left with an aftertaste of fake.
Speaker:There's just a fakeness that I don't like.
Speaker:Well, I just taste flour.
Speaker:Like, like, if you ever dip your finger in flour and then lick it,
Speaker:which you should because it, it tells you something about baking.
Speaker:It tells you when things are over floured.
Speaker:But it, it tastes like flour.
Speaker:Now, okay, so I would give Chips Ahoy!
Speaker:original cookies about a 2.
Speaker:5.
Speaker:Wow, I would have gone down to a 2.
Speaker:Okay, fine, a 2.
Speaker:That's, for neither of us is that worth.
Speaker:So our last cookie that we're going to try here.
Speaker:It's the most expensive I
Speaker:bought.
Speaker:It's
Speaker:the Tate's Bake Shop cookies and these, these are everywhere.
Speaker:Even they even sell these in our vet's office.
Speaker:in the gift shop.
Speaker:They do and they have.
Speaker:'cause when you go into our vet's office in the gift shop to buy all
Speaker:your dog treats and food, they have human treats at the counter to try and
Speaker:get you, and they sell these there.
Speaker:But I got these at the supermarket, you know?
Speaker:It's kind of bad because dogs aren't supposed to have chocolate, right?
Speaker:So, it's not, this isn't like
Speaker:You know when they're packaged with a bag within a bag
Speaker:And here's a thing And I don't know if this is a thing or not,
Speaker:but Does anybody ever make treats that you can share with your dog?
Speaker:I'm being very serious.
Speaker:Oh, is there a book here?
Speaker:No, we know that that book was a huge and it's a publishing historical mythology.
Speaker:There was a book about cooking meals that you and your dog could share,
Speaker:and they paid a fortune for it.
Speaker:The publisher paid a seven figure advance, which is a ton of money for a book,
Speaker:and they paid a seven figure advance, and the book sold like three copies.
Speaker:So, well, I'm already looking at the ingredients.
Speaker:I'm wondering if
Speaker:anybody has ever made any treats that you could share with your dog.
Speaker:These actually look like homemade.
Speaker:They do.
Speaker:Now I can tell looking at it, there's not enough chocolate chips.
Speaker:There's not enough.
Speaker:Yes, butter.
Speaker:Yes, brown sugar.
Speaker:Flour is the first ingredient, not chocolate.
Speaker:But the texture
Speaker:is right.
Speaker:The texture
Speaker:tastes like a homemade cookie.
Speaker:That is the closest to a homemade cookie taste.
Speaker:If you take a bite with a chocolate chip, it's so buttery, it's crazy.
Speaker:Oh my god, these are good.
Speaker:They're so
Speaker:buttery.
Speaker:This is what I like in chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker:I like a lot of, I don't like soft cookies, so
Speaker:I'm just telling you my bias.
Speaker:But I could count the number of chips here and it's not enough.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:So, this wins on the buttery flavor.
Speaker:In fact, it may even be overly buttery.
Speaker:No, no such thing.
Speaker:Cause I've swallowed my piece.
Speaker:And my mouth just has a butter flavor going on.
Speaker:I would give the Tate's homemade, uh, baked chocolate
Speaker:cookies, I give it an eight.
Speaker:That's what I would give it an 8.
Speaker:I'll, I'll give it a, almost an 7.
Speaker:9.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:These taste buttery, they're very crunchy, and that's again my thing.
Speaker:It's a bias.
Speaker:I like crunchy cookies.
Speaker:I liked, I gave the Tate such a high mark because it's so close to homemade.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:Famous Amos, I think I have to raise them from a 6 to a 7, because the chocolate,
Speaker:there's so much chocolate in the
Speaker:Famous Amos.
Speaker:Well, yeah, and there's not enough chocolate, to be honest.
Speaker:I mean, their packaging says on the tates, crispy, thin, scrumptious.
Speaker:And they are.
Speaker:And they are indeed what they live up to that and I have to say that
Speaker:the picture on the bag here of tates does not look like the cookies inside
Speaker:the cookies are thinner and crunchier
Speaker:than they pick the ones for the photo that have a zillion chocolate chips
Speaker:if you match them to the ones in there maybe one cookie in the package
Speaker:I still would buy
Speaker:the tates again I still like the taste of it the best for me Um, but you know,
Speaker:it's all about bias and what you think.
Speaker:So if you'd like to talk about chocolate chip cookies and you'd like to weigh in
Speaker:on purchase, not homemade, but purchase chocolate chip cookies that you can
Speaker:buy just at a supermarket, let us know.
Speaker:You can check us out on our Facebook page, cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Speaker:We'd love to hear from you there.
Speaker:This.
Speaker:Episode of the podcast will be posted there and you can
Speaker:weigh in with your thoughts.
Speaker:Before we get to the last segment of our podcast, it'd be great if
Speaker:you could subscribe, read, you know, all that stuff you have to do.
Speaker:Surely I don't have to do that old ponies, dog dance pod, dog and pony.
Speaker:What is it?
Speaker:Pony and dog and pony show.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:That anyway, it's a show.
Speaker:It's a spectacle where that involves dogs and ponies.
Speaker:Um, Um, I've had too much sugar.
Speaker:So, if you'd like to subscribe and rate, that would be fabulous.
Speaker:And otherwise, I'm going to really slow down and tell you what's
Speaker:making me happy in food this week.
Speaker:What is it?
Speaker:Oh, well, for me, it would be these.
Speaker:sweet and sticky pork ribs that Bruce made.
Speaker:He shot a video which will soon be out on TikTok channels, on Instagram, and
Speaker:on Facebook all around you for these sweet and sticky ribs from an air fryer.
Speaker:And they were really delicious.
Speaker:I swore I was going to eat one and then I just snuck one after he, uh, tested, well,
Speaker:shot the videos and worked on the videos.
Speaker:He's now editing them so you can find them soon.
Speaker:They're really delicious.
Speaker:They're from our new book.
Speaker:that is coming out, or has come out, depending on when you're
Speaker:listening, in early November.
Speaker:And the title of these ribs are actually better than Chinese takeout style ribs,
Speaker:and they are sweet, and they are sticky, and they're really got carried away
Speaker:there, didn't
Speaker:I?
Speaker:And I show you how to make them, and they're really yummy.
Speaker:And what's making me happy is something you can eat with those ribs.
Speaker:It's half sour pickles.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:I have discovered the...
Speaker:The truth behind half sour pickles is that there's no vinegar.
Speaker:The truth behind making them at home.
Speaker:Behind making them at home is you don't add vinegar.
Speaker:They really are a fermented product.
Speaker:And you've got to find the right Kirby cucumbers.
Speaker:And you put them in a big jar with the right salt brine.
Speaker:And inside of the week you have crunchy, crunchy pickles.
Speaker:And everyone I've been giving them to takes a bite and
Speaker:goes, Where's the corned beef?
Speaker:Yeah, they really are real delicatessen.
Speaker:Oh wait, listen to me.
Speaker:Delicatessen.
Speaker:I've got some kind of weird German accent.
Speaker:Delicatessen.
Speaker:Going on.
Speaker:Um, I, I, I think they really do remind me of what we to get
Speaker:like, uh, what was that big place?
Speaker:Um, Katz's and second Avenue deli.
Speaker:They remind me of the Ben's in New York City.
Speaker:They remind me of the half sours from there.
Speaker:And I, I prefer half sours to full sours and you have to live in New
Speaker:York to even know what I mean by that,
Speaker:but okay.
Speaker:And I will never live without a half gallon tub of these fermenting
Speaker:in my refrigerator from now
Speaker:on.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So that's the podcast for this week.
Speaker:Kind of weird, right?
Speaker:A taste test of store bought chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker:Again, if you have a favorite that you think should be highlighted,
Speaker:we'd love to see that in the Facebook group, Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Speaker:Otherwise we will see you next week on another episode of this
Speaker:podcast, Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
