We Tried the New Girl Scout Cookies
Girl Scout cookie sale time is an aggressive one. If you haven’t already been hit up in person by your family, your neighbor, or your colleagues, it’s pretty likely your inbox is full of order request forms via the Scouts’ new Digital Cookie platform. In other words: There’s no escaping it, so you might as well order your annual 40 boxes of Thin Mints and move on.
This season the Girl Scouts rolled out two gluten-free flavors for select test markets, one of which made its way to the Boston area: Trios. Unlike its boxed predecessors, Trios come in a resealable plastic bag (honestly, shouldn’t they all?) and feature an tempting descriptor: “chocolate chips nestled in a gluten-free peanut butter oatmeal cookie.’’
Sounds great, right? Plus, all Girl Scout cookies are historically pretty excellent on the (purely subjective) scale of “Yeah, I’ll eat a couple’’ to “Sorry, I ate the entire sleeve.’’
We received two bags of test Trios from ABC Bakers, the Virginia-based bakery that supplies New England’s Girl Scouts with their goods. And we ate them.
And … they were not great, but we wouldn’t quite call them bad either. While folks who actually eat gluten-free items by choice said the cookies were “a lot better’’ than most of the other options out there, the general consensus/running joke of the mostly gluten-eating office was that the Trios “could use a little gluten.’’
Texture was the predominant complaint, which makes sense, because yes, a little gluten would give the cookie a less crumbly, more favorable mouthfeel. One colleague, who liked the cookie and declared it “relatively healthy for a mass-produced treat,’’ said the problem might be rectified by “a smidge more peanut butter.’’ Another echoed the sentiment, but noted the cookie itself was “like pulverized cardboard.’’
The main ingredient of Trios is certified gluten-free whole grain oats, and man, are they prevalent. Multiple testers said the cookie reminded them of a protein bar, a weird notion considering that Trios’ list of ingredients is impressively brief and protein powder is not included. Chocolate chips, peanut butter, butter, and pure cane brown sugar should, in theory, create a solid cookie. But here we are, with a cookie that just doesn’t live up to its glutenous cookie cousins.
As Aristotle said: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Or perhaps the parts are better off without being whole-sum.
Maybe just stick with the 40 boxes of Thin Mints.
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