Market Pantry Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies - Target - Cherry Hill, NJ

Market Pantry Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies - Target - Cherry Hill, NJ

The Pepperidge Farm pumpkin cheesecake cookies were very soft and chewy, but expensive, and they didn't taste very pumpkin-y at all. Maybe these sandwich style Target brand cookies will be better.

I've talked about Market Pantry being a no frills brand before, which means they skimp on packaging to provide a cheaper product, so I'm going to skip over discussing the package itself. Instead, I'm going to focus on the photograph featured on the box. Although these cookies are supposed to be the same flavor as the Pepperidge farm cookies, they tackle the cheesecake aspect in different ways. This time the cookies are sandwich style, instead of large soft cookies, and the cheesecake flavoring is limited to the creamy filling. (Similar to an Oreo.) Judging by the photo, these cookie look a lot like ginger snaps, and they seem pretty small.

Once opened, it seems like a lot of my assumptions were correct
.
The cookies are significantly smaller than the Pepperidge Farm variety, about the size of an Oreo, and this time the cookies are very crispy and hard (like a gingersnap). I like my cookies (or biscuits) to be on the crispy and crunchy side, so I am really looking forward to this one.

When I peeled the plastic open, the cookies smell a bit like pumpkin pie spice, but that tangy artificial vanilla cream cheese aroma from the filling is very strong. (I found it really unappetizing.)

When eaten together, the cookie adds a deliciously crunchy texture to the tangy creme filling. Out of the two elements, cookies and creme, the creme definitely overpowers everything else. Which is unfortunate, because the cookie seems like it would be amazing on it's own. I decided to separate the two and review them individually.

On their own, the cookies have a mild spiced flavoring with a really crispy texture. Unlike the Pepperidge farm variety, these actually have a nice amount of pumpkin spice, although if you hadn't seen the box you could easily mistake this for a generic spiced cookie. These were crispy, delicious, and excellent when dunked in milk.

The creme filling was really thick and tangy. It starts out tasting like a generic vanilla cream cheese icing, like the ones in plastic tubs in the baking aisle, but there is this really off putting tangy sour aftertaste. It actually reminds me of that weird instant Yoo-hoo powder I reviewed a year ago. (Oh man, that stuff was so awful. Even thinking about how it tasted makes me shudder.)

Target, I think you missed an awesome opportunity to sell these as plain old pumpkin spiced cookies. I think a lot of people would have bought these without the creme filling and cheesecake gimmick, but there is always next year.

On a Pumpkin Scale of 1-5 (5 being the most pumpkin-y) I’d give this a 2 for the cookie alone. Combined, I'd have to say maybe a 1.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net

Like me on facebook to keep up with all my adventures!