It seems as though every few years, Americans embrace a new dessert trend. Like the frozen yogurt craze of the 2010s, cookie chains have been taking the US by storm in recent years.
However, one chain stands out as the country’s fastest-growing cookie company: Crumbl.
Since its first location opened in Utah in 2017, the dessert chain has expanded to over 1,000 locations in all 50 US states, Puerto Rico, and Canada.
Though the first store only sold milk-chocolate-chip cookies, Crumbl now offers a rotating weekly selection of six desserts at a time and has featured over 200 varieties on its menu.
Trying to pick which weekly option to choose can feel like a lot of pressure. To help sort out which types of Crumbl cookies are the best, I sampled 22 desserts over multiple visits and ranked them from worst to best.
Here’s what I thought of the flavors I tried.
Crumbl’s wedding-cake cookie was even too sweet for my 3-year-old.
It wasn’t easy to choose a last-place cookie — they’re all cookies, after all. However, the wedding-cake flavor was my least favorite. I loved the little white-chocolate baubles that decorated the cookie, which made for crunchy little explosions of texture and flavor.
But the raspberry flavor in the frosting was so assertive that even my 3-year-old — who loves almost all sweet, sparkly, pink, frosted things — took half a bite and turned the cookie away.
My 6-year-old, however, had no such issues, declaring, “Nothing’s too sweet for me.”
The frosting on the pistachio-gelato cookie had a pudding-like texture.
The pistachio-gelato cookie looked adorable in the store display, decorated with a miniature cone made out of a Muddy Bites snack.
The gelato-inspired frosting had a pudding-like texture and was extremely sweet with a strong pistachio flavor. In my opinion, it tasted like a concentrated form of pistachio ice cream. I also found the underlying cookie to be dense and bland.
Crumbl’s toffee cake tasted like something I’d find at the supermarket.
Crumbl’s toffee cake sounded like something I’d like: chocolate cake with caramel sauce, whipped cream, and a crumbled chocolate-toffee bar on top.
I liked the incorporation of the whipped cream, which helped keep the cake moist without being as densely sweet as most of Crumbl’s other frostings.
But the caramel sauce between the cake and whipped cream made it a soggy mess, and it tasted more like something I’d find at the supermarket than a freshly made cake or cookie at this price point.
The lemon-poppy cookie was divisive in my household.
The lemon-poppy flavor proved divisive in my household. My wife, who loves lemony desserts, ranked this cookie among her favorites.
For me, however, the glaze made it a touch too sweet, and the lemon flavor, while strong, wasn’t quite as tart or as bright as I would’ve liked.
I did appreciate the noticeable poppy flavor, as poppy seeds usually seem like an afterthought in many muffins.
My 3-year-old loved the cake-batter blondie.
I feel a little bad ranking the cake-batter blondie this low because my 3-year-old loved it so much. But she’s 3 — rainbow sprinkles are her favorite food.
To be fair, the cookie tasted exactly as I expected it would — extremely sweet and uncomplicated, perfect for the 3-year-old palate. However, it was a bit one-note, even for my 6-year-old.
The strawberry-crumb-cake cookie was unexpectedly bland.
I had high hopes for the strawberry-crumb-cake cookie. Although I love strawberries, I can’t remember ever eating a cookie with strawberries inside or on top.
However, even with white-chocolate chips and a strawberry-streusel topping, I found this cookie unexpectedly bland. The strawberry flavor was definitely real, which I appreciated, but there wasn’t very much of it.
The streusel also seemed like an afterthought and didn’t add much texture to the cookie. Overall, it was fine but a little disappointing.
The semi-sweet-chocolate-chunk cookie is a chocolate lover’s dream.
Unsurprisingly, chocolate-chip cookies are one of Crumbl’s calling cards, and the menu alternates weekly between the milk-chocolate-chip version and the semi-sweet chocolate chunk.
The semi-sweet variety uses lots of bulky chocolate chunks, making it a chocolate lover’s dream. I found it met my expectations for a chocolate-chip cookie without exceeding them.
A few bites of the crunchier outer portion of the cookie had a little chalkiness to the texture, but not nearly enough to make it unpleasant.
I was disappointed that Crumbl’s kitchen-sink cookie didn’t have many pretzels or potato chips.
Crumbl’s kitchen-sink cookie is a semi-sweet-chocolate-chip cookie rolled in pretzels and potato chips. I love cookies that incorporate pretzels, but in my opinion, the execution of this flavor was lacking.
The one I got didn’t have many pretzels or potato chips, and the potato chips did little to impact the flavor or texture of the cookie.
The pretzels added a nice crunch, and bites that included pretzel, chocolate, and cookie were excellent. However, these bites were few and far between.
I was surprised to find a dessert that wasn’t a cookie.
During one of the two weeks I went to Crumbl, the company debuted its first cheesecake. It feels a little strange to rank it among cookies, as it was decidedly a cheesecake with a graham-cracker crust, raspberry spread, and whipped cream.
As far as cheesecakes go, it was good but unspectacular. The custard portion had a nice, smooth texture, and the raspberry topping was more tangy than sweet.
However, the graham-cracker crust didn’t hold together at all and was fundamentally less portable than a cookie. However, it’s a good option for when you need a break from eating too many cookies — which was applicable in my case.
Crumbl’s sea-salt toffee was one of the plainest cookies I tried.
Crumbl’s sea-salt toffee is a variant of a chocolate-chip cookie with toffee and milk-chocolate chips. I enjoyed it, but it was one of the plainest cookies I tried.
I found the toffee flavor presented itself more as a warm, caramel-y aftertaste than a strong, sticky Heath Bar. The milk-chocolate chips were also sparse.
This cookie wasn’t particularly memorable, but I’d still choose it over the overly sweet flavors.
Everyone in my family had a different opinion of the blueberry-pancake cookie.
The blueberry-pancake cookie, which was topped with a blueberry-buttermilk glaze, was another divisive flavor in my house.
The menu and photos I’d seen suggested it was supposed to have a dollop of buttercream frosting on top, but the one I brought home did not.
I loved the actual cookie, which had plenty of fruity blueberry flavor from the berries baked inside. But to me, the glaze was too sweet and was sugary enough for it to taste grainy.
My 3-year-old was appalled by the blueberries in the cookie, but my 6-year-old loved every bit of this one. My wife liked it more than I did, but agreed it was too sweet and would be better with no glaze or frosting.
The milk-chocolate-chip cookie had a nice touch of salt.
When having a chocolate-chip cookie, I usually prefer semi-sweet-chocolate chips over milk-chocolate chips.
However, since the milk-chocolate chip was Crumbl’s first cookie, I knew I had to try it. It was a touch salty, with a soft, comforting texture. The cookie was so thick it was basically a blondie.
In my book, it beat out its semi-sweet chocolate chunk alternative, which I wouldn’t have expected.
Both my kids loved the Nilla-bean-cupcake cookie.
Both my kids loved the Nilla-bean-cupcake cookie, which was not surprising at all — they love frosting, and there was a lot of it.
I expected this to be overwhelmingly sweet, but the cream-cheese frosting added a nice tangy component instead of one-note sweetness. The actual cookie was soft and cakey, with a warm vanilla flavor.
The chocolate-cake cookie tasted exactly like a slice of cake.
It’s not just a clever name — this cookie tasted just like a slice of chocolate cake. In fact, I might have tried it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top if it weren’t for the frosting.
The chocolate-cake cookie was extremely rich, with a strong cocoa flavor to both the cookie and the frosting. It’s definitely best for people who can’t get enough chocolate — like my 6-year-old, who gave this one two enthusiastic thumbs up.
The frosting was a bit softer and thinner than I expected, but the chocolate swirls added nice little bites of texture.
I thought the hazelnut-sea-salt cookie was the most grown-up-friendly of the bunch.
Crumbl’s hazelnut-sea-salt cookie had a beguiling effect on my 6-year-old, who really loved it but couldn’t quite put words to why (though he does love Nutella).
To me, it tasted like the most grown-up friendly cookie of the bunch — something my grandmother probably would’ve loved with her tea.
The sweet-and-salty brown-butter cookie tasted almost refined, and Crumbl took a light hand with the hazelnut spread and sea salt on top. My 6-year-old kept going back to it despite the more colorful, decorated cookies around it.
Crumbl’s French-toast cookie grew on me.
Crumbl’s French-toast cookie grew on me. At first, I found it frustrating that the frosting was concentrated in the cookie’s center, presumably making it look like French toast with a big dollop of butter.
However, I realized it was the frosting that was throwing me off. I found it to be a little dry and super sweet with a maple flavor. In fact, it gave the cloying effect of maple candy.
The cake part of the cookie, meanwhile, was excellent. It had a spongy, doughnut-like consistency and a lighter maple flavor.
Mom’s recipe combines the flavors of oatmeal, chocolate chips, peanut butter, and toffee.
Another variation on the traditional chocolate chip cookie, Mom’s recipe is an oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookie with peanut-butter and toffee chips.
It sounds like it might have too much going on, but there weren’t too many of any one chip. It combined a variety of sweet, salty, and comforting flavors without any one flavor overwhelming the others.
The nutty oatmeal texture, appropriately enough, made it feel like something I’d be very excited to buy at an elementary-school bake sale.
The mint-cookies-and-cream cookie tasted like its ice cream counterpart.
Although I don’t typically like mint-cookies-and-cream ice cream, I really liked this cookie. My wife was a little turned off by the color of the mint frosting, as she thought it should be more green.
However, the cookie did a strangely good job simulating its ice-cream counterpoint. The creamy frosting, which had a pleasant cool-mint flavor complemented the crunch of the cookies-and-cream cookie.
My 3-year-old especially loved this one, declaring, “I love mint, I love frosting, and I love Oreos!”
The whole family loved Crumbl’s ultimate peanut-butter cookie.
Crumbl’s take on a peanut-butter cookie included a melted-peanut-butter drizzle and a peanut-butter core baked into the center.
I worried that the peanut-butter filling might be overwhelming, but I appreciated that this cookie was a bit less sweet than the others.
The filling also helped keep the whole cookie soft and moist. This was one of the few flavors that all four members of my household really loved.
The peanut-butter-cookies-and-cream flavor was a family favorite.
It’s rare that all four members of my family agree on a food, but the peanut-butter-cookies-and-cream flavor was an all-around favorite in my household.
It wasn’t as eye-catching as many of the other options, especially since the bits of chocolate-sandwich cookies got camouflaged against the chocolate base.
However, they were unmistakable once I bit into it, punctuating the soft texture of Crumbl’s chocolate cookie with the crumbly, crunchy texture of an Oreo. The peanut-butter chips were mostly in the background, but they added a nice balance to the chocolate.
I always love a good cookie-flavored cookie.
The mallow-sandwich flavor was my favorite of the Oreo-inspired cookies.
I liked all of the Oreo-inspired Crumbl cookies I tried, but the mallow sandwich was my favorite. It featured two chocolate cookies with Oreo pieces, sandwiched around creamy frosting.
The combination of soft-chocolate cookies and marshmallow filling reminded me of a whoopie pie. The Oreo pieces that were baked into the cookie added a crunchy, crumbly texture.
Sadly, my kids didn’t get a chance to sample this one because my wife and I ate the whole thing before they had a chance — it was one of her favorites, too.
Crumbl’s pink-velvet cookie was my favorite.
Crumbl’s pink-velvet cookie earned my top spot with a caveat: I never ate more than a small portion in one sitting. I suspect that eating as much as half of this cookie at once might leave me less enthusiastic about it.
However, I happen to love cream-cheese frosting, and this one has a nice, mild tartness to it that complements the sweet, soft cookie.
I tasted it before reading the flavor description, and the power of suggestion left me thinking it had a strawberry taste.
But eating more of the cookie revealed that the crunchy, sugary crumbles on top were extremely reminiscent of the outer coating of a classic strawberry-shortcake-ice-cream bar. I happen to love those, so this had a nostalgic appeal.
The post I tried 22 flavors of Crumbl cookies and ranked them from worst to best appeared first on Business Insider.
