I had been just been searching for a pack of Sour Patch Kids, until a big clear tub with tan and black speckles caught my eye. I made my way over to the back left corner of the Fresh Market, and my jaw dropped. There was a huge tub of cookie dough laying right in front of me that read “Grab a Spoon and Dig Right In.” The Fresh Market is an upscale grocery store in Prairie Fire that sells tubs of edible cookie dough from The Cookie Dough Café in California. Yes, tubs of edible cookie dough that you can stuff your face with, without worrying about getting salmonella. There is a wide variety of cookie dough from gluten-free peanut butter, to creamy oatmeal raisin and even just the “naked dough.” I decided to buy the three original types of cookie dough: Chocolate Chip, Cookies N’ Cream and the “Monster” cookie dough. Each tub of cookie dough cost $7.99, and trust me, it was well worth it. 
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Raw chocolate chip cookie dough–what more could one want in life? Maybe I’m biased because I love chocolate chip cookies, but this cookie dough was my favorite. This dough tasted the most like raw cookie dough. The texture was creamy and dense, but it didn’t fill me up quite as quickly as the other doughs, where I would get a stomach ache right after three bites. Although this one was my favorite, there weren’t enough chocolate chips. About ten minutes after sitting down on my couch to watch Netflix, most of the chocolate chips were already gone. Because I didn’t want to just eat the “naked” dough, I had to dump dark chocolate chips that we had at home into it. Despite the lack of chocolate chips, I was very pleased by the chocolate chip cookie dough, and would definitely return to the Fresh Market for more.
Cookies N’ Cream Cookie Dough
Oreos and cookie dough. I’ve never had cookies with crushed up Oreo’s in them, but after tasting this cookie dough, I wouldn’t doubt their deliciousness. The dough had loads of Oreos mixed in and a crunchy texture which I found more exciting compared to the other doughs. The only problem was, after four bites, I was already full. There were random globs of Oreo icing, which were my favorite part. It helped make the actual chunks of Oreo softer, so that it blended in with the cookie dough better. Overall, the cookies n’ cream dough exceeded my expectations and left me wanting more.
Monster Cookie Dough
The monster cookie dough has a bit of everything thrown into it. It contains M&M’s, chocolate chips, peanut butter and oatmeal. These ingredients are right up my alley, but when you have a big hodge podge of all those ingredients together, it doesn’t taste as great as it sounds. It tasted like crunchy, watered-down peanut butter with M&M’s and chocolate chips thrown together. The texture was crunchier due to the oats, and the peanut butter gave the dough an off-taste. Overall, the monster cookie dough was the worst of the three, and the excessive ingredients drew away from the beauty that is simple cookie dough.
Photos by Tess Iler