Day 312 - Jumbo Cinnamon Rolls with Vanilla Icing

My sister Sherry and her husband Jim have been staying with us the last few days.  They came from Omaha to visit.  Well, Jim had a conference to come to and Sherry came along, which delighted me!  This meant we got to run around and do lots of fun stuff!  One of the things we did was tour Abraham Lincoln’s Cottage.  It is in Washington DC and was where he spent lots of time when he was president.  Apparently it was cooler, calmer, and prettier at the cottage than at the White House (even though a cemetery is right by the cottage and bodies of Civil War dead were being buried right in front of the Lincoln family everyday…). 

Look how TALL President Lincoln was!  Our tour guide said this statue is life sized.

I totally took advantage of Jim and Sherry’s visit and bought these JUMBO CINNAMON ROLLS with VANILLA ICING at Trader Joe’s.  This type of thing is not David’s favorite breakfast item, and the package has 5 big cinnamon rolls in it, so I have wanted to buy these for a couple of months but knew I couldn’t get through them by myself.  Now that we have visitors I grabbed a package and popped them in the oven!   And of COURSE I asked Jim and Sherry to be guest reviewers.  Here is what everyone thought:

Here is what the package looks like.  Find them at TJ's near the butter.

Sherry – these were good.  To me they tasted just like the Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls.  If they are the same price as the Pillsbury ones I would buy them, but I would not go out of my way to buy these.  If they were CHEAPER than the Pillsbury ones I would buy them.   I would give these just a 3.  I mean, compared to a cinnamon roll you get in a BAKERY I would give them a 1.  But compared to Pillsbury I would give them a 3, because they are the same.

Jim – I love Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls.  I give these a FIVE (then he added a little Pillsbury Dough Boy tummy poke and giggle, which was charming.)

This is the PILLSBURY DOUGH BOY tummy poke.  I wish I had video so you could hear the giggle that goes with it.

David (note – reminder, he does not really like Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls) – these taste like other “get ‘em out of the fridge and poppin’ fresh cinnamon rolls”.  Maybe they are a little bit better than the Grands ones we have had before.  I could do with a bit more icing but I have only eaten the outside edge and there is more icing in the middle.  There is still that “little something” in this that is in all store bought cinnamon rolls that is not in it if you make it yourself and bake it in your oven with just butter, flour, and whatever else goes in it (editor’s note:  I do not recall a time in our 27 years together that David has made homemade cinnamon rolls…).  Compared with the other possibilities, I would have to give these a 3.5.  (Editor back again – it is incredible that he rated these higher than Sherry!)

Here is a TJ's cinnamon roll in action!

Susan – I was in charge of baking these for breakfast.  There are 5 in a package, but I didn’t read that part before prepping them.  I just opened the package, separated them where they wanted to naturally split up (there were FOUR), and put them on a baking sheet and into the oven.  Luckily I then quickly looked at the label and saw there were supposed to be FIVE and not FOUR.  Oops – I pulled them out and figured out the mistake.  All of that is to say, they could be cut better so that they separated easier.  They are a BREAKFAST food, meaning whoever puts them in the oven probably has not had coffee yet and is sleepy, so it needs to be as easy as possible.  I think they taste just like Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls.  They are a tiny bit too big for my taste, but the package says JUMBO so that is to be expected. 

PRICING – everyone compared them to Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, so a price comparison obviously needed to be done.  Sherry and I popped over to the Giant Grocery Store to see what they charged.  And guess what?  THEY ARE THE EXACT SAME PRICE at Trader Joe’s and Giant!  That means that in this case you are not saving any money by buying the Trader Joe’s brand, and they pretty much taste just the same.

Same price for the national brand at a competing grocery store

Trader Joe's brand price tag $3.99

So, if you are at Trader Joe’s and hungry for cinnamon rolls, pick them up.  But if you are at another store and feel a hankerin’, don’t feel guilty for buying them there.  In fact, since Pillsbury has coupons for them in the Sunday newspaper almost every week, I say clip a coupon, shop at a store that doubles coupons, and you will feel like a real winner for saving money!

Since they are the same price as the national brand, my rating of these TJ’s rolls is a 3.5.  I will average all 4 ratings together for the final score.

Price - $3.99

Rating – 3.75

Day 259 - Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

If you have read any reviews on this blog previously, you know DAVID LIKES TO EAT.  Specifically, he likes DESSERTS.  He loves him some sweets – cakes, pies, ice cream…  And that includes COOKIES!  Poor guy, I do not bake cookies for him nearrrly often enough.  But every once in a while I grab a pack of these refrigerated cookie dough cookies that you plop in the oven, bake, and pretend like you made them from scratch.  I usually buy the “big name” brands – Pillsbury, Tollhouse, etc.  I have seen this one at Trader Joe’s before but have never gotten it.  Recently, I went for it!

Here is the package - find it in the dairy section by the butter

And I was disappointed…  After baking and tasting these I can easily say that I prefer the name brand versions. 

See - the dough is BROWN instead of the normal off-white

Right from the get go these were different – they are much more BROWN than the other kinds.  David thinks maybe the dough itself has some chocolate/cocoa in it, not just the chips.  We baked these for longer than the package told us for crunchy cookies to but they were still doughy in the middle.  They taste BLAND…  There is no “crunch factor” at all.  They are not exciting at all.  Not even satisfying as a cookie really. 

David munching a cookie - the man loves desserts

David says – they are tasty, but perhaps a little over sweet.  It is disappointing that they are still a little doughy in the middle even though we added an extra 5 or 6 minutes in the oven.  I think if we cooked them a littttle bit longer they might be crunchy on the outside and still chewy in the middle.  I still prefer the non-chocolatized standard Tollhouse cookie.  I would give this a 4. 

(I QUESTIONED HIS SCORE – A 4???  He was not happy with this cookie and he still gave it a 4 (which to me is a high score!)??  He said, “Well, still it’s a COOKIE!  How bad can it be???”.  Hahahaha!  Oh David!)

$3.49 for 16 cookies

For me, my normal order of preference for chocolate chip cookies is:

1.        A freshly baked homemade (or nice bakery made) cookie

2.       A freshly baked store bought dough cookie

3.       Premade, prepackaged store bought cookies

HOWEVER, in this instance, I would prefer even premade, prepackaged store bought cookies over the Trader Joe’s Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough.  I would much rather eat TJ’s Crispy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (which got a great review on day 213of this blog    http://traderjoes365.blogspot.com/2015/08/day-214-crispy-oatmeal-chocolate-chip.html ) than these. 

It has been 2 days since we made them and there are 8 left...  I ate 1.  That means David has eaten 7 cookies in two days.  That may sound like a lot to you, but trust me, if he liked them there would be fewer left.

And if you need further proof that these are not great, we made them 2 nights ago and there are still a lot left….  If David TRULY liked them, there would only be 2 remaining at this point…  He agreed to lower his rating to a 3.5 (though he scoffed and insisted that, basically, all cookies are good…).  I would give these a 2.25.  The rating below averages our 2 scores.

Price – $3.49

Rating - 3