Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Triple Ginger Cookie

Once again, the power or dark chocolate has been under estimated.

It doesn’t seem like you could go wrong with Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Triple Ginger Cookies. It’s holiday time, these are gingerbread cookies, it’s a match made in heaven! All you have to do to succeed, in my book, is deliver at least an average gingerbread cookie and I’ll keep you on my kitchen shelf though the New Year. These triple ginger cookies promise to do that and more, so I was pumped before I even picked up the box. Then I got a chance to rady the product copy. Let’s take a look at the promise on the beautiful, holiday themed package:

“Made with 3 types of giner, fresh, ground and chunks of crystallized ginger, then enrobed in a thin layer of dark chocolate, this is a snappy cookei with a acrunchy bite and a rich chocolate finish.”

Sounds sweet, right? But despite all this ginger, somehow, someway, these cookies conspire to taste completely un-gingery.

I think it’s safe to safe that if you’re going to claim that your cookies are not just double but triple ginger you had better put some damn ginger in them. Despite the claims on the packaging, despite even the list of ingredients detailing the types of ginger, these cookies simply do not taste very much like ginger. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that you’d be hard pressed to detect the taste of ginger in these at all. Surely he’s not being serious. Yes, folks, I am. What you get in these cookies is the strong, lingering taste of the dark chocolate (which is, actually, quite good) followed by nothing or, if you’ve bitten into one of the crystallized ginger bits, a faint taste of ginger that last for a brief moment. Trader Joe’s Triple Ginger Cookies are, at best, a lie whose only purpose is to ruin your holiday festivities.

Perhaps I go to far.

After all, these are pretty decent cookies when all is said and done. They may not taste like ginger very much at all (a brutal failure for a gingerbread cookie, to be sure), but the dark chocolate still works perfectly well. If you’re looking for a nice, small bittersweet chocolate cookie this would fit the bill perfectly. If these had been called “Trader Joe’s Super Dark Chocolate Cookies with a bit of Ginger”, I’d be writing a very happy article right now. Should have but didn’t – and it’s too late now to repair my hurt feelings.  If stripped of the dark chocolate, I dare say the ginger would rise admirable to the fore. Beneath the thick shell of ominipresent chocolate however, it is pushed so far into the background it nearly disappears.

My only other complaint with these is that the chocolate covering frustrates any attempt at achieving a satisfying dunk. While cookies are perfectly fine taken dry, most everyone can agree that a glass of milk or spot of tea can elevate even a very humble cookie to heavenly realms. Despite my best efforts to dunk these cookies in both tea and milk I was frustrated in every attempt. The same chocolate shell that dominates the taste is completely impermeable to liquid. I thought that a nice hot cup of Trader Joe’s Harvest Blend might melt away some of that cocoa bean carapace and give me a nice soft cookie upon which to sup, but all I got were chocolate smeared fingers and mugs.

Really, this would be an excellent cookie if they left the ginger out or took the chocolate off. Both together seems pointless.

The Breakdown

Would I Buy Them Again: No, without ginger they hold no appeal for me.

Would I Recommend Them: Only to people who want a dark chocolate cookie with a little, but not much, ginger taste.

Final Synopsis: Gingerbread cookies that taste like chocolate instead of ginger .

Trader Joe’s Dark Choclate Triple Ginger Cookies – Nutrition Facts