It’s finally December so we can officially start singing Christmas songs without being told off. Along with lights being strewn on every street, on every aisle of Wal-Mart you are bound to see at least one holiday item to add to your shopping cart. Being someone who is fond of making new desserts I went straight to the sweets aisle.
During the fall, I tested out a bunch of fall themed sweets to see if any of them were any good. Now that those fall treats were exchanged for wintery sweets it’s time to get back into the kitchen and preheat my kitchen.
I dragged my reluctant dad to Wal-Mart and picked up three different treats. I grabbed an Elf on the Shelf Cakebites in the “hot cocoa” flavor, Duncan Hines Holiday Mega Cookie, and a Betty Crocker No-bake cookie cookie dough bites in the chocolate peppermint flavor.
I tried the Elf on the Shelf Cakebites first since they were the only ones that were premade. They came in a pack of three with four packs in the box. I took a bite of the dessert and a sickeningly strong taste of artificial flavoring hit my tongue. The “cake”, if you can even call it that, was mushy and raw. I gave one of the sweets to my father who immediately asked if I was trying to poison him. It was just so bad.
The next dessert I tried was the Holiday Mega Cookie. I opened the packaging and was hit with a super strong smell. It smelled like artificial vanilla. It just didn’t smell right. Still I carried on and added the ingredients and put it in the oven. The box came with a little pack of Christmas tree sprinkles that I added on top before putting it in the oven. After a few minutes the terrible smell filled the entire house. My dad went around with Febreeze bottles trying to get the smell to go away because it kept giving us headaches. It was done so I pulled it out of the oven. Even after cooling the cookie still retained the smell, but even I am not crazy enough to spray a cookie with Febreeze no matter how bad it smells. The cookie also stuck to the pan even though we greased it. I spent at least half an hour trying to pry that stubborn cookie out with no luck. The cookie, or what I could get out of the pan, was very sweet. The cookie was plain and sugary. The only part I enjoyed was the topping because I didn’t have to fight it.
The final dessert I had to try was the chocolate-peppermint cookie dough bites. Now this was going to be interesting because I’ve had issues with Betty Crocker’s recipes and mixes, so my hope for this one was not high. To start I had to find cream cheese which just isn’t something I keep in my house so I had to return to Wal-Mart. My dad wasn’t too happy about that. After getting back from the store for the second time, I started with this dessert. I added the butter and the cream cheese to the mix. I mixed it into a cookie dough consistency. I rolled the dough into balls and put them in the freezer. When i tried them they tasted just like cookie dough and slightly minty. The topping was sweet and definitely my favorite part. I couldn’t get over the greasy taste that the sweets had. If you like the consistency of cookie dough this dessert would be perfect for you.
While I will have many desserts on the table for Christmas dinner, none of these will make the cut. If I absolutely had to pick one, I’d pick the cookie dough bites.
