What Makes Butter Better? Cookies.

So, a little while ago I was introduced to something that BLEW my mind.  Cookie Butter.

Speculoos Cookie Butter - available at most Trader Joe's

If you read this blog enough, or even remotely know Fat Mike in real life, you know that I LOVE peanut butter.  I have a habit that constitutes about a jar a week, and I go at it with a spoon on most occasions.  That's why, when I heard about this revelation, I was a little bit tickled to try it out.  At the same time, I was worried because I'm not necessarily into things that are just (as Geoffrey Zakarian would say) "cloyingly sweet".

I opened the jar and saw a creamy, peanut butter-like consistency, and as I spread my spoon through it I knew that I was in for a treat.  The taste was like creamy, mild graham crackers and gingerbread, with a little bit of a sugar cookie, peanutty essence to it.  It was like heaven.  So delicious.  I will say that one of the things I like about PEANUT butter is the versatility.  Even though I'm one of those folks who just goes at it by the spoonful, peanut butter can go on many vessels from plain saltine crackers, to celery or apples.  Cooke butter, however, doesn't necessarily have that freedom.  To me, this is a jar food.  I could just sit, and scoop, and eat, and scoop and eat, and be happy.  I couldn't think of many different ways to use it, or to add it to anything besides the occasional piece of breakfast toast (an English Muffin perhaps? Mmmm)  This does NOT take away from the treat of keeping a jar in the house at all times to dip into once in a while.

As I raved about this new discovery, it was brought to my attention that there was an origin cookie for this spread, commonly found in German delis.

Spekulatius butter cookies

Luckily, there was a German deli nearby and soon I was eating Spekulatius butter cookies with cookie butter spread on top! This was divine.  Obviously, it's like eating an omelette sprinkled with crushed, hard boiled egg, but if cookie butter was so delicious why not jump the shark a little bit?  After all, I was trying to see whether getting the cookies could substitute for the cookie butter, and that was obviously not the case. Cookie butter in itself is genius.  The root cookie, while delicious, doesn't bring the same wow, or pizazz that the jarred stuff brings.

Little did I know, that this is not a unique item that has just lurched it's way into supermarkets. As I sang the praises of cookie butter to other folks, I heard that there was a "crunchy" version that people had eaten as kids.

Initially, I thought that the crunchy cookie butter would be similar to chunky peanut butter.  Did I really want something that had little bits of cookie crushed in it?  It didn't seem very appealing after enjoying the smooth and tastey initial sampling of cookie butter.  But everyone insisted that it's not the same, and that if I liked the Speculoos then I would LOVE the Biscoff.

Yo...
For reals...
This stuff is ridiculous (that's good).

I couldn't believe it.  I had a spoonful and I almost freaked out.  Sure, there's crushed cookie in it, but it's finely crushed and mixed throughout the spread.  When you take a spoonful, you don't just get chunks on the spoon.  It's like a fine, granulated cookie essence that lives on every spoonful.  As I showed it to other people, all of a sudden I kept hearing, "Oh, Biscoff! Sure!"  Next thing I knew, I was noticing in the peanut butter isle of my local grocery store.  Had I been blind to this the whole time?  Apparently.  My focused love for peanut butter had never allowed me to see what was sitting next to it on the very same shelf.  Biscoff cookie spread is an addictive jar of happiness.  This was a game changer for the Fat.  It just goes to show ya, there's always a sweet surprise out there somewhere. Enjoy.