Crumbl Cookies has frequently made headlines, whether due to its legal battles with other cookie companies, their massive, high-calorie confections, or customers finding Betty Crocker mixes at the retailer. Why a cookie shop has arrested the imaginations of so many people and has become such a controversial topic of conversation appears to be a hard-to-crack mystery.
The company recently announced the release of “mini” Crumbl cookies—and one TikToker, Natalie Ludwig (@eatsbynat) took it upon herself to get to the bottom of these new additions.
Ludwig begins her video by holding up a duo of Crumbl cookie boxes into the camera. “Do Crumbl mini cookies taste any different than the regular sized one? Let’s find out,” she begins.
The TikToker then holds up a mini Crumbl chocolate chip cookie. She takes a bite, then squints as if there’s something off about the flavor.
“Dough-ey, it’s almost literally not cooked,” she says. Ludwig then holds up the miniature chocolate chip cookie for a side-by-side comparison with the standard.
“Regular size chocolate chip cookie compared to it,” she states, before taking a nibble out of the larger cookie.
“Hmm,” she says, again intoning she noticed what appears to be a difference between the two confectionary variants. “You’re probably going to call me crazy but I think that they taste different. I think that they taste different. Like the bigger version better than the smaller one. See it could be that the bigger one is cooked more than the smaller one? I don’t know.”
Several commenters who replied to the video stated that they were shocked to see the size comparison between the cookies, noting that the “standard” size of Crumbl’s offerings felt much too large.
“Makes you realize how giant the regular sized one is,” one person said.
Another remarked, “The way the mini is the size of a regular cookie everywhere else.”
One viewer, who said that they used to work for Crumbl, shed some light on the possible reason for the differences in flavor between the offerings. According to them, the only disparate feature between the Crumbl Minis and standard-size cookies is their weights. “Former crumbl employee- it’s the same dough just a diff weight,” they claimed.
This sentiment was echoed by another alleged Crumbl employee. “I work at crumbl and its the literally same dough, just a smaller portion,” they wrote, and another user backed them up.
Ludwig conceded that the flavor profiles more than likely felt off for her because the larger cookie appeared to have been cooked longer than the mini.
For one commenter, that cooking methodology was preferential to their tastebuds: “i love undercooked chocolate chip cookies LOL.”
As any baker will tell you: there’s an awful lot of chemistry that goes into baking food to make it just right. The size of a portion, the type of material that’s used in the pan or oven’s construction, the temperature of the surface, and the amount of each ingredient must all be considered to craft an item just the way it was intended to be made.
It’s not difficult to imagine that whoever was making the mini chocolate chip Crumbl cookie Ludwig showed off in her video may’ve burnt a batch previously, as smaller cookies tend to bake faster than their larger counterparts. Perhaps whoever was making the cookies accidentally jumped the gun and removed them prematurely.
In an email to the Daily Dot, Ludwig shared that she thinks the difference in taste is likely a result of different bake times.
“Some individuals agree with me (including a few Crumbl employees) that the flavor is different between the mini’s and the regular sized cookies, but it seems the majority do not think it would be different as it is the same dough,” she wrote in reference to commenters. “With that being said, I definitely think that the flavor tasted different, but it very well could be attributed to the fact that the bigger one was cooked more and the mini cookie was just barely cooked (almost raw). Maybe I will have to go back and test this experiment again!”
Regardless, Ludwig said she thought the idea was great, considering many customers’ concerns with classic Crumbl cookie sizes.
@eatsbynat Mini Crumbl Cookies vs. Big: is there a difference? Lets find out. 🍪 #minimondays #minicrumblcookies #crumblcookies #crumbl #cookiecomparison ♬ original sound – Natalie Ludwig
And for folks who are looking to keep an eye on their caloric intakes, there are studies out there that state larger portions of food don’t necessarily equate with folks feeling more fulfilled or satisfied after a meal, either. NBC News penned an article highlighting how humans who are presented with larger portions tend to eat more and that the taste of the food doesn’t play as big of a role as folks may think. Science Direct also delved into this same psychological relationship with food portion sizes.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Crumbl and Ludwig via email for further comment.
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