Posted by on Oct 13, 2011 in Oatmeal | 8 comments

Maple Cream Pie
Whole Foods Market – Portland (Pearl District store, only.)
apx $3 (sold by weight at $7.99/lb)

To erase any confusion straight from the get-go, this is NOT, in fact, a pie.  It is, as you can see, a sandwich cookie.  One big, fat, muthafuggin sandwich cookie. I do not know why things like this –  desserts that have nothing to do with pie (like whoopie pies, for example)  – get called “pie.”  Because it’s totally not pie.

What it IS is this:  a big ass cookie. Two large oatmeal cookies, to be specific – with an obscene (i.e., way too much) amount of maple-y butter cream filling.

I used to buy this every now and then during moments of exceptional gluttony, and it seems to have been revived after a 2-3 year hiatus.  And I have to tell you that it is even better than I remember it.

Okay…

First: The filling: NOTE: I scraped off at least 80% of the filling before even beginning to have my way with this beast.  But even though there is far too much butter cream, it is very delicious butter cream – not the greasy, flavorless shit usually found on the top of overrated, overpriced and over-frosted cupcakes. It is stiff and firm – packed with sabor.  I am not a big fan of most butter cream, but this…this is good. But a dab will do ya (I’m pretty sure you’re looking at a cube’s worth of butter in this single cookie).  So I saved it.  It is in my fridge now…waiting to be re-purposed.  (Gotta get on that project, asap.)

Second: The oatmeal cookies. These stand alone, sans filling, as some of the very best oatmeal cookies I have ever eaten. The flavor reminds me a bit of the Mother’s Iced Oatmeal Cookies of my childhood, but soft and chewy instead of hard and crispy.  And also of the cookies used in It’s Its ice cream sandwiches (thanks to my friend who reminded me about Its Its when I told him about this cookie yesterday). Man, they are oaty.  Would you get a load of those oats?  Look. Look at all of those oats.  Seriously, look at them.  And they use salt!  (Thank you,  WF bakers.)  And…according to the ingredient list, they do not contain a spec of refined sugar; the only sweetener listed is maple syrup, which is used in both the cookie and the filling.

$3 may sound steep for one cookie, but let’s break it down:

  • 2 cookies, each roughly 4 inches in diameter
  • 1 fat layer of maple butter cream frosting
  • It is easily a sharable cookie.  Eating the whole thing in a single go is not advised.

So…in this regard it is a very fine value, indeed.

Bonus points for originality.

In sum, I cannot imagine loving oats, loving maple, and then not loving this cookie.