Café Eleven
435 NE Rosa Parks Way – Portland
$2
I’ve eaten a lot of hippie cookies in my life.
A lot of them were good. A few of them were great.
But even more of them tasted like…actual dirty hippies.
This one gets it. What I mean is, the dude who baked it gets that a hippie cookie should contain plump raisins and/or maybe cherries and cranberries and perhaps (but not necessarily) some kind of seed (in this case pumpkin and sesame) or nut (in this case none). And also a whole grain or two (chewy oats or barley are always nice choices).
Dude also gets that a hippie cookie shouldn’t taste like pot and b.o. and mung bean sprouts. I don’t care if it’s vegan or made with butter and eggs, it is absolutely possible (and not so difficult) to make a cookie taste great going either route. I am nowhere near a vegan, yet some of my favorite and most returned-to cookies ARE (see vegan thumbprint, vegan molasses and hazelnut hempseed oatmeal).
I could do without the sunflower seeds (sunflower seeds really have no business in any dessert), but for some reason they’re not a deal breaker here. I’m going to allow them.
Soft, chewy, lousy with dried fruit, and enough salt to let us taste the caramel-y brown sugar and also what I’m pretty sure is real, sweet creamery butter.
Good cookie. Nice surprise.
UPDATE: 10/20/14: Just got a nice note from Lindsay (see below) letting me know that the cookie is, in fact, made by Serious Business Pastries, just next door to Café Eleven: 431 NE Rosa Parks Way. Thank you for letting us know!
Hi, thanks for reviewing this cookie! It was actually baked next door, by the talented bakers at Serious Business Pastries (who you’ve reviewed before!).