I have been big on Instagram the past few days promoting a chocolate tasting challenge, something I have been quite excited about! For those of you who do not know what I’m talking about, see here for details.
Well Monday evening was spent feverishly cooking up the three top Oh She Glows Desserts: the Toffee Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookie Bars, the One Bowl Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and the Double Dark Chocolate Coconut Macaroon Tart.
I was so exhausted at the end of all the chocolate whipping, measuring and baking – my house look like a bomb hit (see below – this isn’t even the worst of it, there was chocolate splatter on the wall). My poor partner quickly left the scene to play his guitar down on the beach, I don’t blame him! He will come home to a surprise today as I bleached and cleaned the kitchen, something much needed after this 30 day challenge. My new food processor has been broken in nicely 😉
Yesterday, I packed up the three desserts in my bike baskets, complete with a few ice packs to keep the macaroon tarts cold, and made my way to school. I had three friends desperately waiting to taste the evidence of hard chocolate work! I must state that these friends are all fellow masters students, each with a fine palette for good food and very good critical thinking skills – they were up for the test!
I gave them each a sample of each dessert (with Tupperware to take home the rest to really devour later) and copies of the scale I made. There was some clarification needed before we began. The “sweetness” factor was decided on their own tolerance of sweet, if it was too sweet it was rated lower on the scale, with 5 being the perfect sweetness for their palette. “Appearance” was also a bit tricky of a category, as my one chocoholic friend explained “it depends on what you want the dessert for”. We confirmed that a perfect appearance would be what you would take to a fancy dinner party.
After some very specific test tasting, we came to a conclusion! (Please note, the testers all wanted the readers to know they LOVED all the desserts, and are all big fans of Oh She Glows, so didn’t want to come across too critical. I really dug at them to get the best insight on the recipes).
In first place, with 88% chocolate perfection is the One Bowl Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie
Some overall comments about this one were that the flavor was incredible, and the added chunks of chocolate were well enjoyed. Interestingly enough, the name was a bit overachieving, it simply could have an even stronger chocolate flavor! the appearance really won everyone over, with the melted gooey chocolate bits and the overall dark hue. One friend explained however, that she will almost always rate a cookie top on appearance, as it is her favorite. Perhaps some bias was present in this testing… 😉
In second place, with 84.5% chocolate perfection is the Toffee Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookie Bar
Comments on this one were pretty unanimous, the bar was super tasty and flavorful, but the title may be a bit misleading. This could be the fact that I ran out of coconut sugar and had to use cane sugar. It was described in the recipe description that coconut sugar is known to give it a real dark toffee-like hue, which my creation was missing. The texture was a big hit among the group, with comments like “almost muffin like” and “dense yet fluffy”. It also was rated highest on the flavor content, with a great mixture of the oats and sweetness. We also agreed it seemed like more of a snack than a dessert, so it’s appearance was rated the lowest. Great to bring to school or for a casual girls night, maybe not the greatest crowd pleaser in appearance compared to the other two.
In last place, but very tightly next to the toffee bar is the Double Dark Chocolate Coconut Macaroon Tart
Please note with this one, it is a frozen dessert and was asked to leave at room temperature 5 to 10 minutes before serving. Because of my situation, I had to bike them up to school in a cooler, so they may not have thawed adequately. That being said, the experts agreed that it would be better almost completely frozen, once we tried it, it was a bit frozen in parts (especially where the whip cream swirl was present). What really stood out about this dessert was the crust; chewy and dense with the perfect amount of flaked, toasted coconut. One tester thought that it would be better with a higher crust to filling ratio. It is a very ‘intense’ dessert, probably best in smaller doses as the chocolate factor was through the roof on this one!
Interestingly enough, when compared to the Oh She Glows website itself, the macaroon tart is rated the top dessert, with average rating 4.9, followed by the chocolate chunk cookie (4.8) and then the toffee cinnamon cookie bar (4.7). So our rating was a bit different! People obviously love their chocolate/coconut combo!
Here are the overall categories for each dessert, as you can see it was a close draw 🙂
Have you tried any or all of these desserts? How would you rate it? Do you have any additional rating criteria that us foodies missed? Please comment below!!
xoxo Hannah