“It all started with one big dream, two crazy cousins, and the perfect combination of flour, sugar and chocolate chips.” – Jason McGowan (CEO of Crumbl)

If you have TikTok and like cookies, there’s a very high chance that you have heard of Crumbl Cookies, a business that has a reputation for its creative flavors, rotating menu and thirst-trap-like promotional videos. 

The hashtag #crumblreviews started trending on TikTok in February 2021 as people used the video app to make quick reviews of Crumbl’s unique flavors, amplifying the business’s popularity. Since opening in 2017, Crumbl has expanded to over 600 bakeries in 47 states and is the fastest-growing cookie company in the nation. 

Crumbl was co-founded by CEO Jason McGowan and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sawyer Hemsley in 2017. They began experimenting, spending thousands of dollars on dough and failed recipes. After gathering extensive feedback and testing recipes, they believe that they succeeded in their mission to create the world’s best chocolate chip cookie. 

Since then, Crumbl has adopted a unique rotating menu which sets it apart from other cookie stores. Even though Crumbl’s award-winning milk chocolate chip cookie is always on the menu, with its chilled pink sugar cookie becoming semi-permanent quickly thereafter, the other four flavors that they sell rotate weekly. This rotation evolved over time and was officially established in December 2018.  

New flavors are added frequently, usually weekly, and their current recipes are also updated and improved upon, sometimes based on public feedback. Their cookies draw inspiration from popular foods and desserts including pies, cakes, candies and even breakfast foods.

But are Crumbl Cookies really worth the hype? This is what Dateline set out to test.

Dateline reviewed Crumbl’s weekly flavors from Jan. 8 until Jan. 14. The following are our comments about each cookie.

• Milk Chocolate Chip: Unlike most Crumbl Cookies, this cookie does not have a layer of frosting, but it fits the brand’s criteria in terms of its size and weight. It’s fudgy on the inside and crispy on the outside, like a cookie cake. Even though the chocolate chips are well-distributed, the cookie is sickly sweet. Overall, we would only recommend this cookie as a substitute if one of the four weekly flavors does not appeal to you.
• Classic Pink Sugar: This is the ultimate Crumbl Cookie. It has the brand’s iconic color frosting and signature swirl. Our praise ends here. The cookie and frosting are both very dense and feel frozen. Additionally, the frosting overpowers the butter cookie with an artificial-tasting flavor, though Crumbl says on its website that the cookie contains “real almond extract.” The cookie looks like Lofthouse frosted cookies but tastes even worse.
• Confetti Cake: This is our favorite cookie of the week. The cookie base is fluffy like a funfetti cake and surprises you with sprinkles throughout. However unconventional, the cream cheese frosting offers a depth of flavor and smooth texture that Crumbl Cookies’ simple buttercream frosting cannot compete with.
• Peanut Butter Cup Featuring REESE’S: This cookie should be called “Peanut Butter Cup featuring Butterfingers,” not Reese’s. The cookie has a natural-tasting peanut butter flavor and is fudgy, yet is also very stodgy and sticky to the touch and in your mouth. Both in terms of visual appearance and flavor, the cookie is one-dimensional. Either a chocolate cookie base or frosting would balance out these elements. The peanut butter topping is also skimpy, but any more peanut butter would set us over the edge.
• Lemon Cheesecake: This cookie looks artificial, but we appreciate all of its elements that vary in texture and flavor. The cookie base tastes like a sugar cookie, not a graham cracker crust, and the toppings taste overly sweet and mildly tart with no trace of cheesecake flavor. Texturally, the toppings are gelatinous and would definitely bounce back if you dropped them. They remind us of the food on TikTok made out of slime or the gel inside squishies.
• Rocky Road: This cookie is identifiable as being rocky road flavored but like the classic flavor combination of chocolate, marshmallow and almonds, it is average. The cookie base is decadent and is complemented by dark chocolate chips. The texture of the marshmallow is perfect: it oozes into the rest of the cookie. Also, the almonds add a crunch but their flavor is overpowered by the other components’ sweetness.

Dateline rated each of the following cookie elements out of ten and took averages in the table below:  

On average, Crumbl is worth the hype, with some extremely unique flavors and ideas and an excellent appearance. Additionally, these are undoubtedly social gathering cookies, as it’s fun to try the different flavors and review them with friends.

However, they have a steep price (a six-pack delivery costs $40) and can easily burn a hole in your wallet. Dateline recommends purchasing these cookies get no more than once every couple of months unless you’re willing to pay the price! You may think the flavors desperately require trying, but don’t worry: there is always next week. 

By Isabella Duchovny, Elektra Gea-Sereti and Zoe Hällström