trader joes review – FoodWatcher

Trader Joe’s Hot Chocolate Sticks, reviewed

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Trader Joe's Hot Chocolate Sticks, reviewed
Hot chocolate is a wonderful way to treat yourself on a cold, wintery day. I’ll make it in the morning, but I tend to opt for coffee earlier in the day and make my hot chocolate a mid-day or evening treat instead. Powdered hot chocolate mix is the most common way to make hot chocolate and you can make it yourself with cocoa powder and sugar or simply buy your favorite brand. Trader Joe’s Hot Chocolate Sticks are another way to make yourself a hot chocolate and I picked up some this holiday season to give them a try.

The Trader Joe’s Hot Chocolate Sticks are individually wrapped sticks of dark chocolate, each of which is about 3 inches long. Eight come in the box and each is almost an ounce. You simply unwrap and stir into a mug of hot coffee or milk, letting the chocolate melt. It’s the same idea as hot chocolate on a stick, but without the stick! The chocolate has a wonderfully fruity dark chocolate flavor and I like it even better with coffee than I do with milk alone. The downside of these sticks is that your fingers might get a bit messy while melting them, but that’s a minor inconvenience – especially if you, like me, would like to stir in some chocolate and simply eat the last bit!

I like that these are easy to share, single serve and individually wrapped. They make a good little stocking stuffer gift, alongside a mug and a spoon, too. And you can always eat them as mini candy bars if you’re in need of a chocolate fix and don’t have a mug of hot coffee or milk handy!

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Trader Joe’s Cookie Mug Hangers, reviewed

Trader Joe's Cookie Mug Hangers, reviewed
The holiday season is all about cookies, and as much as I love other desserts, I’m always looking for new cookie recipes to bake and new cookie treats to try. I couldn’t resist Trader Joe’s Cookie Mug Hangers when I spotted them while out shopping. These adorable gingerbred people are cut to fit …

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The cookies are sold in a package of 16, which is plenty for most gatherings. That said, you’re probably going to want to keep a box for yourself because these cookies are absolutely delicious. The gingerbread people are very crisp, but very tender. They have a great balance of sweet and spice, with nice punches of cinnamon and mace over a molasses backdrop. The spacers where they are designed to slip over the rim of a mug are generous, so they should fit over all but the chunkiest of handmade mugs. I found that they were particularly delicious with hot cococa topped with whipped cream or marshmallows, but I also enjoyed them with plain black coffee in the mornings. I’m not exaggerating when I say that their smiling faces were a fun holiday pick-me-up with my morning coffee!

In short, these are excellent cookies that look great and taste even better. This isn’t always the case with gingerbread people – nor with cookies that have a decorative purpose. I’ll be stocking up on a few extra boxes to enjoy into January.

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Trader Joe’s 12 Cranberry Orange Bars, reviewed

Trader Joe's 12 Cranberry Orange Bars, reviewed
If you’re looking for an eye-catching and easy holiday dessert this year, you don’t have to look much further than the Trader Joe’s 12 Cranberry Orange Bars. These jewel-tone desserts are in the freezer section of your local TJ’s. The Cranberry Orange Bars are already sliced and ready to serve at your holiday …

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As a fan of cranberry desserts, I couldn’t resist giving these easy treats a try. The bars remind me of jellied cranberry sauce in a very pleasant way. The cranberry curd is very smooth and stiff enough to slice easily without running down into the crust or onto your serving plate. The velvety and not-too-sweet curd has a good, slightly tart cranberry flavor and a hint of orange. The shortbread-like crust is buttery, tender and provides a nice contrast to the filling on top of it. If you like cranberries in general and are looking for an easy cranberry treat or dessert option, this one is going to be tough to beat because they don’t get much easier.

That said, I personally could have done with a little bit more flavor impact overall. The orange is subtle enough that I wish they had bumped it up with some more zest to make the bars punchier. To dress these up, I would serve them with a small dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream, garnished with some fresh orange zest.

The bars are sold frozen and only need to be defrosted before serving. The packaging suggests defrosting them for 4 hours in the refrigerator before serving, but I found that they did fine after 24 hours in the refrigerator defrosting. This means that you can bring them home from Trader Joe’s and pop them in the fridge before serving them the next day – eliminating the need to set a 4 hour timer and saving space in the freezer. I found that the bars were best cold, so I would recommend taking them out no more than an hour before serving. The cranberry layer is sturdy enough that it won’t melt or become too soft, but it simply tastes best when still slightly chilled!

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Trader Joe’s Corn Cookie Baking Mix, reviewed

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Trader Joe's Corn Cookie Baking Mix, reviewed
Fresh corn is one of my favorite summer foods, but frozen or canned corn can be a great option for some dishes – or when fresh corn isn’t in season. One of Trader Joe’s signature products is their canned sweet corn. It has been on shelves for decades and the corn is both fresh and incredibly sweet. Trader Joe’s Corn Cookie Baking Mix is a new product that is inspired by their signature canned corn. It is a dry mix packaged in a cylendrical container that looks like a large can of corn, and you simply combine it with 1 cup of softened butter and one large egg to make the dough.

Trader Joe's Corn Cookie Baking Mix, reviewed

The cookies dough is easy to mix up. It is relatively dry in texture when compared to a classic chocolate chip cookie dough, but it is very easy to handle and shape. The dough is made with flour, but it also includes cornmeal, corn flour and corn. The corn – presumably ground or dehydrated, though the packaging does not get specific – packs a wonderfully sweet flavor into the cookies, so you really taste that fresh, sweet corn flavor in every bite!

The cookies are buttery, with a crisp outer edge and a tender center after baking. They keep well for a couple of days if stored in an airtight container. The packaging suggested that it makes 24 cookies, but I got 32 out of my batch and I made very generously sized cookies. Next time, I would shape them into smaller rounds (about 1-inch instead of 1 1/2 inches) and reduce the baking time by a few minutes for a larger batch. But there will be a next time because these cookies are delicious! Consider making them into summery ice cream sandwiches by stuffing them with vanilla ice cream and fresh berries, or your favorite homemade sorbet.

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Trader Joe’s Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cooking Baking Mix, reviewed

Trader Joe's Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cooking Baking Mix, reviewed

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Trader Joe's Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cooking Baking Mix, reviewed

I always look forward to trying baking mixes from Trader Joe’s when they release new ones, since they not only tend to be tasty, but they tend to have short ingredient lists that mirror what you might use in a from-scratch recipe. Trader Joe’s Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cooking Baking Mix is a new mix from the popular grocery chain. The mix is gluten free, made with a blend of almond flour, coconut flour and tapioca starch. The mix can also be made to be vegan or non-vegan, as the box includes baking instructions for both. I love a good chocolate chip cookie, so I put this mix in the oven almost as soon as I got home from shopping!

The Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cooking Baking Mix is easy to make. For the non-vegan version, you add butter and milk to the dry mix, which is chock full of chocolate chips. For the vegan version, you simply add oil and a non-dairy milk (or water). I tried both and the cookies were ready to go into the oven as soon as it has preheated. The non-vegan version tasted a little bit more buttery, but the vegan version was a standout compared to some other vegan mixes I’ve tried and I think the fact that it works as a vegan recipe is a huge plus for this mix.

Overall, this mix really exceeded my expectations. Although coconut flour is not the main component in this mix, I’ve previously found it very finicky to work with and worried that it might adversely impact the texture of these cookies. But my worries were unfounded because the cookies made with this mix were absolutely delicious! They were crisp on the edges and chewy in the center, delivering that classic chocolate chip cookie texture in every bite. They’re loaded with chocolate, too! The one downside of this mix is that the yield is relatively small: only 12 cookies. The cookies are a good size when baked, but you would still need two boxes to bake enough to serve a crowd. That said, when it comes to flavor and texture these cookies are well worth it and I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up a couple of boxes to keep on hand in my pantry.

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Trader Joe’s Kunefe, reviewed

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Trader Joe's Kunefe, Baking Bites Review
The Trader Joe’s freezer section is filled with all kinds of delicious desserts, from classics that they carry all year to holiday favorites. Trader Joe’s Kunefe is one that caught my eye recently because it is a dessert that I wasn’t previously familiar with. I actually had it just before the holidays and enjoyed it so much that I ended up serving it a few times – even though I’m not getting around to posting this quick review until now.

Kunefe is a Middle Eastern dessert that is made with thin shreds of phyllo-like dough that is layered with cheese and soaked in a sweet syrup. This particular version is a round that is slightly smaller than a dinner plate. It is filled with a blend of cheeses, soaked in a honey syrup and topped with chopped pistachios after baking. It comes frozen and in its own baking tray, which is very convenient because it means that you need to do virtually no prep to make this at home.

The Kunefe bakes up to be golden and crisp, with a cheesy center that has just the right amount of stretch to it when the dessert is still hot from the oven. You pour the packet of syrup over the hot pastry before serving. I felt that there could have been a bit more syrup, but overall the dessert was absolutely delicious. The crisp pastry was the perfect contrast to the soft cheese, which had a hint of tanginess that balanced perfectly with the honey syrup.

Trader Joe's Kunefe, Baking Bites Review
This dish is so delicious and it really exceeded my expectations. It’s a cross between baklava and my grandma’s famous cheese blintzes, but better than both. The pastry is crisp and delicate, while the cheese inside it is both slightly salty and well-sweetened with honey syrup. My grandma’s cheese blintzes didn’t include mozzarella, but it adds a great elasticity to the cheeses in the filling. The pistachios on top were a nice touch, however there would have had to be more of them to really make this a nutty dessert. All in all, it is extremely tasty and well worth trying. The package delivers a satisfying serving for two, so pick up more than one if you want to serve more than a few bites to a group of four or more.

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Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookie Mix, reviewed

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookie Mix, reviewed
Pumpkin seems to show up in everything in the fall, from lattes to cakes to cookie mixes. This Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookie Mix from Trader Joe’s is one of the store’s new product offerings for the season. Naturally, as a fan of almost all things with pumpkin and …

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The cookie mix is very straightforward to put together, simply add an egg, a softened 1/2 cup of butter and 2 tablespoons of water to the mix and stir until well-combined. I used a hand mixer, however you probably could to it by hand with a bit of muscle, too. The mix uses the same ingredients that you would find in a homemade cookie mix – sugar, chocolate chips, oats, unbleached flour, brown sugar, salt, and spices – but it seems to utilize dried pumpkin, since you can’t put canned pumpkin into a packaged cookie mix. The mix has a nice mix of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and cloves in it.

Trader Joe's Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookie Mix, reviewed

The mix yields 24 good-sized cookies, just as it promises on the box. I used an average sized cookie scoop to portion mine out. The cookies baked up evenly and smelled like pumpkin spice when they came out of the oven. They were chewy, but not too dense, and had a nice balance of pumpkin, spices and chocolate. They weren’t quite as buttery as homemade oatmeal cookies, nor were they quite as moist as cookies made with canned pumpkin, but they were still pretty tasty and did feel more homemade than most pumpkin cookie mixes I’ve tried. My only small complaint was the the cookies didn’t spread that much, so next time I would flatten them slightly before baking to give them a less domed appearance.

I also have to say that I really like the packaging for this cookie mix. The round shape seems to be a nod to the round packaging that a classic oatmeal brand (Quaker) uses, tying in nicely with the oatmeal in the mix. Aside from the oatmeal connection, it just has a great feel to it and I think it stands out from other packages. I filled it up with a few cookies after baking and used it to transport some treats to a friend, which gave it a touch of versatility, too.

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