Cookie Butter: Spreading Across So Cal
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The famous Speculoos Cookie Butter. (Creative Commons/Flickr user StarsApart)
That's right. The cookie butter craze has taken a new level, and Trader Joe's was facing a shortage that just got restocked, according to an article on Culture Map Dallas. Even typing in "Trader Joe's Cookie Butter" on Amazon will tell you that it's almost out of stock.
According to an article on the Daily Californian, cookie butter is similar to peanut butter in terms of looks. It's brown, thick consistency only pretty much differentiates itself from peanut butter because of the compound it is made up of. The spicy gingerbread flavor comes from the "Speculoos cookie." Stemming from countries like Belgium, Holland and Germany, it is a cookie that is most commonly associated with winter. It is a thin, slightly browned cookie that sometimes comes in different shapes or has a fun figure stamped onto the front, making it a fun treat to devour.
Being from Germany, I can't even recall when I started eating Speculoos cookies. I remember my mom always bringing them home from the Christmas markets or the local bakery, and me devouring them in minutes. They are filling yet addicting, and now that my attention has been diverted to cookie butter, I was excited to try this.
Taking this cookie and making it into a creamy spread to put on toast, bagels, or even other cookies is just downright amazing. There's also different styles you can get, ranging from crunchy to smooth.
So why is it in such high demand? Well, it's delicious. But it's also slightly better for you than peanut butter or Nutella. While one tablespoon of cookie butter has 90 calories with six grams of fat and eight grams of carbohydrates, peanut butter has 95 calories with eight grams of fat. Nutella is the unhealthiest out of the three, with 100 calories per tablespoon, 12 grams of fat and 21 grams of carbohydrates. However, that is not to say that cookie butter is healthy. Composed of cookies and oil, it's pretty much as unhealthy as you'd expect.
But just like any food that's bad for you, it is particularly appealing to the taste buds. Maybe it's so liked because it's sweet but acts as a savory spread. Or maybe it's liked because its creamy consistency is similar to peanut butter, but marks a change in your daily snack regiment. We might not know why everyone is so crazy about it, but we know one thing for sure: whatever it is, it is making those that are obsessed with it have to wait for the shortage to end.
