It's the time of year where seasonal snacks seem to be everywhere, and no, I'm not talking about chestnuts roasting on an open fire! I mean Tim Hortons' and Starbucks' Christmas cookies.
Both chains put out a festive treat for 2020, so I put them to the test to see if one is better than the other.
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What is the Starbucks snowman cookie like?
To celebrate the season the coffee chain is offering a snowman-shaped shortbread cookie. It looks very professionally decorated, with what seems to be white chocolate instead of icing to decorate the frosty figure.
The texture of the cookie is crumbly but not too dry or hard when you bite into it. It definitely tastes like shortbread. It's not overly sweet and I think the chocolate brings a bit of bitterness to it all.
The bottom part of the cookie randomly has coarse sugar on it which brings a nice little crunch to it.
How do Tim Hortons' icing-filled sugar cookies taste?
Timmies' offering for this time of year is a filled sugar cookie. Unlike the other treat, this one looks like it could have been made by a five-year-old.
It is a basic circular shape with sprinkles very unevenly scattered on the top, and weirdly some also embedded in the bottom. The cookie is then filled, impressively almost edge to edge, with a buttercream-like icing inside.
The cookie is very sweet but not super crispy, although the sprinkles add a nice crunch. The filling makes it very moist, almost as if you're eating raw cookie dough. The one thing is that it doesn't quite taste like a traditional sugar cookie, but it's still yummy.
Which one is better?
In terms of re-ordering, this one comes down to whether you are more of a shortbread or sugar cookie fan.
But based on the execution of the respective cookie types, this win goes to Starbucks.
Not only did their presentation actually look like it was made by a baker and not a child, but the flavour was truer to an actual shortbread cookie than Tims' was to a sugar cookie — and that's my honest opinion.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of Narcity Media.