Aldi Holiday Cookie Assortment (Benton) Review
Author’s Note: The following review is my own silly opinion. I don’t work for Aldi. Nobody paid me to write this. I have no affiliation with either Benton brand or Aldi.
It has potential. Sort of.
I don’t know what I expected from this bag of assorted holiday cookies from Aldi. But, let’s talk about what I got. (Keep reading to hear what I thought of the ingredients, overall.)
To show you what I actually received in my bag, I dumped it all out and took a picture. Here it is:
It’s kind of a mad jumble. A lot of broken cookies and crumbs. Cookie dust embedded on the surface of the chocolate coated cookies. The chocolate had smeared off the coated cookies and rubbed onto everything else. A hot mess.
But, aren’t we all this time of year?
A hot mess, even when it’s cold
Speaking of the chocolate, it was very noticeably melty. I have written before about melty chocolate, blaming it on how warm my house is here in balmy Florida. However, it’s a chilly 72 degrees currently (so cold, I’m wearing socks! Floridians know how serious this is!), and the chocolate is still so melty, it is wiping off onto everything the cookies touch. Some of the cookies were melted together.
So, this is way beyond normal melty. Super melty. Epic melty. Galactic melty. That’s what we’re working with here.
A lot of variety
There’s an impressive assortment of cookie types. In fact, I counted more than a dozen different cookie shapes/types in my bag (other bags might have more, because I didn’t have some of the ones pictured on the front, like the checkered cookies or pinwheels).
I wasn’t expecting this, and I looove variety, so this made me happy.
I was also pleased to find cookies with berry-jam-flavored centers. I thought this holiday assortment contained only chocolate-and-vanilla type flavors, so I was delighted to discover fruity stuff, too.
I divided the cookies into five basic categories, although there are a number of different shapes within each category:
- Chocolate coated
- Chocolate drizzle
- Berry center
- Plain
- Chocolate center
Serving the cookies
I was determined to make something pretty out of this, so I ended up picking out the unbroken cookies, sorting them by type, and arranging them on a long, rectangular tray. I dusted the cookies off as best I could before arranging them, because the crumb fragments stuck to the surface made them look at lot worse. Here’s what they looked like when I was done:
Not bad, right? Huge improvement in appearance.
Here are all the cookies leftover after I made this tray:
Yes, most of these are broken. I ended up scooping them into a ziplock bag and freezing to blend up for cheesecake crust later. Waste not, waist later. Ha.
On a positive note, the cookies themselves are light, but crisp. They’re not particularly “crunchy,” because they aren’t really dense enough to resist pressure. Just airy, and a little crumbly.
Where is the flavor?
Flavor-wise, well…there isn’t much. Alas. I would like to tell you cool things about the taste, but there is very little to discuss. The chocolate is fairly weak and diluted. The cookie batter is a generic vanilla-ish flavor. There’s nothing offensive here, but nothing that really stands out, either.
I think I’m extra-disappointed by this, because most Aldi holiday cookies I’ve tried so far have had outstanding flavor. I’ve raved about several of them. I expected more from these cookies! Gah.
Good for general use
My assessment is thus: although these are packaged in a Holiday/Christmas bag, the actual style of cookies is suitable for year-round entertaining. There isn’t anything here, design-wise, that makes them exclusive to Christmas or the holidays. I think these would work for a tea party or a reception. Any sort of function where prim little cookies are warranted.
In fact, this is the kind of thing they served at violin recitals, when I was a kid. I really hated those recitals.
Ingredients in Holiday Cookie Assortment from Aldi
Here are the ingredients, from the label:
- Wheat Flour
- Sugar
- Palm and Coconut Fat
- Wheat Starch
- Glucose Syrup (from Wheat)
- Chocolate Liquor
- Cocoa Butter
- Glucose-Fructose Syrup
- Salt
- Soy Lecithin
- Ammonium Bicarbonate
- Sodium Bicarbonate
- Raspberries
- Apples
- Sour Cherries
- Cocoa Powder
- Strawberries
- Sodium Caseinate (Milk)
- Natural Flavor
- Elderberry Juice from Concentrate
- Egg
- Pectin
- Calcium Citrate
- Sodium Citrate
- Citric Acid
Honestly, I’m pretty impressed by these ingredients. I love seeing coconut and palm oil instead of hydrogenated fats or canola oils. It’s wonderful to see all the real fruits and juices used to make the jelly centers. There’s nothing weird or scary in this ingredient list.
It’s too bad all this didn’t add up to a better-tasting product. Hmmph.
It’s also great to discover that the Cocoa Powder, Cocoa Butter, and Chocolate Liquor is Rainforest Alliance Certified.
These cookies are made in Germany.
Nutrition Facts in Aldi Holiday Cookie Assortment
A serving is 4 cookies and contains 150 calories, which surprised me. These are small, lightweight cookies! There are 7 grams of fat and 2 grams of protein. Impressively, there are only 8 grams of sugar, and a token 1 gram of fiber.
Shelf-Life
My bag had a best-by date of approximately 8 months from my date of purchase.
Price and Servings
My 17.6 ounce bag cost $3.49 at my local Aldi. There are 17 servings per bag, so each serving costs about 21 cents. Assuming 68 cookies per package, each cookie costs around 5 cents. However, up to 20% may be broken cookies, thereby not suitable for entertaining purposes.
(Looking for 5-cent cookies I actually admired? Here is my review of Aldi’s Doppelino Sandwich Creme Cookies.)
Dramatic Conclusion
I don’t think I would buy these cookies a second time. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t good either. They were very “meh.” Although you get a lovely assortment of shapes, they are not in good condition, and the flavor is super bland. Super-hero-level blandness. Even at the bargain price of only 5 cents per cookie, it just isn’t worth it for how many arrive crumbled and smeared.
I said what I said!
The End.
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