Crumbl Cookies review #79 - Peanut Butter Bar (tester) and Dirt Cake Cup (tester)

Crumbl Cookies review #79 - Peanut Butter Bar (tester), visited August 17, 2024 and Dirt Cake Cup (tester), visited August 19, 2024

Peanut Butter Bar

No, Crumbl didn't test two products in the same week. What they did do was change the Crumbl app so that I couldn't find the test products the way I used to and didn't discover until last Saturday that it was under the new "hometown" icon on the updated app. Hence why I didn't realize until almost too late that last week, my store was testing the peanut butter bar.

Menu week of August 12, 2024

Display week of August 12, 2024

One thing I don't like about this new version of the app is they don't describe what the test product is (the old version used to) until you go to fill out the survey after you buy the test product. I hope they fix that in a future release as it's always better for consumers to know what they might buy instead of telling them what it is they have after they bought it. Yes, you can ask the store personnel when you go in but this still feels like a takeaway from the old version of the app.

In any case, despite my indifference to peanut butter, I got it anyway because....test product and FOMO.

In my first bite of this, I wasn't impressed. I started at the corner and the texture seemed dry. It also had a dense, heavy texture, in part because the batter included oatmeal but also because that's what they made. It's not a cake or even a heavy cake. It really is a bar cookie. The peanut butter flavor wasn't that prevalent so the whole thing seemed bland. The chocolate frosting was okay; at least it imparted some flavor. 

I only ate a little when I first bought it then ate about 1/4 of a piece the next day. I have to say, I liked it much better the next day. I think it was because I wasn't eating just the corner but actually got into the bar itself. Surprisingly, that was moist, even a day later, and I liked the dense texture much better. The peanut butter flavor also came through better but that could've been because I scraped off all the frosting and just had it as a straightforward peanut butter bar. If I were Crumbl, I'd cut out the oats, amp up the peanut butter and add more chopped peanuts. And glaze it with a thin chocolate glaze rather than that heavy frosting.

This week, now that I've learned how to read the new app, I checked the "hometown" tab and saw they were testing "Dirt Cake Cup". Once again, no description and this time my survey link didn't even work but I bought it anyway, expecting it would be a cake version of the Dirt Cake Cookie, which I actually liked.

I was wrong. First, don't go by the picture above in the app; that's just for marketing purposes. The actual "dirt cake cup" only came to about 2/3 of the Crumbl cup and doesn't reach the top, much less overflow it. Being used to marketing tactics, I was okay with that.

But, second, I should've been tipped off by the container it came in that this wasn't a cake at all. Rather it was a container of mousse with some crunchy chocolate cake bits thrown in and, as a nod to the original Dirt Cake cookie, a gummy worm on top. 

This is a clear case of, if my expectations had been set on what I was buying (mousse), I might've liked it better. Or at least not been surprised when I started eating it and could only find mousse with crunchy bits. I even dug to the bottom, thinking the top layer of mousse was just thick and there was cake underneath.

Yeah, no. It looks like there would be from the pictures but that dark layer you see at the bottom was just more crunchy bits. Think yogurt with crumbles. The mousse itself wasn't bad but it was just mousse. Nothing special. Not worth the calories to me. I think Crumbl would've been better off making this more like a parfait with cake, mousse and then the crunchy bits. Or else, again, fix their app to include the description so people have their expectations set up front.

So, in summary, I'd probably get the peanut butter bar again (maybe) but definitely not the Dirt Cake (Mousse) Cup. I do want to try the Banana Pudding on this week's menu; that does have a description so I know what I'd be getting. But it was sold out yesterday when I went to my Crumbl so I'll have to try again later this week.