I tried 32 flavors of Crumbl cookies and ranked them from worst to best
- I tried 32 different flavors of Crumbl cookies and ranked them from worst to best.
- I didn't love the wedding-cake cookie, and found it to be too sweet.
- My favorite cookies were the mallow-sandwich and pink-velvet flavors.
It seems as though every few years, Americans embrace a new dessert trend. Like the frozen yogurt craze of the 2010s, cookie chains have been taking the US by storm in recent years.
However, one chain stands out as the country's fastest-growing cookie company: Crumbl.
Since its first location opened in Utah in 2017, the dessert chain has expanded to over 1,000 locations in all 50 US states, Puerto Rico, and Canada.
Though the first store only sold milk-chocolate-chip cookies, Crumbl now offers a rotating weekly selection of six desserts at a time and has featured over 200 varieties on its menu.
Trying to pick which weekly option to choose can feel like a lot of pressure. To help sort out which types of Crumbl cookies are the best, I sampled 32 desserts over multiple visits and ranked them from worst to best.
Here's what I thought of the flavors I tried.
It wasn't easy to choose a last-place cookie — they're all cookies, after all. However, the wedding-cake flavor was my least favorite. I loved the little white-chocolate baubles that decorated the cookie, which made for crunchy little explosions of texture and flavor.
But the raspberry flavor in the frosting was so assertive that even my 4-year-old — who loves almost all sweet, sparkly, pink, frosted things — took half a bite and turned the cookie away.
My 6-year-old, however, had no such issues, declaring, "Nothing's too sweet for me."
The pistachio-gelato cookie looked adorable in the store display, decorated with a miniature cone made out of a Muddy Bites snack.
The gelato-inspired frosting had a pudding-like texture and was extremely sweet with a strong pistachio flavor. In my opinion, it tasted like a concentrated form of pistachio ice cream. I also found the underlying cookie to be dense and bland.
Crumbl's chocolate-covered-strawberry cookie had a chocolatey, cookies-and-cream base with strawberry-cream-cheese frosting and a semi-sweet chocolate drizzle on top.
The cookie itself was delicious — soft, tasty, and a little crumbly. But no one in my family enjoyed the addition of the strawberry frosting, which had a fruity tang that didn't pair well with the chocolate cookie. We thought the aftertaste was a bit medicinal.
My 4-year-old, a lover of most pink things, was especially disappointed, saying, "I don't like the mushed strawberries," in reference to the frosting.
Crumbl's toffee cake sounded like something I'd like: chocolate cake with caramel sauce, whipped cream, and a crumbled chocolate-toffee bar on top.
I liked the incorporation of the whipped cream, which helped keep the cake moist without being as densely sweet as most of Crumbl's other frostings.
But the caramel sauce between the cake and whipped cream made it a soggy mess, and it tasted more like something I'd find at the supermarket than a freshly made cake or cookie at this price point.
The lemon-poppy flavor proved divisive in my household. My wife, who loves lemony desserts, ranked this cookie among her favorites.
For me, however, the glaze made it a touch too sweet, and the lemon flavor, while strong, wasn't quite as tart or as bright as I would've liked.
I did appreciate the noticeable poppy flavor, as poppy seeds usually seem like an afterthought in many muffins.
I feel a little bad ranking the cake-batter blondie this low because my 4-year-old loved it so much. But she's 4 — rainbow sprinkles are her favorite food.
To be fair, the cookie tasted exactly as I expected it would — extremely sweet and uncomplicated, perfect for the 4-year-old palate. However, it was a bit one-note, even for my 6-year-old.
I had high hopes for the strawberry-crumb-cake cookie. Although I love strawberries, I can't remember ever eating a cookie with strawberries inside or on top.
However, even with white-chocolate chips and a strawberry-streusel topping, I found this cookie unexpectedly bland. The strawberry flavor was definitely real, which I appreciated, but there wasn't very much of it.
The streusel also seemed like an afterthought and didn't add much texture to the cookie. Overall, it was fine but a little disappointing.
Crumbl's waffle cookie offered a neat twist — it came with a container of syrup to drizzle over the cookie before serving.
The cookie itself, criss-crossed with a waffle-like pattern, was fairly plain and tasted more or less like a sugar cookie. The dollop of buttercream frosting on top was powerfully sugary, and the addition of the syrup made the whole thing extremely sweet with maple flavor.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't keep very well after it had been drenched, and the leftover portion turned unpleasantly mushy.
Unsurprisingly, chocolate-chip cookies are one of Crumbl's calling cards, and the menu alternates weekly between the milk-chocolate-chip version and the semi-sweet chocolate chunk.
The semi-sweet variety used lots of bulky chocolate chunks, making it a chocolate lover's dream. I found it met my expectations for a chocolate-chip cookie without exceeding them.
A few bites of the crunchier outer portion of the cookie had a little chalkiness to the texture, but not nearly enough to make it unpleasant.
Crumbl's kitchen-sink cookie is a semi-sweet-chocolate-chip cookie rolled in pretzels and potato chips. I love cookies that incorporate pretzels, but in my opinion, the execution of this flavor was lacking.
The one I got didn't have many pretzels or potato chips, and the potato chips did little to impact the flavor or texture of the cookie.
The pretzels added a nice crunch, and bites that included pretzel, chocolate, and cookie were excellent. However, these bites were few and far between.
A spruced-up take on the snickerdoodle, Crumbl's cinnamon-crunch cookie was topped with a vanilla-cream-cheese glaze and "crunchy cinnamon cereal streusel."
The cookie itself was a bit puffier than most of Crumbl's offerings and had a little more crunch to its outer crust. However, I thought it was a touch dry in the center, the glaze was more sugary than the cookie called for, and the cereal pieces had a weirdly chewy texture.
My 6-year-old loves everything cinnamon-sugar-flavored, so I was surprised when he called this cookie his least favorite of that week's offerings.
Like the lemon-poppy cookie, the lemon-glaze flavor divided my household.
This one was so popular that it was sold out on my first visit of the week. Its simplicity — a lemon cookie with a sweet glaze — seemed appealing. However, my wife and I both felt the lemon flavor was a bit too strong, and it lacked the acidic bite of real lemons.
The glaze was good, though, and there was a nice bit of crunchy texture on the outer rim of the cookie. Both our kids loved it, with the 4-year-old briefly declaring it one of her favorites.
Notably, the cookie we received did not come with the slice of lemon I'd seen advertised in pictures.
During one of my visits to Crumbl, the company debuted its first cheesecake. It feels a little strange to rank it among cookies, as it was decidedly a cheesecake with a graham-cracker crust, raspberry spread, and whipped cream.
As far as cheesecakes go, it was good but unspectacular. The custard portion had a nice, smooth texture, and the raspberry topping was more tangy than sweet.
However, the graham-cracker crust didn't hold together at all and was fundamentally less portable than a cookie. However, it's a good option for when you need a break from eating too many cookies — which was applicable in my case.
Crumbl's sea-salt toffee is a variant of a chocolate-chip cookie with toffee and milk-chocolate chips. I enjoyed it, but it was one of the plainest cookies I tried.
I found the toffee flavor presented itself more as a warm, caramel-y aftertaste than a strong, sticky Heath Bar. The milk-chocolate chips were also sparse.
This cookie wasn't particularly memorable, but I'd still choose it over the overly sweet flavors.
The blueberry-pancake cookie, which was topped with a blueberry-buttermilk glaze, was another divisive flavor in my house.
The menu and photos I'd seen suggested it was supposed to have a dollop of buttercream frosting on top, but the one I brought home did not.
I loved the actual cookie, which had plenty of fruity blueberry flavor from the berries baked inside. But to me, the glaze was too sweet and was sugary enough for it to taste grainy.
My 4-year-old was appalled by the blueberries in the cookie, but my 6-year-old loved every bit of this one. My wife liked it more than I did, but agreed it was too sweet and would be better with no glaze or frosting.
When having a chocolate-chip cookie, I usually prefer semi-sweet-chocolate chips over milk-chocolate chips.
However, since the milk-chocolate chip was Crumbl's first cookie, I knew I had to try it. It was a touch salty, with a soft, comforting texture. The cookie was so thick it was basically a blondie.
In my book, it beat out its semi-sweet chocolate chunk alternative, which I wouldn't have expected.
Both my kids loved the Nilla-bean-cupcake cookie, which was not surprising at all — they love frosting, and there was a lot of it.
I expected this to be overwhelmingly sweet, but the cream-cheese frosting added a nice tangy component instead of one-note sweetness. The actual cookie was soft and cakey, with a warm vanilla flavor.
It's not just a clever name — this cookie tasted just like a slice of chocolate cake. In fact, I might have tried it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top if it weren't for the frosting.
The chocolate-cake cookie was extremely rich, with a strong cocoa flavor to both the cookie and the frosting. It's definitely best for people who can't get enough chocolate — like my 6-year-old, who gave this one two enthusiastic thumbs up.
The frosting was a bit softer and thinner than I expected, but the chocolate swirls added nice little bites of texture.
The pink swirl of strawberry-cream-cheese frosting and a sprinkling of white-chocolate curls drew my 4-year-old's eyes straight to the stawberry-cake cookie, and she was not disappointed.
However, the rest of us were less enthusiastic and found that it was very sugary and definitely best in small portions. I enjoyed the tangy strawberry flavor in the cookie itself, but the strawberry in the frosting tasted a little artificial.
I would've liked this better with only a thin layer of plain-cream-cheese frosting — or no frosting at all.
Crumbl's hazelnut-sea-salt cookie had a beguiling effect on my 6-year-old, who really loved it but couldn't quite put words to why (though he does love Nutella).
To me, it tasted like the most grown-up friendly cookie of the bunch — something my grandmother probably would've loved with her tea.
The sweet-and-salty brown-butter cookie tasted almost refined, and Crumbl took a light hand with the hazelnut spread and sea salt on top. My 6-year-old kept going back to it despite the more colorful, decorated cookies around it.
Banana pudding is one of the few desserts I regularly make at home. I use Magnolia Bakery's recipe and thought Crumbl's dessert tasted similar. It was on the lighter, fluffier side of banana puddings, topped with whipped cream and crumbled vanilla wafers.
It was a nice change of pace from the other Crumbl desserts we tried, with just enough bananas mixed in to give it flavor without being overpowering.
However, it seemed to offer a bit less bang for your buck than Crumbl's other desserts. The cookies are huge, and I usually divide them into four servings. The soup-sized cup of banana pudding, on the other hand, felt like enough for only two or three servings.
Crumbl's French-toast cookie grew on me. At first, I found it frustrating that the frosting was concentrated in the cookie's center, presumably making it look like French toast with a big dollop of butter.
However, I realized it was the frosting that was throwing me off. I found it to be a little dry and super sweet with a maple flavor. In fact, it gave the cloying effect of maple candy.
The cake part of the cookie, meanwhile, was excellent. It had a spongy, doughnut-like consistency and a lighter maple flavor.
Crumbl's double-fudge sandwich is — as the name suggests — made up of two chocolate cookies sandwiched around a dollop of fudge frosting. There was also a drizzle of milk chocolate on top, which seemed mostly decorative.
My 6-year-old almost always chooses the most chocolatey cookie first, and he was thrilled with this one. I liked the rich cocoa flavor, and the fudge filling made this cookie feel a lot like eating an underbaked brownie (in a good way).
My only qualm was that it was almost too soft and left my kids caked in chocolate.
Another variation on the traditional chocolate chip cookie, Mom's recipe is an oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookie with peanut-butter and toffee chips.
It sounds like it might have too much going on, but there weren't too many of any one chip. It combined a variety of sweet, salty, and comforting flavors without any one flavor overwhelming the others.
The nutty oatmeal texture, appropriately enough, made it feel like something I'd be very excited to buy at an elementary-school bake sale.
Although I don't typically like mint-cookies-and-cream ice cream, I really liked this cookie. My wife was a little turned off by the color of the mint frosting, as she thought it should be more green.
However, the cookie did a strangely good job simulating its ice-cream counterpoint. The creamy frosting, which had a pleasant cool-mint flavor complemented the crunch of the cookies-and-cream cookie.
My 4-year-old especially loved this one, declaring, "I love mint, I love frosting, and I love Oreos!"
Crumbl's take on a peanut-butter cookie included a melted-peanut-butter drizzle and a peanut-butter core baked into the center.
I worried that the peanut-butter filling might be overwhelming, but I appreciated that this cookie was a bit less sweet than the others.
The filling also helped keep the whole cookie soft and moist. This was one of the few flavors that all four members of my household really loved.
My family wasn't the only one that enjoyed Crumbl's cookies-and-cream cheesecake — it was sold out at every New York City location the first two times I tried to buy it.
The cheesecake had a nice fluffy texture and tangy flavor that perfectly complemented the cookie crust. The whipped-cream topping seemed more like frosting — but it turns out cheesecake is good with a big blob of frosting on top.
My 6-year-old, who is extremely dedicated to eating with his hands, was shocked to declare this fork-necessitating cheesecake his favorite dessert of the week.
It's rare that all four members of my family agree on a food, but the peanut-butter-cookies-and-cream flavor was an all-around favorite in my household.
It wasn't as eye-catching as many of the other options, especially since the bits of chocolate-sandwich cookies got camouflaged against the chocolate base.
However, they were unmistakable once I bit into it, punctuating the soft texture of Crumbl's chocolate cookie with the crumbly, crunchy texture of an Oreo. The peanut-butter chips were mostly in the background, but they added a nice balance to the chocolate.
I always love a good cookie-flavored cookie.
Crumbl's Patriotic Fruit Pizza featured raspberries and blueberries atop a backdrop of white frosting. However, it didn't strike me as especially patriotic-looking — and it definitely didn't look like a pizza.
But unlike some New Yorkers, I'm agnostic about the definition of "pizza," so I sampled this one with an open mind. I'm glad I did because it was excellent.
The sugar cookie underneath the fruit and frosting was extremely moist and had a pleasant, shortbread-like flavor. The frosting had a bright hint of lemony tang and a nice, creamy texture. The inclusion of fresh fruit added juiciness and nuance.
I especially liked the way the acidic bite of raspberries paired with the mellow sweetness of the cookie.
No one in my household is especially familiar with Olivia Rodrigo's music — our tastes skew toward late-20th-century alt-rock and the "Encanto" soundtrack on repeat. However, we now endorse her taste in cookies.
Olivia Rodrigo's GUTS Cookie is a sandwich of two purple-colored vanilla cookies filled with vanilla buttercream, triple-berry jam, and colorful sprinkles.
The tangy-sweet flavor of the jam, mixed with the mild sweetness of the cookies, gave it the familiar taste of a Linzer tart. Even my 4-year-old, who passionately dislikes jelly, enjoyed this cookie.
I liked all of the Oreo-inspired Crumbl cookies I tried, but the mallow sandwich was my favorite. It featured two chocolate cookies with Oreo pieces, sandwiched around creamy frosting.
The combination of soft-chocolate cookies and marshmallow filling reminded me of a whoopie pie. The Oreo pieces that were baked into the cookie added a crunchy, crumbly texture.
Sadly, my kids didn't get a chance to sample this one because my wife and I ate the whole thing before they had a chance — it was one of her favorites, too.
Crumbl's pink-velvet cookie earned my top spot with a caveat: I never ate more than a small portion in one sitting. I suspect that eating as much as half of this cookie at once might leave me less enthusiastic about it.
However, I happen to love cream-cheese frosting, and this one had a nice, mild tartness to it that complements the sweet, soft cookie.
I tasted it before reading the flavor description, and the power of suggestion left me thinking it had a strawberry taste.
But eating more of the cookie revealed that the crunchy, sugary crumbles on top were extremely reminiscent of the outer coating of a classic strawberry-shortcake-ice-cream bar. I happen to love those, so this had a nostalgic appeal.