There's A Cookie Dough Paradise In Philadelphia

To some, it's one of the most illogical and nonsensical food trend to hit stores since the space food fad, but for diehard sugar fiends, the birth of the cookie dough epidemic is a gift from the heavens above. Stores across the country now offer this unorthodox presentation of a household staple, but in all honesty, many have been terrible. There's no sugar coating this – cookie dough can be bad. It can be sickly sweet and bland, and no more than just an injection of sugar, and more often than not, the creators of various cookie dough servings have just been plain lazy.

Now I'm not, by any means, one to complain about sweetness. I'm a dessert addict at the very best of times, but I long for a joyous sugar high with unique and interesting flavors, and with a creative substance. While I wouldn't go out of my way to consume a scoop of cookie dough, let alone wait in a line for hours on a cold Manhattan street with a gaggle of Instagramming teenagers, I did happen to stumble across a bakery in Philadelphia that the locals swear by for having some of the best cookie dough creations in the country.

Minutes from the city center is the Sweet Box bakery, from Gretchen Fantini. Fantini started the company during Philadelphia's food truck boom, buying a food truck to initially sell slices of homemade cakes, before deciding to move into cupcakes. From there, Sweet Box's popularity escalated, and the brand soon became known as one of the city's favorite cupcake stores.

"For me the best part of making cookies is and always has been the unbaked cookie dough," she explains to me. Fantini confesses that she shares an all-too-common love of eating just the cookie dough with a spoon while baking cookies. "What makes our cookie dough unique is we use premium ingredients and real butter and mix in our scratch-made products to our signature classic OG cookie dough base, such as adding chunks of my homemade brownies to the half-baked cookie dough." The end result holds its own as an interesting and tasty creation. And for those wondering (like myself) if it was totally safe to eat, Fantini assures me that it's all completely well prepared. "To make it 100 percent safe to eat, each batch of cookie dough has no egg, no raw flour, and no chemical leaveners."

The Doughlicious range of cookie dough offers balls flavors such as cheesecake and cookies and cream, but while good enough to eat on their own, it's the cookie dough-based inventions that really get people talking. Fantini adds her cookie dough into elevating sweet dessert classics, like cookie dough sandwiches, and a cookie dough brownie, which features a layer of rich chocolate brownie, a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough, topped with a layer of smooth chocolate ganache. Sweet Box's already popular cupcakes are injected with a stuffing of cookie dough, and then topped with more cookie dough. And Fantini's favorite, the Jawn, is a colorfully popular seller. "It is a birthday cake blondie layered with cookie dough and topped with cake batter frosting," she explains. "It's the trifecta," and incredibly Instagrammable too.

But the biggest attention-grabber in my person opinion has to be the epic creation that is the s'mores cookie dough pie. "Thanksgiving was coming up and I wanted to do something traditional but with a fun twist," explains Fantini. "It starts with a buttery graham cracker crust, our signature OG classic cookie dough swirled with fluff, then a layer of Callebaut chocolate ganache is added, topped with toasted marshmallow." The end result is a stunning pie that oozes a sweet richness just when you simply stare at it. Each bite into the decadent creation has the perfect texture – a right smoothness of the cookie dough with bites of chocolate and graham cracker, with a chewiness from the marshmallow. It's a total indulgence, but who cares? It's a childhood classic that's set social media ablaze. "The response has been pretty amazing," says Fantini. "We get people driving in from all over Pennsylvania and beyond to try it."

As simple as the premise is, cookie dough is a crowd pleaser, and Sweet Box's s'mores cookie dough pie is one of those wacky hybrid creations that has harnessed our sweet nostalgic bites to a roaring reception, which has made Fantini very satisfied. "I haven't met anyone yet who wasn't stoked to try it and had a smile on their face. I'm happy as long as I'm making other people happy."

Not in Philly? Take some inspiration with our 17 ideas for that tube of cookie dough in your fridge.