Food & Fitness

Product Review: Popcorn and Sugar Cookies

When I was offered the chance to review gourmet popcorn and holiday cookies from the 1-800-FLOWERS Holiday Gift Guide, there was no way I was going to say “no”. Popcorn. And cookies! I’d like to see you try to resist that kind of call 😉

So was it worth it? Well, I’ll give you this photo for an answer:

christmas tin

That’s a gigantic empty tin and a sparkly empty box. They’re empty because we (my co-workers and I) demolished the contents before I thought to take a photo of what was inside.

Popcorn

The gigantic Christmassy tin pictured above held the popcorn from The Popcorn Factory. Three kinds, in fact: butter flavour, cheese flavour, and caramel corn. I’m not usually a fan of flavoured popcorn, but I was even eating up the cheesy stuff. The buttery popcorn had a fairly light flavour (although, judging from the oily residue on my fingers after eating it, the lightness in flavour did not carry over to a lightness in fat and calories), and it was my favourite. The caramel corn was also addictively delicious.

 

As far as nutrient content goes, I have no idea what the ingredients were or how big of a calorie-bomb this food was. But I do know that it was tasty, it arrived in a really pretty (and really BIG) tin, and it would make for an awesome gift for any popcorn-lover.

Cookies

I loooove cookies. About the same amount as I love popcorn. These cookies had that wonderful melt-in-your-mouth soft texture that is perfectly delectable in a cookie, and they were frosted very sweetly. Almost too sweetly, in fact. The first cookie that I had was swoon-worthy. A couple days later, when I had just a bite of another cookie, it seemed far too sweet (although that might have been because I tasted it fairly early in the morning and I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet). The mother dear and the sistertraveller happily involved themselves in the taste-testing, pleading to be allowed another cookie after their first – which I take as a pretty good sign that these are yummy cookies 🙂

Photo courtesy of 1-800-FLOWERS. My cookies were kind of like the white ones with the little green and red sprinkles.

The nutritional stats for the cookies were included with the box. These are not a healthy cookie. There’s white flour and white sugar in there, although there didn’t appear to be much in the way of partially hydrogenated oils and such (except in the sprinkles), which is a good thing! Each cookie clocked in at about 130 calories – fairly decent for a large, generously-frosted sugar cookie.

Again, the presentation for the cookies was beautiful. They came individually-wrapped in an elegant silver box that was tied with a silver bow. These too would make for a great present for a cookie-lover, especially one who likes a little extra flair in their baking!

The verdict

The fact that both the cookies (six) and the popcorn (giant container) were both gone within two or three days speaks for itself. Really yummy. Not necessarily healthy. In fact, not healthy at all. But if you feel like a splurge and an indulgence, and if you want to give a gift that has lovely presentation and tastes good, then I definitely recommend trying these items. The 1-800-FLOWERS website has all kinds of gifts that look fantastic, actually – I wouldn’t mind checking out some more of them!

Check out my recipe for homemade caramel corn from my Happy Halloween blog post in 2008.

Have you given or received gifts from an online Holiday Gift Guide before? What’s your favourite kind of popcorn?

4 Comments

  1. Geosomin

    I got some frozen, proof and bake yourself croissants last year as a gift. WOW they’re good…I’m leaving heavy hints again for this year!

    For popcorn? I like spicy chili flavour or dill pickle when I get the flavoured stuff. I have to say -popcorn is my one vice…I make it at home a lot with with garlic salt and papper on it. Mmmm. My mum used to make the best popcorn balls. Mmmm…

  2. Jody - Fit at 53

    OK, if you read my blog enough, you know I LOVE COOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t care if they are fattening cause when I have my weekend cookie treats, they are the real deal! 🙂

    Hubby loves the popcorn! Me, I do love me some caramel corn! Hubby, he likes the buttered & cheese!

    I have not ordered online like this but have received! YUM!

    PS; I DON’T mind a sweet cookie!

    Happy Thanksgiving!

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