News that Ghirardelli was expanding into the snack aisle with two crisp cookie options certainly grabbed our attention. The lineup includes a Double Chocolate cookie crafted from chocolate dough studded with Ghirardelli chips, and a Classic Chocolate Chip version built on a brown sugar–style dough with the same Ghirardelli chocolate chips.
Our Official Thoughts
Pros — From the first bite, the flavors come together unusually well. It tastes closer to the kind of nostalgia-filled cookie you’d hope Chips Ahoy would deliver if the odd artificial aftertastes were removed. That retro charm can be appealing in moderation, but isn’t always what you’re after. These cookies dodge that pitfall entirely, delivering a far more pleasant experience. They have a heft comparable to a typical crunchy supermarket cookie, yet they feel noticeably thicker than a Tate’s-style treat.
For the Double Chocolate variant, the dough emphasizes a pronounced dark cocoa note. The resulting cookie carries a rich, authentic chocolate profile that aligns well with the Ghirardelli name. And the chips themselves live up to the brand, offering a creamy, nuanced bite. They outshine standard grocery-store chips by a wide margin, so if you prize the chocolate chips in a chocolate chip cookie, these will be a standout choice.
Cons — The primary drawback is their crumbly nature. Given the crispy format, some breakage is understandable, but it’s disappointing when a large portion of the cookies arrive in fragments.
In their whole form, the cookies carry more than a single bite, and even when broken they lend themselves to naturally convenient, bite-sized pieces. It’s possible our sample arrived in fragments due to shipping. Nevertheless, the exceptional chocolate flavor remains compelling enough that we’d buy them again whenever the craving for crisp chocolate chips arises.
