Raw Cookie Dough that Won’t Kill You

Uncooked cookie dough usually contains raw eggs, and because raw eggs may carry potentially deadly salmonella bacteria, eating raw cookie dough is perceived to be a significant health threat…made all the worse by the irony that cookie dough seems so homey and warm.

Many people apparently love raw cookie dough. This love, inexplicable to some (e.g., me), led to the development of Edoughbles, a cookie dough that contains no raw eggs and that will, according to the literature on a sample shipment we received, “instantly remind you of how sweet and simple life can be.”

There has been a cookie dough ice cream produced by Ben and Jerry’s, and I think I tasted it once. Like raw cookie dough itself, it never grabbed me.

Just last week, Parade magazine published “20 Spectacular Cookie Dough Desserts,”  including whoopee pies that are basically two cookies enclosing a layer of cookie dough. I don’t get it. Really, I don’t.

Is there some forbidden fruit angle to cookie dough that I’m not understanding? Do people like it because they remember their moms scolding them for eating it while mom was trying to make cookies? Is cookie dough appealing because it offers some taste of the transgressive?

Opening a container of Edoughbles, I took a small spoonful, and it tasted pretty much like regular cookie dough: very sweet, soft, slightly gritty, pasty on the tongue.

One bite and I was reminded, powerfully, that raw cookie dough was not for me, so I gave two Edoughbles containers to Anna Miller, my eight-year-old neighbor, who apparently loved the stuff. Anna’s mom, Amanda, sent me a photo (above) of her daughter digging in, with the note “”OMG”.  She’s eating it like it’s pumpkin pie!”

Anna’s only comment was “”Yum, yum, yummy yum.” 

Anna liked the egg-less raw cookie dough way more than I did. Way more.

However, I found that when you cook the dough, it actually turns into cookies!  I liked Edoughbles much better this way. The ingredients used in the Edoughbles are fairly high quality (Belgian chocolate, high-quality vanilla, etc.) and when cooked, the cookies tend to get all lacey and crisp, which is quite definitely my preferred way to eat cookie dough. Cooked.

Still, there’s obviously a place for this product: for some reason, people like to eat raw cookie dough, and it’s probably safer going egg-free. However, based on some recent articles, Salmonella may not be the biggest concern with uncooked cookie dough. It’s perhaps more likely that the real danger from raw cookie dough (just as with raw beef or fish) is that e-coli may be transmitted to the eater [https://munchies.vice.com/articles/eating-raw-cookie-dough-actually-can-be-deadly].

Whatever.

Me, I prefer to cook the stuff. It’s tastier and even less likely to kill you, unless you eat a real lot of it all at once.

For those who are already big fans of raw cookie dough, Edoughbles may very well be a healthier, less risky alternative to the traditional, egg-containing stuff. And I’m guessing it’s kind of fun.