Felix and Norton cookies are famous for their fresh, tender, and extremely addictive cookies. Created in Montreal in 1985, they import the best quality chocolates from Europe and only use the best ingredients.
When I was in college every day I would walk by a “Sweet Factory” where they would sell freshly baked Felix and Norton cookies. Every day I would be tempted to buy some cookies, but I didn’t, not because of the calories there were in each cookie, I didn’t think about calories at that age. Rather, it was the money. They aren’t cheap. $1.20 plus tax per cookie, or 6 cookies for $7.20 no tax. Of course I would always buy 6 cookies, no tax! If you didn’t know already, Quebec has a 15% tax! so saving the tax is a good deal.
Years past and when I had finished college I didn’t buy Felix and Norton cookies any more as I was not passing in front of them everyday. It wasn’t until I moved out that I saw frozen bake at home Felix and Norton cookies in the IGA super market. This was many years ago. I remember, it was around the same time I just started this blog. I have been wanting to do a review on fresh vs. frozen for THAT many years. Sorry. I have no excuses. Maybe, just one. They are fattening. I couldn’t risk having so much cookies in the house, seriously though. I’m not in my 20s any longer, my metabolism is slowing down. So there, that justifies why it took me so long to do this post. Enough about me lets talk cookies.
Appearance
Store-Bought: (Pictured above) The fresh cookies from the store were not consistent. Some of them were big and others were much smaller. They did not all spread the same, which is a little disappointing because I would expect the ones I buy from the store to be picture perfect and nice enough to give as a gift.
Frozen: The spreading was more consistent with the frozen cookies, each cookie was the same in diameter. The only different was the height so some were a bit taller depending on how big the chocolate chunks where. I weighted about 10 cookies and they ranged between 24 grams to 26 grams per cookie. These cookies looked better than the store-bought ones.
Texture & Taste
Store-Bought: The texture, like the appearance also varied. The ones that were bigger and thinner had a crisp to it and was very fragile, I put it on a plate and it immediately broke into 4 pieces. The smaller ones were more dense, less crunch to it. The edges were not smooth, and didn’t spread much. The chocolate no doubt is top quality, the recipe has not changed in 10 years!
Frozen: I let it sit after removing from the oven for about 10 minutes, it was very soft and chewy on the inside and a light crispy outside. Everything you want from a freshly baked cookie. The inside was still a bit wetter than the store-bought ones so I decided to leave it on the counter for a good 3-4 hours to see if the texture would be more similar to the ones I bought in the store. Sure enough, the butter in the cookie firmed up a little bit making it exactly the same as the store-bought ones.
Frozen cookies out of the oven.
The 3 above are frozen. Below it is store-bought.
Price
Store-Bought: Please see picture below. Click here for website. Even if you purchase 24 cookies for $25.00, you are still paying $1.04 per cookie. Which is the best deal you’ll be getting in stores.
Frozen: I paid $9.49 for 500 grams of the “Ménage à trois” flavour, which is my favourite. It has white, milk, and dark chocolate chunks. It says that there are about 20 cookies in one bag. Making it $0.47 per cookie. Compared to the store-bought ones, that’s about three times the price.
Final thoughts? To buy or to bake? Lets consider the taste first. Assuming you did not buy a frozen bag that was sitting in the freezer for months. The one I bought said it was packaged one month ago. The taste is exactly the same if not better because it spread out perfectly, not too much that it was too thin and not not enough that it had jagged edges. Aesthetically, the frozen ones also looked better, they were more consistent than the store-bought ones. Lastly, if I am going to pay $1.04 per cookie to give it as a gift I would expect it to be looking beautiful. Every single one.