New! Keebler Cinnamon Roll Cookies

Temptation isn’t hard to come by in the walkway between Concourse B and Concourse C in the Salt Lake International Airport. Somewhere between the always alluring sight of a Krispy Kreme donut and the smell of Stout BBQ at Squatters, wafts the the most siren of aromas known to mankind.

A Cinnabon Cinnamon Bun.

I’ve walked down the hallway there more times than I can count on my fingers, each time weighing the pros and cons of the hundreds of calories of empty sugar and fat in those rolls. I know I wasn’t the only one. Tausha would be there as well. Usually around the Holidays, and always while her husband waited in the terminal. We’d see each other, inevitably, and joke of spanish class the day before and how good it was to be getting out of Logan just as the storm of the century month was rolling through. General chit-chat between friends, to be sure, although masking the prevailing thought; you order first.

I somehow managed to avert the epic if not iconic tug of the Cinnabon during those two years in which I routinely passed through Salt Lake International, but the memory of those Cinnabon’s – or, should I say, those behemoth volcanos of richly sweet dough erupting with gooey cream cheese lava — still calls to me. Reminding me of the vague memory of a childhood encounters with the massive buns, which, while I cannot place definitively in time or space, must have occurred before the notion of a calorie ever crossed my mind.

Ignorance, they say, is bliss.

Enthralled by such memories of both youthful innocence and college nostalgia, I’ve since searched far and wide for a worthy replacement, if not somewhat restrained, replacement for the Food Court’s most destructive menu item. Fortunately, my favorite elves this side of Judie from The Santa Clause seems to have come up with just the remedy.

If Keebler gets points right off the bat for partnering with Cinnabon in this venture, than they lose points for still living in the 20th century of cookie packaging. Please, Keebler, take a note from Nabisco and invest in the resealable cookie bag. I have only so much patience for chip clips and tape. Regardless of this flaw, these cookies are your standard size. Slightly longer than an oreo in diameter, they look exactly like they do on the package, with a sweet confectionary and glycerin based icing rather than cream cheese frosting.

The taste is, in a word, classic. It’s almost unthinkable to think that after all the mediocre snacks/bars/cereals/what have you that Cinnabon has leant their iconic blue and white text to over the years, we should arrive at something which actually tastes like a Cinnabon. What’s great about these cookies is they work both a room temperature and heated in the microwave. On their own, they’re moist enough to mimic an actual Cinnabon, yet firm enough on the interior “roll” portion to give the impression of crystallized sugar and butter within the dough. Speaking of that “roll,” it’s done just right. More cinnamon and rich in taste than coying, it breaks down to a gooey, warm mess when heated. I even taste the eggs in the dough. No, like for real.

I thought the icing could have been a tad thicker, but once heated it takes on a sweeter and gooier state that reminds you of freshly drizzled donut glaze. My only complaint about the cookies themselves is what you’d expect; small. A hungry hand could devour one in a single swoop, and even a conscious eater (or, say, reviewer) has trouble getting more than three nibbles out of each. Knowing such, that whole “Health Halo” might just go into effect, completely mitigating the seemingly reasonable nutrition of this little guys.

I guess you could do worse than unconsciously devouring half a box, though. At least Keebler’s latest cookie will save you from the Mall Food court, and keep you from that guilty feeling of ordering a whole Cinnabon for yourself. What it won’t do, unfortunatly, is bring back those days of chilling with friends at the Salt Lake airport, or stuffing my childhood face without those little nutrition police hanging over my shoulder. I don’t mind too much though, because for a few nibbles, you can almost taste those days.

Keebler Cinnamon Roll Cookies

• Price: $1.88 (On sale at Weis)
• Ranking: 9/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100%

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