Missing Cupcakes and the Kitchen Sink Cookie
My mom and I were strolling around the Seven Seas Lagoon resorts one night, checking out some of the seasonal decor, when we decided to stop by the Contempo Café and grab a quick snack. I had remembered them having these cool designer cupcakes at this location — but sadly, those have all been replaced by some rather generic looking cupcakes… the same kind that you can find at any location that offers baked goods.As it turns out, the designer cupcakes are now available over at the Kona Island Sushi and Pastry Bar at the Polynesian Resort. The move doesn't make much sense to me, because I've never actually seen anyone at the Kona Island Sushi and Pastry Bar — oh sure, there's been one person here and there, but they look more like they're "waiting by the Monorail" for someone, rather than actually eating anything at Kona Island.
Designer Cookies
Getting back to the Contempo Café though … they did have these rather large looking cookies that were slightly more elevated looking than the cookies I've seen elsewhere. Disney is calling them "Signature Deluxe Cookies"… we're talking about things like a Churro Sugar Cookie, a highly decorated "Seasonal" Sugar Cookie, a Kitchen Sink Cookie, and a Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chunk Cookie. If these deluxe cookies are a new thing… I'm sure the selection will change slightly over the course of the year to match up with various seasons an themes.We decided to try out the Kitchen Sink Cookie — which looks like it should be an amazing cookie. Sadly, this one didn't end up being greater than the sum of it's parts. It's described as being a chocolate chip cookie with toffee, peanut butter chips and salted caramel.
The Signature Cookie series at Contempo Café include a Churro Sugar Cookie, a highly decorated "Seasonal" Sugar Cookie, this Kitchen Sink Cookie (pictured here), and a Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chunk Cookie.
It's a large cookie… I'll give it that. It does fill up one of Disney's "side" item plates quite nicely. It was also baked very well… golden brown on top without being burnt. The giant cookie was a little dried out, but we did sample this one at the end of the day — pushing the "baked fresh daily" idea to the limits. However, the cookies don't get cheeper as the day wears on — so it really should taste great no matter when I pick one up, right?
Everything else about the cookie, fell kind of flat. Like most Disney cookies, they use something as a "base cookie dough" that seems to be the bare minimum that one could use — and still be called cookie dough. It doesn't really have a buttery taste or vanilla flavor, it's not really sweet — it's just there to bake evenly, hold it's shape and generally look like a cookie. Honestly, I wish I knew the exact recipe… it looks like it's a great dough to work with… if only it had a little more flavor.
The "toffee" that was said to be part of the cookie — I couldn't really tell you where that was. There were these tiny flakes in the cookie that were less brown than the chocolate chunks and about 1/6th the size of the chocolate — perhaps those were the toffee pieces and they baked down into bits that were no larger than a flake of salt. They were next to impossible to remove from the cookie to taste individually, and didn't really add anything when sampled with the cookie as a whole.
I did find a few of those tiny peanut butter chips, but they were also individually flavorless and only added a slight hint of sweetness (without any of that savory, roasted peanut flavoring that one might be looking for to add complexity to the cookie).
The larger chocolate chunks were visible, numerous, and they did have a great texture — giving a nice solid bit of resistance, body and volume to the cookie. Regardless of their deep, rich color — they were not dark chocolate chunks though. Like most elements of the cookie, they had very little flavor and almost no meltability on their own — which tells me they were light on cocoa butter and high on vegetable oil and fillers.
The thing that really gives the cookie a little extra visual appeal is the caramel and salt flakes on top of the cookie. While the glistening caramel did make the cookie a little sticky to handle, it didn't make the cookie soggy — so that's good. Unfortunately, like many of the other elements, it didn't really add any "flavor" and comes off more like a sugary, sweet glaze and not a buttery, burnt sugar type of caramel.
The Kitchen Sink Cookie is a "Signature Cookie" at the Contempo Café.
The flakes of salt did taste like flakes of salt. While some are not a fan of salted cookies, I actually quite like the idea — but only when there's a genuine flavor contrast or flavor draw out reason for the salt. Reading everything that this cookie should be — vanilla butter based dough, rich chocolate contrasted with dense burnt sugar toffee pieces and savory peanut butter chips, a drizzle of deep brown sugar, buttery caramel — and then a pop of salt here and there to tone down the dairy butter and draw out the peanut's savory character as you're left with chocolate melting on your tongue.
It should be a great cookie. The description sounds like it's going to be a great cookie. It looks like a great cookie. It just doesn't taste like much more than a flour cookie with a wet sugar glaze. Whatever they're using as caramel does have a slight flavor profile — but it's not really that burnt butter, brown sugar favor one associates with caramel. Whatever flavor it is, it's really the only thing you "taste".
The cookie consistency is good (and would be even better if it were a little less dried out), the mouth feel is decent with those chocolate chunks adding a nice dense crunch and every so often you get a sharp pop from a flake of salt — but at the end of the day, it's a better cookie to look at, than to eat.
The Rest of Contempo Café
This review is a little odd, because I don't usually review just one item. The Contempo Café itself has, in the past, been a great place to eat. There's nowhere else in the world I can sit in an air conditioned building and watch monorails zoom by — and I really enjoy that. The savory entree and sandwich menu has changed since the last time I ate here (and naturally the prices have gone up too) — so we'll have to stop by again in the future, eat something more like a meal, and see if we feel the same about this very unique counter service location.With regard to getting just this cookie, the process was actually pretty easy. The cookies are all the way up near the food pickup area. They're also located in a serve-yourself display case, which always makes me little uneasy, because it's an awkward display case and I'm a little clumsy when it comes to grabbing food. There's no "tongs" to grab, just little pieces of pastry paper. So you're supposed to grab a piece of pastry paper, to use while grabbing your cookie, so as not to contaminate other cookies. Because the Kitchen Sink Cookie is quite sticky — I somehow still got my actual fingers sticky just trying to get rid of the pastry paper after putting the cookie on a plate.
After that, you just go to the payment counter and pay for the cookie and sit down somewhere. The dining area is moderately sized and because we were there at an off-peak time — finding a spot wasn't too difficult. It was quite nice eating the cookie and watching a few monorails zip by, and getting another chance to stare at that Mary Blair floor to ceiling wall mural.
There were a couple of cleaning cast members out and about — and they were keeping the dining area clean… and were actually quite friendly, so that was nice too.
I just wish the cookie was better tasting. I miss those designer cupcakes they used to have. At least with those, you had one or two unique flavors that you could actually taste. Not only that — those cupcakes were easier to grab out of the display case.
I'm not sure what all the seasonal or celebration cookies will look like. On this particular visit, they just looked like sugar cookies with different frosting color and decorations. The Churro Sugar Cookie did look a little different, maybe — I would try that one. I don't think I'll be getting the "Kitchen Sink" cookie again.
Even though the cookie wasn't great — it was a lot of fun walking around with mom, and the Contempo Café is still a great destination that acts as a little rest stop on our "stroll around the Seven Seas Lagoon" adventures. It's fun getting to watch the Monorails run in and out of the building — and only have to pay for a quick snack for the experience. We may have to check out the Kona Island location over at the Polynesian though, and see if those signature cupcakes are just as good as the ones they used to have here at the Contempo Café.
