Maryland Gooeys: Triple choc

Product name: Maryland Gooeys: Triple choc
Purchase details: £1.00 for a pack of 10 biscuits (Asda)
Calories: 79 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

For the last of my Maryland Gooeys reviews, I hoped I’d saved the best until last with this Triple choc version. Despite the front of the wrapper containing exactly the same description as the Hazelnut and Chocolate varieties (‘crunchy cookie filled with a gooey chocolatey centre’), these biscuits offered the differences of the cookie itself being a chocolate one, and the chocolate chips being white (my favourite!) rather than milk.

Not to be fooled by the golden wrapper that I would normally associate with caramel, I nervously opened the packet in the hope that these biscuits really would be a wonderfully chocolatey experience. 

The first thing I noticed was how much better and stronger the smell of these cookies was. The aroma was like ‘proper’ chocolate biscuits with an almost home-baked element to it. Appearance-wise, they also looked like pretty standard chocolate biscuits, although the white chocolate chips provided a contrast by contributing to 10% of the product. The downside to these was that most of them had been browned which suggested the cookies had been slightly over-baked. Unlike the milk chocolate chips used in the other versions, though, they didn’t melt between the fingers which was a good thing.

The bases of these biscuits were surprisingly smooth to the touch and they provided a fantastic crunchy crispiness when eaten. The ‘smooth chocolatey flavour filling’ that made up 30% of each cookie, and provided some moisture, had looked the same as the centre of the Chocolate version and it tasted the same too.

What I found slightly bizarre about this product was that, when chewing the biscuits, there wasn’t much flavour, but as soon as I started to swallow, the chocolatiness really started to hit me and tasted almost like a Bourbon biscuit – yay! Unfortunately, this also meant that the flavour of the white chocolate chips was not noticeable. 

I think these Maryland Gooeys: Triple choc were the best of the three available varieties and they did deliver on the promise of chocolate flavours. However, it was a shame that these tastes weren’t very evident until the end of each mouthful. 

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.25/10

Maryland Gooeys: Chocolate

Product name: Maryland Gooeys: Chocolate
Purchase details: £1.00 for a pack of 10 biscuits (Tesco Superstore)
Calories: 79 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

I bought this packet of Maryland Gooeys: Chocolate before I’d tried (and been subsequently disappointed by) the Hazelnut version. By the time I came to opening these, then, my hopes were no longer high. 

Bizarrely, the product description for this variety was exactly the same as what had been given for the Hazelnut flavour: ‘crunchy cookie filled with a gooey chocolatey centre’. However, I suspected that this said more about the Hazelnut cookies' lack of nuttiness rather than having negative connotations for these Chocolate biscuits.

The Chocolate flavoured Gooeys came in an attractive pinky-red packet. However, this was the only immediate difference between the appearance of these and the Hazelnut variety – they even smelt the same. On breaking open a cookie, though, I found that the ‘smooth chocolatey flavour filling’ was a slightly darker shade of brown and also looked more sticky since it didn’t ooze out of the chocolate chip cookie in the same way as the Hazelnut centre had done.

I was obviously slightly apprehensive about trying these cookies, but I’m pleased to report that they were far, far nicer. The cookie itself had more of a crunch to it and had a generally nicer and more cookie-like flavour. The chocolatey filling that accounted for 30% of each biscuit and had leaked through the bottom, in places, was like a slightly sweetened, melted dark chocolate. Texturally, it was thinner than the Hazelnut’s filling had been and, combined with the chocolate chips that made up 10% of the product, provided the promised chocolatey experience. 

I’m delighted that these Maryland Gooeys: Chocolate were an improvement on Maryland Gooeys: Hazelnut. I knew it was a good concept and this variety definitely made it work.

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 5.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 6.75/10

Maryland Gooeys: Hazelnut

Product name: Maryland Gooeys: Hazelnut
Purchase details: £1.00 for a pack of 10 biscuits (Asda)
Calories: 79 per biscuit
Country of origin: UK

I’ve wanted to try these Maryland Gooeys for ages and all three varieties have been sitting in my stash for a few weeks. Made by Burton’s Biscuit Co, this Hazelnut version came described as ‘crunchy cookie filled with a gooey chocolatey centre’ – sounded good!

The cookies were slightly larger than the standard Maryland cookies and they also had a less bumpy appearance. They looked nicely baked, with the edges and bases being more of a golden brown colour than the centre.

The chocolate chips contributed to 10% of each cookie and they certainly seemed to be widely distributed across each one. However, what I found strange about them was that, despite my eating occasions not taking place on hot days, just picking up a biscuit left melted chocolate from these chips on my fingertips. I actually decided to try a couple on their own and, sure enough, they were incredibly soft in the way I was expecting the filling to be. They also had a slightly unusual taste which almost hinted at orange.

What I was really looking forward to about this product was the unique filling that made up 30% of the cookies. Unfortunately, this was ‘chocolatey’ rather than containing real chocolate but, even so, combined with its hazelnut flavour and gooey description (further emphasised by the attractive font used for the word ‘Gooeys’ on the wrapper), I thought this would taste and feel similar to Nutella. On breaking open a cookie, my thoughts on the texture were confirmed, with a smooth praline-like filling oozing out and looking, what I would call, ‘fit’. However, there was no nutty smell to these cookies and I was gutted that I couldn’t detect even a slight hazelnut flavour either. 

The biscuit itself did have a vague standard cookie smell but, taste-wise, it was pretty bland. That said, I judged it more harshly on my first eating occasion but, for some reason, it had a slightly nicer and more cookie-like flavour the next day. It also wasn’t as crunchy as I’d hoped, but the slightly thicker than expected filling did help distract from this. Since I wasn’t a big fan of the cookies’ texture, I also tried sucking them and, whilst this didn’t help much texturally, it did release a saltiness that wasn’t present when chewing the biscuits.

You’ve probably established by now that Maryland Gooeys: Hazelnut were not what I hoped they’d be. The overall taste was, well...a bit weird, and it was a real shame that the hazelnut flavour was not at all evident. On a positive note, the filling was, texturally, the best part of this product and so the concept was not necessarily a bad one. I’d also say that, due to the filling, it’s possible that not as many chocolate chips were needed, particularly when these were soft rather than hard. However, they did improve the cookies’ appearance.

In conclusion, I was pretty disappointed by this product but, bizarrely, when eating the recommended serving of two biscuits, the second always seemed to taste better than the first! 

Appearance: 7/10
Aroma: 5.5/10
Taste: 6/10
Texture: 6/10
Overall score: 6.13/10