Delightful Discoveries for Gift Givers with Great Taste
This is the kind of business I love to love. First, the obvious. The product is great. We’re talking gigantic, gourmet desserts here. But the backstory is the icing on the cookie, so to speak. There is actually a Maui Cookie Lady behind The Maui Cookie Lady. This woman-owned small business in Makawao, Hawaii barely made it through the Covid shutdown, like countless others. But then she took a double hit from the Maui wildfires that raged through her neighborhood last August. But she’s still baking in her small shop and shipping her wares. Inspiring.
You can’t get these cookies anywhere else. They’re pretty special. The Maui Cookie Lady, aka Mitzi Toro, uses local Hawaiian ingredients. Think lilikoi, sea salt, Kona coffee, lychee. And when I tell you, they are massive. You could easily cut each one in quarters and be satisfied. I attempted to eat a whole one and couldn’t, and not because I didn’t want to (Don’t try this at home.) So yes, at first glance it seems like a crazy high price for a cookie, but you’re really getting four scrumptious, unique cookies in one.
That said, I have a hard time calling these cookies. My personal preference is for small and crispy-ish cookies. Lots of people, I realize, go for big, chewy cookies, but I don’t think even they would look at one of these and call it a cookie. What would I call it? A massive muffin top with the texture of a brownie, maybe. I’m not sure, but anything you have to cut into quarters is not, in my book, a cookie. That doesn’t mean it’s not delicious and wonderful. It is. It’s the unicorn of the baking world, is all.
The flavors I tried were Cinnamon Roll (white chocolate drops, caramelized raw sugar, rolled in cinnamon sugar); Eggnog Rumchata (Kōloa spiced rum, white chocolate, Hawaiian sea salt, has a gooey center of scratch-made Rumchata fudge); and Winter is Coming, an odd name for a place where there is no winter, but regardless … that one is made with freshly candied blood orange, Hawaiian honey, Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge, dark Kōloa rum.
These are artisan (great), handmade (great), small batch (great), giant (obviously great) cookies. They are moist, chewy, jammed full of yummy extras. And in case you were wondering how fresh they can be when they get to you … Mitzi and her team bake and ship three days a week. and each cookie is individually heat sealed in a high-oxygen barrier bag to keep it fresh for three weeks. You will not have to eat them all within two days of getting them or anything. Not that you could anyway.
So even if you are on board with the price of the cookies, understanding each one will feed four people, you still have the shipping cost from Hawaii. Of course, there is little way around that, so this point is less what can be improved and more what you’d need to accept. The shipping cost depends on where you are, but for example, shipping to Arizona would cost $18.
While in the end these are pricey cookies, their quality and unique nature make them worthy of a rare treat. Or a gift. They’d be a great gift for someone who went to Hawaii and loved it, someone who dreams of going to Hawaii, or a foodie.
