March in Middleton means mud, half-melted snow banks and a few hopeful warm days amidst the bitter cold. However, it also means the return of Girl Scout Cookies. Outside of grocery stores, young girls brave the cold weather to sell us these treats. While these cookies are iconic across America, I wondered if every flavor lived up to Girl Scout Cookies’ delicious reputation.

To answer this question, I partnered up with fellow writer at The Cardinal Chronicle, Mawuenam Dossa. Together we tasted each of the eight cookies in this year’s Girl Scout Cookie lineup. In no particular order, here were our findings. 

Thin Mints

Dossa and I both found this mint cookie to be fairly dry. While this dryness is somewhat balanced by its moist coating, the Thin Mint  still leaves something to be desired in regards to texture. I personally found the mint to be a little overwhelming, but not to a point that it ruins this cookie. This reliable cookie deserves a final score of 7/10.

Caramel Delites

This cookie is definitely one of the more aesthetically pleasing of the line up. With appetizing fudge stripes running along the top of the cookie, Caramel Delites have one of the best textures of all the Girl Scout Cookies. Unlike the other cookies, which are mostly dry and crunchy,  Caramel Delites are very chewy and moist. The caramel taste is somewhat present in this cookie, but is almost immediately overshadowed by all the coconut, and later the chocolate. Despite the mildly misleading name, this is one of the best cookies in this year’s line up, and Dossa’s personal favorite. I would give it a final score of 10/10.

Trefoils

Trefoils are simply boring cookies. Even their design is bland. They have no frosting, and their only flare is found in their slightly curved shape, which forms the Girl Scouts logo. The dull appearance is not made up for at all in taste; it is just a basic dry cookie. It is like eating a thick animal cracker. While Trefoils are still a delicious cookie, the blandness really made us question if they were worth buying at all. Why pay five dollars for a box of Trefoils when you could get way more animal crackers for the same price? This tasty yet bland cookie deserves a final score of 5/10.

Peanut Butter Sandwiches

In order to receive the full taste of this cookie, we split it into two portions: The outer cookie on its own, and the peanut butter filling. The cookie by itself tasted like a saltless cracker, but we were not against this cracker texture, as it worked well with the peanut butter. The filling with the cookie was simply difficult to eat. The dry cookie paired with a thick peanut butter, which stuck to the roof of your mouth, made it very hard to chew and swallow. Despite this, the Peanut Butter Sandwich was still a really good cookie, just hard to get down. Despite its pleasing taste, the texture of this cookie bumps it down to a final score of 6/10.

Peanut Butter Patty

With their moist chocolate shells and disc shape, Peanut Butter Patties bear a striking resemblance to Thin Mints. In fact, these cookies would be identical if the Peanut Butter Patty shared Thin Mints’ dimples. The layer of peanut butter in this cookie was the same kind from the Peanut Butter Sandwich, and the cookie itself was the same as the one in a Thin Mint: chocolate. This combination works well to give the cookie a rich texture. While the chocolate coating was a little bit too strong, the salty peanut butter was able to compensate. Peanut Butter Patties are definitely one of the better Girl Scout Cookies. The rich texture and amazing mix of flavors gives this cookie a final score of 8/10.

Toast-Yay!’s

Debuting this year, Toast-Yay!’s are the youngest of all the Girl Scout Cookies. They are marked by an extremely strong smell of cinnamon and maple. This was very promising, considering these cookies are meant to taste like french toast. Unfortunately, the smell does not accurately represent the taste. The cookie is very bland, with only a slight hint of cinnamon. The frosting is just basic sugar frosting. While the cookie’s strong aroma gives high hopes, its inability to meet these expectations makes it one of the worst cookies we tried. For its failure to live up to expectations, I am giving this cookie a final rating of 6/10.

Adventurefuls

This cookie was made of the same base as the Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Patties, just with no mint or peanut butter. The chocolate is very prominent in this cookie, with caramel being the only other flavor it has to offer. However, the caramel topping is entirely overshadowed by the chocolate, with its taste being barely discernible. The caramel is luckily present in texture, giving Adventurefuls a chewy quality. Despite the lack of caramel flavor, the Advenutrefuls remain my personal favorite. Despite that, when being objective, I would give these cookies a final score of 7/10, for their failure to live up to their carmelly description. 

Lemonades

The last cookie reviewed is one of the best in the line up. It follows through on its promised lemon flavor. While the immediate taste is only slightly reminiscent of lemon, the aftertaste is very strong, leaving me to speculate that there may be lemon zest in the cookie or the frosting. These cookies have a softer texture than the majority of the other types; Lemonades are one of the best cookies in the bunch. I would give them a final rating of 9/10.

Overall, this year’s Girl Scout Cookies are delicious, which is why none of them earned low scores. One general issue in most of the cookies is their dry texture. This dryness is to be expected, however. If you want fresh baked cookies, Girls Scouts just are not what you need. The real failing is in the ambition of these cookies. While some of these cookies manage to live up to the expectations their names and descriptions provide, the majority disappoint in some way. Despite this, Girl Scout cookies are a delicious American classic that will always have a place in my heart — and my stomach.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Cardinal Chronicle. Any content provided by our journalists is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.