As everyone in the frozen yogurt/frozen dessert business knows, frozen dessert sales are highly seasonal. Frozen yogurt shops have tried countering this seasonal decline with promotions and new products like boba drinks, coffee, smoothies, baked goods, crepes, waffles, etc.
A new trend has emerged; edible cookie dough looks to be the trend of 2017. What’s interesting about cookie dough is that sales don’t seem to be seasonal.
Cookie Dough History
Edible cookie dough has been available online and in grocery stores for years from brands like The Cookie Dough Café and Edoughble. It differs from raw cookie dough that’s meant for baking because it’s made without eggs or with pasteurized eggs and with heat-treated flour. This makes edible cookie dough safe for consumption, though some feel that even pasteurized eggs aren’t safe to eat raw.
The buzz for edible cookie dough really began with the opening of Dō in NYC in January 2017. The lines have been long from day 1. Some people wait hours in line for their cookie dough fix. Other cookie dough shops have since opened, including Dough Boyz, California Cookie Dough, Cookie Dough Creations, Unbaked, Do-Lish Bakery, etc.
Cookie dough shops can be found outside the US as well, in Toronto, London, NYC, Rotterdam, etc. There are even cookie dough food trucks.
Cookie dough typically has sugar, butter, flour, salt, vanilla extract, and milk. Edible cookie dough is typically served chilled by the scoop in cups or cones with optional toppings. Cookie dough is sometimes formed into bars for ice cream cookie dough sandwiches, blended into milkshakes or spread between baked cookies. Some edible cookie dough can be baked while other kinds aren’t meant to be baked. Some brands of edible cookie dough can last for up to 20 weeks if refrigerated and for a year if frozen.
There are an increasing number of edible cookie dough companies, many of which offer wholesale pricing (e.g., The Cookie Dough Café, Batterlicious, Cookie Dough Creations, The Cookie Jar DC, etc.) Or there are plenty of no bake cookie dough recipes online, if you feel like experimenting and making your own. If you can’t find heat treated flour, you can heat treat your own flour.
Adoption by Froyo Shops
Some froyo shops are already offering scoopable cookie dough or cookie dough sandwiches, including:
- Chil Frozen Yogurt (London, Canada)
- Cool King Froyo (Huntington Beach, CA)
- Cup Love (Baltimore, MD)
- FrostyBites (Sylva, NC)
- Go Bananas Frozen Yogurt (Richboro, NC)
- Jus 10’s Frozen Yogurt (Anna, IL)
- Krave Frozen Yogurt (Mt. Zion, IL)
- Lemonberry (OH)
- Malena’s Yogurt Plus (Las Vegas, NV)
- Mickey’s Yogurt (Clovis, Fresno & Hemet, CA)
- OBX Frozen Yogurt (Southern Shores, NC)
- Snowbiz Frozen Yogurt (Wynne, AR)
- Sweet Creations (Fuquay Varainaa, NC)
- SweetSpot Frozen Yogurt (Longview, WA)
- The Froyo Box (Cheshire, UK)
- Toppings Frozen Yogurt (New Windsor & Wappingers Falls, NY)
- Yo – Bubbs (Saint Joseph, MI)
- Yogurtini (Smithtown, Long Island, NY)
- Yogurtology (South Tampa, FL locations: Church St., Gandy, St. Pete)
- Y’OPA (Portage, MI)
- Yoyo Berri (Omaha, NE; Rapid City, SC)
Grocer Stew Leonard’s sells edible cookie dough scoops in cups and cones and froyo. They have locations in New York and Connecticut. A single scoop is $3.99.
Some frozen yogurt shops like Yogurt Park (Berkeley, CA), The Bigg Chill (Los Angeles, CA) and 21 Choices Frozen Yogurt (Pasadena, Claremont, CA) have been making their own cookie dough for years as a froyo topping or mix in.
We’ve collected images of froyo shops that offer cookie dough on our Pinterest board, Cookie Dough & Froyo.
Pros and Cons of Offering Cookie Dough
Since cookie dough is already a common froyo topping and many shops have chilled toppings bars, offering different kinds of cookie dough seems like a no brainer. Cookie dough complements frozen yogurt. In addition, the cookie dough could be more than a topping or a bottom – it could be used to make froyo sandwiches, in milkshakes or mixed into froyo. Very few shops carry edible cookie dough and offering it by the small scoop makes it more appealing than buying a jar of it at the supermarket or online. It’s also very popular on Instagram right now.
On the other hand, cookie dough is an indulgent treat, so it doesn’t fit with frozen yogurt shops that place a strong emphasis on health. One cup of confetti cookie dough from The Cookie Dough Cafe contains 370 calories, 11g fat, and 39g sugars. People will likely have many questions about the safety of eating the cookie dough. Also, if it’s left out for self-service, the dough could become contaminated. The cookie dough will take up refrigerator or freezer space.
