Last time I wandered into Dollar Tree I found Abigail’s kitchens bread pudding mix and it was really, really good. Today I went back hoping for more mixes from this brand and they delivered. I found a Snickerdoodle cookie mix, a shortbread cookie mix, and a sugar cookie mix. Right beside their sugar cookie mix was Betty Crocker’s sugar cookie mix so I knew we had to compare them side by side. Both mixes were $1.25 at Dollar Tree so let’s see which mix is better!
Right off the bat we immediately have a big difference. Betty Crocker’s mix calls for a stick of butter and a tablespoon of water. Abigail’s Kitchen’s mix calls for a half stick of butter, a teaspoon of water and an egg. Once mixed up, the doughs were very different. Betty’s dough is pale in color and very sticky. It tastes exactly like the butter mixed into it and has no other flavor. Abigail’s cookie mix is very stiff and resembles a homemade dough in texture and taste. It has more depth of flavor but it does come across as mealy. I suspect this is due to the addition of the egg and that it goes away once baked. So far, Abigail’s cookie dough is coming across more homemade and Betty’s cookie dough is coming across very artificial.
At this stage, I’m concerned. Betty’s dough is too sticky and soft. The fact that they don’t include a step to chill the dough is disappointing because it’s a simple addition to the recipe that would change the entire cookie result. A soft dough is going to spread too quickly in a hot oven, whereas a chilled dough would hold its shape longer. Regardless, I got to scooping out the cookies using a tablespoon sized scoop that both recipes call for. Abigail’s mix claims to make 18 cookies and I got exactly 18. Betty’s mix claims to make 12 cookies and I got 16 which was a pleasant surprise.
Betty Crocker has confusing temperature instructions, it calls for cooking at 375° f or 350° for a non-stick cookie sheet now I’m not quite sure why there’s a different temperature option, but I did go with the lower option since I know how Betty Crocker likes to disappoint us with over baked products. They also call for baking 10 to 12 minutes so I started checking on the cookies at 7 minutes. At 9 minutes the cookies were done and so very sad looking. They had flattened and spread as far as they could. These were barely cookies at this point.
Abigail’s Kitchens mix calls for cooking at 350° f and claims to take 12 to 15 minutes. At 10 minutes they were cooked. Unfortunately, no accurate bake times for us today. Very disappointing.
The cooked cookies were drastically different side by side. Betty’s cookies had spread thin and got to a brownish color whereas Abigail’s cookies stayed pale in color and did not spread out much. Overall, Betty’s cookies are thin, crispy, sad looking, and taste like sweet butter. Abigail’s cookies are soft, presentable, and taste like a homemade sugar cookie that could use some more vanilla extract and maybe more salt. For $1.25 it’s a no brainer you should grab Abigail’s Kitchen’s sugar cookie mix and leave Betty Crocker on the shelf.
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