Oats and Nutella Cookie from Starbucks UK

Starbucks UK has, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, recently seemed to push for a stronger lunch time & snack time presence. Like I said before, it's hard to imagine going into a Starbucks & not ordering a hot drink of some sort, but I generally don't have coffee in the afternoon and hot chocolate at lunch seems to indulgent for an average weekday, which is usually when I go to Starbucks.

Regardless, it's pretty easy to manage a cookie for breakfast and get a coffee. It was with that thinking that I grabbed the new Nutella Cookie from Starbucks as my breakfast this Monday. You'll notice a different quality to the images today (and even more so, a different background) as I was at work instead of at home.

It was about palm sized and quite heavy - with hazelnut choco-filling, we can presume.

It's described as being 'lightly spiced' and I was surprised to taste that it was indeed relatively spiced. It reminded me of the flavor profile of an American molasses cookie, with a deep sweetness & a touch of cinnamon sugar spice.

It was also similar to a molasses cookie in that it was chewy & hearty - the oats definitely boosted this one up to be quite filling. It's funny, even though it cannot even border being healthy, the hearty texture and gently spiced flavor made it feel a bit more wholesome & therefore okay for breakfast than a regular cookie.

The layer of Nutella inside was substantial, and took up a lot of the diameter of the cookie if not tons of vertical height. Probably for the best not to just have a couple inch high blob of Nutella in the middle...who am I kidding, that would've been more than welcome. As it was, it was quite well balanced and again, made me feel like what I was eating wasn't entirely unhealthy. It was at the level of perceived health of say, a banana nut bread with Nutella spread on top.

I did receive this product for free from Starbucks in exchange for a fair & square review.