We Tried The Flamin’ Lime Crunch Cookie From Crumbl (And It’s A Major Flop)

For me, Monday mornings are inevitably filled with the giddy joy of choosing a cookie to taste test. As far as a Monday morning to-do list goes, this one isn’t much to complain about. That is, if Crumbl lives up to the expectations they have set up for themselves.

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Crumbl’s cookie lineup for this week is all themed around the iconic road trip snacks that everyone knows and loves. And, as part of this lineup, they’ve taken on unique flavors that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a cookie. One of these unique flavors is the Flamin’ Lime Crunch Cookie. It’s basically if a sugar cookie was 50% Flamin’ Hot Cheeto, so of course we were intrigued.

I mean, the ‘swicy’ food trend has a chokehold on the culinary scene. So, why wouldn’t that apply to our cookies, too? Inevitably, we knew we would have to try this cookie for ourselves and see not only if Crumbl was able to pull off this feet of culinary combinations, but if it’s worth your time as well.

Here’s What We Think

Pros: Unsurprisingly, this cookie has what most Crumbl cookies aggressively lack: salt. The addition of a salty snack to one of Crumbl’s cookies inherently gives it the saltiness it needed to level out and make the aggressive sweetness of Crumbl cookies more balanced and bearable. And the freshness of the lime keeps this snack from going into too cheesy of a territory. I’ll admit, I was worried about the combination―both spice and cheese into a cookie―but the lime does a good job of mitigating some of that. But, unfortunately, there was more wrong with this cookie than good.

Cons: As with many of the taste tests that we do here at Sporked, the first thing that I compare the item to is the company’s own branding for the food. And if it doesn’t even live up to what the company says it will taste like, then it’s hard to give it a seal of approval. And it’s certainly the case for this cookie that it doesn’t taste like what it says. 

The cookie is marketed to taste like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (despite the name change for trademark’s sake), even to the point where they’re using two of them to garnish the top of the cookie. And they’re included in basically every part of the cookie―in the dough, as a streusel, and as a garnish. That’s why it’s almost impressive to me that the flavor of the snacks is basically imperceptible. 

Not to mention, the streusel tastes like if you opened a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, crushed them up to a pulp, and left them on the counter for three days in a humid environment. Not only is it stale, but in contact with the frosting, they are soggy and distinctly unpleasant. Plus, the streusel is the part of the cookie that the crunch in its title comes from. So that’s yet another descriptor that Crumbl can’t live up to, yet still set for itself as a perimeter.

The cream cheese frosting that they’re using for this cookie only tastes like lime and the cream cheesiness of it all is lost. The cookie itself depended on the flavor of the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos to have any distinct flavor, so when that note doesn’t come through it’s just bland, thick, and doughy.

Final Verdict

I love something with a sweet and spicy edge. And the idea of having a refreshing summer twist to that combo with the addition of bright citrus was an exciting prospect. But, with this poor execution, not only was it a disappointment to what Crumbl had advertised, but with its overall flavor as an cookie as well. This ended up being one of the worst Crumbl cookies that I’ve tried in a very long time. The only way you’re gonna taste the flavor of the snack it’s inspired by as if you take the garnish off and eat it on its own.