The Butter Cookie Taste Test
Lindsay Varty hits the streets to scout out the best butter cookies Hong Kong has to offer. Photos by South Ho
Although not exactly a traditional treat like the quintessential egg tart, tofu pudding or egg waffle, the humble butter cookie, a rich, shortbread-like, crumbly biscuit, is nonetheless an important part of Hong Kong’s culinary heritage—and if you don’t believe us, consider the ubiquitous blue tins of Kjeldsen’s butter cookies that are stacked up in every supermarket in the city around Chinese New Year. Their popularity is so great that in the past few years, specialist butter cookie shops and bakeries have sprung up all over the city and have begun expermenting with unique flavor combinations, from Earl Grey to pumpkin seed, and everything in-between. Not all cookies are created equal, however, and so we’ve taken on the task of tasting and rating some of the more popular varieties to find out which cookie bakery comes out on top.
1. Cookie Fairies
Daintily décored Cookie Fairies, which has shops in Sai Kung, Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay, offers a wide range of mostly single-flavor cookies such as lemon, vanilla, chocolate and almond. They also have a few flavors for the more adventurous cookie connoisseur, such as green tea, fig and mocha.
Taste Test: 3/5
We went for the mocha, which packed a punch with its deep coffee taste and chocolatey undertones. While definitely living up to its mocha title, we found the cookies to be slightly too grainy and sugary with an ever-so-slightly burnt aftertaste. If you’re an equal parts coffee and cookie lover, then Cookie Fairies could be for you; however, we personally found them to be a bit too overpowering and brittle for our sensitive taste buds.
Hoi Pong Square, Fuk Man Road, Sai Kung, 2791-2638, www.cookiefairies.com.
2. Rachel’s Cookies
With branches in Tsim Sha Tsui, Tuen Mun and Causeway Bay, Rachel’s Cookies offers some familiar flavors such as oatmeal raisin, hazelnut and coffee walnut—all equally delicious, in our humble opinion—as well as their signature Earl Grey variety. The shop also sells golden flaky palmiers (butterfly cookies) for variety.