We arrived at Disneyland to find a special surprise for us today — whole smattering of hand pies and cookies arrived at bakeries all around Disneyland Resort! So we tried every single new pastry for ourselves so you’d know which ones are the best. Check them out with us!
Guava Hand Pie — $5.49
The guava hand pie was far and away the best one. The bright pop of guava flavor comes through amid the thick, buttery shortbread crust. The shortbread crust itself is pleasantly sweet but not overly so, allowing the frosting on top and the fruit filling to take this treat the rest of the way with its own sweetness. What comes out is a perfectly balanced hand pie whose flavors work so well together. We highly recommend this one and will definitely be back for it soon.
What’s better, it’s the only hand pie we tasted today that doesn’t require park admission to obtain. This pie can be found at Marceline’s Confectionery in Downtown Disney.
Raspberry Hand Pie — $5.49
This one has the same beautiful buttery crust but the raspberry was so faint in flavor and sparse in quantity that it hardly registered on the palette at all. Without that pop of fruit flavor and the sweetness that accompanies it, we were left with a somewhat less impressive cookie.
This raspberry hand pie can be found at Bing Bong’s Sweet Stuff at Pixar Pier in Disney California Adventure.
Blueberry Hand Pie — $5.49
This one has more blueberry filling by quantity than the raspberry, but was still subtle in flavor. It was a pleasant subtleness that still brought the fruit pop and sweetness, without beating you over the head with a blueberry bush. This is a humble little tart that, while not over the top and brash in flavor as was the guava, still stands up to scrutiny and was very enjoyable.
You can find blueberry hand pies at Trolley Treats in Disney California Adventure.
Lemon Hand Pie — $5.49
This one surprised us. We’re not usually fans of lemon in sweet treats (except for the occasional Girl Scout cookie). But this tart once again used subtlety to its advantage and the suggestion of a lemon flavor was just enough to offset the buttery cookie without treading into the territory of tasting like a disinfectant, as so many other lemon treats do. Still, we would likely reach for one of the more traditionally sweet hand pies. But for what it is, it was far more enjoyable than we would have expected and fans of lemon will absolutely love it.
Stop by Pooh Corner in Disneyland Park to pick up this lemon hand pie.
Strawberry Hand Pies — $5.49
With the exception of the raspberry hand pie, which had so little raspberry flavor as to be undetectable, all of the other tarts had real fruit flavor. Except for this one. This strawberry filling, which was sparse like the raspberry, presented its pop of flavor as an artificial, strawberry candy taste. It wasn’t unpleasant, but when eating along with the other more natural fruit flavors, this one does taste the most synthetic. Still, not unenjoyable, just not as good as it likely could be.
We found this strawberry hand pie at Candy Palace in Disneyland.
New Chocolate Chip Cookie — $3.99
This is an odd choice for Disneyland. With so many amazing treats at Disneyland, and even within the same bakery case, to opt for a mundane, run of the mill chocolate chip cookie is disappointing. This is a traditional chocolate chip cookie that, while still fine, is just kind of normal. It’s a chocolate chip cookie that could be found at any given diner or anyone’s home who has a Costco membership. This is nothing special. And between the price, the market of available treats and the location, we were expecting just a little bit more from this cookie.
Oatmeal Raisin Cookie — $3.99
This is a similarly fine cookie, slightly more flavorful and moist than you would expect from an oatmeal raisin cookie but not by much. There’s plenty of oats and two types of raisins, and a hefty dose of cinnamon and spice. But like the chocolate chip, it is fairly run of the mill. While it does its job, it doesn’t wow us the way we would hope to be; given the other treats available here.
Double Chocolate Chip Cookie — $3.99
This is a dark cookie, with two types of chocolate chips surrounded by a chocolate batter. Again, moist and enjoyable but nothing that couldn’t be found at a corner grocery store for 1/4 the price. This one does have more chocolate than the others, so it definitely brings the sweetness more heartily than either of the other two.
All in all, we found a good number of the hand pies to be a solid treat, but the guava was by far our favorite. For most of these though, you can’t go wrong.
Are you planning on snagging any of these sweet treats on your next visit to Disneyland? Let us know in the comments below!
For more Disneyland Resort news and info, follow Disneyland News Today on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For Disney Parks news worldwide, visit WDWNT.
The post REVIEW: Trying Every New Hand Pie Flavor and New Cookies from Bakery Cases Across Disneyland Resort appeared first on WDW News Today.