Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookies Review - Best Homemade Recipe?

According to the Famous Amos web site, the Famous Amos chocolate chip cookie began in 1975 and was inspired by a family homemade chocolate cookie recipe. Wally Amos is credited with publicly introducing these chocolate chip cookies. That said, famous Amos is not a privately owned company as some mistakenly think. It has changed hands a number of times and has been owned by major manufacturers such as Keebler and, currently, Kellogg's (as of the date of this article)

I do find the Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie to be irresistible, the only problem is I do not know why? We'll get into this in a moment. I review junk food (and I say 'junk' in a good way :-) from time to time and decided to do a review on this cookie and reveal my thoughts on this irresistible, but somewhat unspectacular cookie.

The Famous Amos Bite Size Chocolate chip cookie I buy tends to come from a vending machine, although there are larger grocery-sized boxes you can buy at the supermarket. The cookie is light-brown sugar color with semi sweet chocolate chips of dark appearance. Every Famous Amos cookie has a light patina of crumbs on their outer surface since all the cookies are mixed and bang together (like a bag of chips) instead of individually (like Oreos).

These bite sized cookies are each approximately 1 1/2 inches in diameter about 1/2" thick. As I am a fan of bite sized junk food, this size works perfect for me. If you are an adult, you won't need to use your incisors for this cookie. Just pop it in your mouth and start chewing.

Famous Amos cookies pictures below courtesy of Amazon! If you want to take a break from this post and check out Famous Amos products click on any of the images below. Not seeing what you want to check out? Click any photo anyway and you'll be sent to Amazon's secure site where there are tons of other cookie and snack food options to learn about.

Be sure to scroll down and finish this post too! :) More great info below

Ah! The taste. Well.... as I mentioned, I find the famous Amos Cookie to be totally irresistible. If someone has some of their chocolate chip cookies out on the table, I'll eat several of them anytime. I just can't help myself.

Which brings me to my dilemma. Why exactly do I find them irresistible? Or more specifically, why do I find them unspectacular? Sure, when I eat them I can definitely taste the terrific semi sweet chocolate chips. They are yummy. The cookie itself stands on its own well too. It has cinnimony-brown-sugar-hint-of-vanilla flavor that goes down well. So what is wrong with Famous Amos Cookies?

It think it is because my expectations are too high. Maybe yours will be too. Sure it is a fine cookie but it doesn't taste remotely homemade. The web site (at least as of March 2011) claims it was inspired by a family recipe but it tastes like the family recipe was lost over the years or modified to suit mass production. If you haven't had a Famous Amos, I can assure you that it tastes more like a Chip Ahoy cookie than mom's cookies.

Famous Amos is a decent quality store bought cookie. If you put these next to someone else's cookies in a small, local bakery, the Amos version would never be touched. Put them next to Chips Ahoy and there is a more competitive race.

In a word, No. While most associate homemade chocolate chip cookie recipes with a chewy, gooey, hot cookie, I have had do-it-yourself cookies that are made intentionally hard and taste wonderfully homemade. Amos should not worry about the hardness of these cookies. Their crunchiness is just right, it just doesn't taste like ma's ingredients to me

I can't quote the supermarket value (feel free to comment below if you are more familiar with it) but the vending machine price I pay is $1.00 (in 2011 money that is :-). Price may vary with other vending companies but $1.00 is what I pay. I get about 8 cookies per bag each (approximately 1 1/2 inches in diameter about 1/2" thick) and, for me, that is a little steep especially considering I can get a more decadent product like Goldberg's Peanut Chews and Planters Peanut Bars for 20% less (I reviewed) below. That said, not everyone likes or can eat nuts and we all need a break from chocolate covered goodies from time to time.

Of course, if you want to get more pleasure for your buck, don't be dope like me and buy it from a vending machine, get a whole box from the store and you'll drive that per-cookie-price down dramatically.

The Famous Amos packaging comes with the following warning "CONTAINS WHEAT, SOY, EGG AND MILK INGREDIENTS. MAY CONTAIN TREE NUTS"

As with any food purchase, check the packaging for updates and consult your doctor if you aren't sure (don't take my word for it, read the package :-)

Thanks for stopping by, please check out more of my posts in the links down at the bottom of this page. Also... here is some nutritional info.

Nutritional information is subject to change. The nutrition information reads as of March 2011 as follows

Serving Size = 1 package (56g)

Amount per container = 1

Calories 280

Fat Calories 120

Total Fat 13 grams (20% DV)

Sat Fat 6 grams (25% DV)

Sodium 200 mg (8% DV)

Total Carbs 38g (13 % DV)

Dietary Fiber 2g (6% DV)

Sugars 18g

Protein 3 g

Vitamin A 0%

Vitamin C 0%

Calcium 0%

Iron 2%