Happy Cookie Friday: Dahlia Bakery

This week’s Happy Cookie Friday is brought to you by the Dahlia Bakery, located on 4th Avenue in Belltown.   If you’re not from Seattle, you may not know that the bakery is owned by Tom Douglas who is the Big Kahuna of Seattle when it comes to culinary religion.   He beat Morimoto, man!   I’m pretty sure it was seafood and not cookies, but to hear tell the tale of Tom’s coconut pie, I’m sure he could’ve done it with pastry, too. I’ve only visited the Dahlia Lounge once and yesterday the Dahlia Bakery for the first time, but I’d like to eventually take a tour of all his restaurants to sample the hype.

Before we’d even gotten fully inside the doorway, I could see the cookie counter.  And oh my.  What a lovely cookie counter it was.  But I couldn’t get a good gander because two foodies in front of us were pretty much hogging the view.  I say that with great admiration as I watched their “one of each” routine and cheered.  That’s what I’m talking about.  James struck up a conversation with them and learned they’d been sampling their way up the coast from California.  They were heading home the next day and from what I could see, were making sure they had some tasty treats to keep them company.

“You’ve got to try one of those coconut pie bites,” I told them, pointing to the little fluffy balls in the refrigerated case.  I don’t have a good relationship with coconut unless it’s toasted, but I’d heard about this famous coconut pie from a gazillion people and was determined to give the bite a whirl.

“Eh,” said the woman doubtfully.  ”I don’t like coconut.”

“That’s what I say,” said one of the women from behind the counter.  ”But there’s something about those pies that are so good.”

“Toasted,” I said.  ”That’s gotta be the secret.”

The couple paid for their goods and left, leaving us the only customers in the store to browse around a bit.  It’s a very cute store with lots of deliciously pretty goods waiting to be tasted.

And here’s that cookie counter I was telling you about.

How could you not ask for one of each?  And because I owe my inner cookie monster for skipping the goods at Papa Haydn’s a couple weeks ago, I went all out and tried five different cookies.  Yes, five!  Fiving five!  What I didn’t try were the chocolate chunk, biscotti,  sugar cookie, oatmeal apricot, coconut macaroon, fig bar, gingersnap, and the russian tea cake.

The extremely helpful and awfully nice lady behind the counter gave us our goods and I just barely escaped without buying several gorgeous loaves of bread.

We headed outside to one of the cafe tables to take a look at our goods.

Is that a seriously fantastical box of cookies or am I crazy?  Here, get a better look.

I know!  Starting from the bottom up we’ve got a sour cherry swirl, peanut butter, chocolate truffle, chocolate butter pecan, and topping it all off?  A s’more cookie.  Hee!  Am I the only one doing a little happy dance just looking at that tower of sugary goodness?

This buttery wheel of whoopy almost was my favorite.  Almost.  The cookie part itself is a rich shortbread that had a most excellent consistency, however the sour cherry swirl?  Needed to be about an inch thicker.  Talk about a tasty tease.  More cherry, Tom!

When I chose the peanut butter cookie, I had no idea it was a peanut butter sandwich cookie.  I do love a good cookie surprise, don’t you?

Do you remember those oatmeal cream pies your mom used to pack in your lunch?  That’s the consistency and texture of this cookie sandwich.  I so so wanted the cookies to be crunchewy, but it didn’t happen.  The peanut butter schmere in the middle, however?  Brilliant.  Well played, Tom.

Which brings us to my absolute favorite cookie in the pile.

Look at all of that chunky, chocolatey goodness!  The chocolate truffle is by far the best cookie at Dahlia Bakery (uh, out of the five I tasted).  The dense, rich chocolate is so satisfying, you could quit after one bite.  If you had an ounce of self discipline, that is.  The only thing that could’ve made this awesome cookie awesomer is if it had chunks of walnuts in it.

The chocolate butter pecan was James’ favorite.  He’s not usually a pecan man, but he loved the chocolate, chewy, nuttyness of this cookie.  It was a little too buttery for me, but still pretty damn good.

Which brings us to the tippy top, the s’more.

Does that look like a fancy Mallomar or what?  While I know a pack of women who would probably love this cookie, it was my least favorite.  And I do love a good s’more, but it was a bit too much mallo and the chocolate was too bitter.  But they sure are pretty, aren’t they?

Even after eating Cookie Palooza 2010, I wasn’t leaving the joint without a taste of the coco bite, of course.

I’d say the coconut pie lived up to its reputation.  The crust was flaky and the coconut?  Indeed toasted.

If you’re ever in Belltown, get you one of those chocolate truffle cookies.  It’s gold, Jerry.  Pure gold.  Happy Cookie Friday, man.