“Hey, can we be part of that test?” a week or so later some delicious cookies appeared!
To rewind, team Edinburgh Reviews met The Wanderer’s Rest at Tabletop Scotland this year. Birdy and I were wearing our Geek Native badges, Edinburgh Review’s sister site, and The Wanderer’s Rest had sold out of cookies! I did buy a Mimic chocolate bar. Still, when I heard the Oxfordshire-based online bakery was going to test to see if their stuffed cookies could survive in good condition a trip in the mail all the way to Scotland, I offered to “help”.
Necessary disclosure then – this review is that of a test, not a final product, and The Wanderer’s Rest also kindly gave us a discount.
The Wanderer’s Rest cookie review
I got a box (in a box) of six stuffed cookies delivered, and they arrived via my favourite delivery service. DPD. I know it seems impossible to have a great delivery service, but DPD has messed me around the least.
In the box we had one of each;
- Smores
- Galaxy Caramel
- Birthday Cake
- Biscoff
- Kinder Bar
- Mint Aero
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know I could inhale all six. I did not. I gave half to Birdy. What restraint! It was especially challenging because these cookies were yummy!
The cookies were very fresh! In fact, worryingly, I’ve had stuffed cookies from Edinburgh farmers markets and shops that seem almost stale by comparison! I imagine that the sugar goodness (guilt) means the cookies do last quite a while, and stores can bulk bake.
In contrast, The Wanderer’s Rest bake on Wednesday, box the cookies on Thursday and DPD Next Day Delivery for Friday. I got my cookies on Friday. In fact, while we were setting up the cookie test, I explained I was working from home on that Friday, so could we make it Friday for the delivery day? Am I responsible for Friday being cookie day?
The good news is that cookies, as you can tell, are scrummy.
The generally good news is that the cookies generally survived the trip with the courier. Our batch arrived in a box cushioned with polystyrene chips and held sensibly with a cardboard divider. Each one was wrapped separately, and The Wanderer’s Rest added some lovely decorated wrapping sheets for extra support. By ‘generally survived’, I mean that some of the edges of the cookies had chips broken off, but nothing serious, and some toppings had come loose.
I have a cousin who, as a toddler, wouldn’t eat any biscuit that was broken. The first bite into a biscuit would, by his standards, break it because it was not whole anymore. I don’t think he would have accepted the little imperfections on the edges of the well-travelled and stuffed cookies, but I think anyone else would.
A day later and with the goodies sitting unboxed on my table, I squished the remaining cookies into a paper bag, shoved that bag into my backpack and gifted them to Birdy. She took them home and, the following day, shared them with her partner. Yes, that’s quite a lot of travel, and they certainly weren’t photogenic at that point! My feedback from Birdy and Murdo is that the cookies were very soft but now a bit melty, and while they were still enjoyable, travel had taken its toll.
Birdy was able to compare these cookies to those from other online bakeries and these twice-travelled cookies didn’t make her top list, I’m sorry to report. I’m going to cheekily propose she buy me three cookies from those, wait a couple of days, and transfer them to me in a series of clandestine bag exchanges; I’ll then eat those rival cookies for a fair comparison to The Wanderer’s Rest stuffed cookies. In all seriousness, our extreme test suggests that this bakery is doing the right thing by baking on Wednesday, shipping on Thursday and for Friday delivery. If you plan on gifting the cookies, do so quickly or get them sent straight to the lucky person you’re treating!
The Wanderer’s Rest review
I didn’t get to test the online cookie ordering system as it was not up and running. But, I think the bakery is satisfied with their own research and our feedback as I spy cookies online now.
You can order boxes of four or six and you get to pick each cookie. You can mix them up or double down on favourites.
As noted before, I have also sampled The Wanderer’s Rest chocolate and it was great. The bakery use Callebaut chocolate, which comes from sustainability and ethical sources. Eating my D&D monster was a treat.
The Rest is a geeky bakery, like us, the owners are tabletop gamers and the chocolate bars come decorated with edible dice. You can also buy the chocolate dice, although I don’t see those online.
Overall
The Wanderer’s Rest is an online geeky bakery ideal for food gifts if you can get their stuffed cookies to your intended destination as quickly as they get to you.
The stuffed cookies are delicious, the chocolate bars ethical and equally as tasty with bonus goodies sometimes available if you can catch The Wanderer’s Rest at a convention or expo like Tabletop Scotland.
As this is a review of a test we’re not going to do the usual star review summary. I didn’t have the full or usual customer experience. However, I can give The Wanderer’s Rest my two thumbs up, and Birdy can wonder just how Friday-fresh stuffed cookies from them would compare to her usual sources.
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