Craig's Cookies
Craig's Cookies is where you go to grab decadent cookies by Craig Pike, the thespian-turned-entrepreneur baking up epic chocolate chip cookie mashups.
With a sunny yellow-bricked exterior and bright red door, Pike's little shop in Parkdale is the amateur baker's first storefront.
Before moving in, he'd been baking out of his home while balancing his acting career, delivering orders by bike and selling his goods at markets like the Parkdale and Bellwoods fleas.
His concoctions were so good, Pike caught the attention of Williams Sonoma, garnering him a series of pop-ups at Yorkdale Mall.
Five years and one investor later, the man of many talents finally has his own brick and mortar styled a la Jellybean Row, a colourful neighbourhood in his hometown of St. John's.
A small space with a little enclave by the window for seating, the store is full of natural light and the sweet, sweet scent of freshly baked cookies.
For those who aren't familiar with Craig's Cookies, his creations fuse the classic chocolate chip cookie with store-bought sweets like Mars bars and Easter eggs.Using his mother's recipe, the cookies are made of really good flour, a little more salt than normal and organic vanilla extract. The result: soft, puffy cookies that are incredibly sweet.
Unlike its chocolate chip base, the fillings here aren't homemade, in fact they're run-of-the-mill products you can find at any food store.
From Hershey chocolate chips and Oreo cookies to Kellogg pop tarts and baklava: Pike says there's no real technique to stuffing the cookies.
Pieces are cut up and pushed into the dough before baking. Not all of Pike's 25-and-counting flavours are available: you'll find a rotating list of daily offerings laid out in the glass display case.
A cookie here will set you back $3, or $5 for two. They're also available in half or full dozens which you can take home in a box.
Honouring the sanctity of milk and cookies, you can also grab shots ($1) or cups ($3) of dairy; one single cookie with a cup of milk is $5.
Get a serving of regular or chocolate milk from a favourite Ontario brand, Harmony Organic.
With the outstanding success of his sweet concoctions, Pike is becoming more ambitious. According to him, any ingredient goes: he foresees future fillings like avocado and flowers gracing his counter.
Whether or not those flavours will be actualized has yet to be seen, but one sure summertime addition are ice cream cookie sandwiches, made in partnership with Ed's Real Scoop.
Pike says you can expect ice cream flavours like mint, chocolate, and burnt marshmallow to go with your cookies.
Craig's cookies – which are as colourful as the owner himself – will give you a serious high. Expect a good time consuming and a dramatic sugar crash afterwards that's totally worth it.
Hector Vasquez