Bonnie: Bryan, Eric and I each advocate that most anything is better homemade, and we each enjoy cooking from scratch. That said, we wanted to share these simple-ingredient preformed cookies, containing ingredients you’d recognize.

Did it really take Pillsbury more than 50 years, since they began selling refrigerated cookie dough, to realize that cookies made with wholesome ingredients like flour, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla are delicious? I don’t think so.

I think Pillsbury realizes there’s a large untapped market of people like us who prefer clean labels, meaning food without the hydrogenated fats, artificial flavors, artificial colors and preservatives in other Pillsbury cookie-dough products. Pillsbury Simply Cookies is proof that a commercial cookie product can be made without them.

Simply Cookies are, in fact, delicious when right out of the oven – although I’d like a few more chocolate chips. I look forward to the day when simple-ingredient cookies are the only kind Pillsbury sells. And look forward to the Simply Biscuits and Bread (with recognizable ingredients) that will soon be on their way to supermarkets.

Bryan: OK, let me start out by saying that you better be really lazy or in a rush if you’re using premade chocolate chip cookie dough. Cookies are about as easy to make as any baked good and nothing truly says loving like homemade (don’t eyeball me little Dough Boy, you heard me. I said it).

Now that we’re past the “you should do it yourself” bit, let’s envision a scenario where you just got home and you need fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, stat! What do you do? Well, there are few names like Pillsbury when it comes to trusted, instant baked goods.

Pillsbury Simply Chocolate Chip Cookies are an extension of Pillsbury’s already-existing refrigerated cookie doughs. Out of the package, this cookie batter pretty much looks like any other ready-to-use cookie dough, but that’s where the similarities stop. Pillsbury Simply Chocolate Chip Cookies have a homemade ingredient list; there is nothing from the laboratory here. Though its standard refrigerator cookies aren’t too bad to begin with, these are really just normal cookies with wheat flour, semisweet chocolate chips, pure vanilla extract, eggs, sugar, and other nonartificial ingredients. There is no high fructose corn syrup, no trans fats, no artificial flavors or colors and no preservatives. This isn’t what we’re used to from prefab cookies; these are as close to homemade as you can get with a store-bought dough.

But how do they taste? Pillsbury Simply Chocolate Chip Cookies taste great. Don’t think for a second that I’d vote these over my own recipe, but in a pinch, with only minutes to spare, these cookies are as good as it gets; buttery and crisp, with melty chocolate chips. If there is a modern-day “soma”… it must be instant chocolate chip cookies.

Eric: My brother already placed a rather bold caveat when he said that the Pillsbury Simply Cookies don’t come close to replacing a homemade cookie recipe, and I’m not going to argue with him. Cookies are one of the simplest forms of baking — with most taking no longer than 10 minutes from gathering the ingredients to placing cookies in the oven. The beauty of cookie dough is that if it’s made, and you don’t want to bake it all right away, it freezes or refrigerates perfectly, leaving an “on-demand” amount of dough at your disposal.

Now, if you’re really strapped for time, then the Pillsbury Simply Cookies are the right move. The cookies are made from a basic (finally) list of ingredients, are pre-cut and taste almost homemade. The reason I see them as being one of the best is the absent list of chemically enhanced ingredients that usually inhabit such products. I’d say keep a package on hand for those last minute school bake sales.