Mr. Sato takes on a big and bizarre cookie from the new sweets chain.

A lot of cookies in Japan are dainty things. Crisp little biscuits for you to hold in your fingertips as you nipple on them, they’re classy, but perhaps not the sort of viscerally satisfying sweet snack that your inner child really wants.

So here with an alternative is Guilty’s, a chain of cookie shops that opened earlier this year as a spinoff of Heart Bread Antique, the bakery that makes cat-shaped loaves of bread. Guilty’s specializes in big, sweet, soft cookies, acknowledging the guilty pleasure of chowing down on them with their sub-name of “Big Happiness Cookies.”

But eating a Guilty’s cookie isn’t just a seemingly contradictory mix of emotions, but also sometimes a bizarre mix of ingredients, as our ace reporter Mr. Sato recently found out.

Guilty’s still only has six branches, but Mr. Sato was able to hit up their location at Aeon Mall Tsudanuma in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture while he was out that way to report on the closing of the Beck’s hamburger chain. The cookie shop is attached to a Heart Bread Antique bakery, but with its own storefront, decorated with some American-style cartoon art.

With prices starting at 480 yen (US$3.20), Guilty’s cookies aren’t cheap, but they are huge by Japanese standards, as you can see in this photo where they’re considerably bigger than Mr. Sato’s second-gen iPhone SE.

Guilty’s has five kinds of cookies on its permanent menu, plus a revolving seasonal flavor. Right now, the seasonal flavor is Very Berry Strawberry, so Mr. Sato picked up one of those for 680 yen. For his second cookie, he passed on the Cocoa Marshmallow, Kuromame Matcha Azuki, and Honey Baked Fromage, and the Caramel Apple Crumble. Not that they didn’t all sound great, but there was no way he could resist the opportunity to try Guilty’s 560-yen Maple-soaked Thick-cut Bacon cookie.

Yes, that’s right, a bacon cookie.

Multiple slices of bacon were embedded in the cookie, which was itself big enough to cover Mr. Sato’s face. The Maple-soaked Thick-cut Bacon was going into his stomach, though, and he wasted no time taking a bite to see if this idea was brilliant or madness…

…and it turned out to be surprisingly delicious! The bacon and maple syrup bring strong salty and sweet sensations, stimulating the taste buds while balancing the flavor profile enough so that the mixture of tastes doesn’t feel harsh. “Bacon cookie” sounds like a concept that relies strictly on the novelty factor for its appeal, but Mr. Sato could see himself happily eating this again.

Especially with the bacon making its meaty presence known, this almost feels as much like a main dish as a dessert, and Mr. Sato thinks it’d actually go really well with a bowl of white rice.

Next it was on to the Very Berry Strawberry. While this is a much more mundane idea, the strawberry and jam covering the cookie was outstanding.

By his own admission, Mr. Sato is a guy who likes his desserts sweeter than the average Japanese person. Even for him, though, he found the Very Berry Strawberry to be intensely sweet. Not that he’s complaining, mind you, but he thinks the best beverage pairing for it would be a cup of strong, unsweetened black tea.

To be sure, eating two huge cookies, one with bacon, had Mr. Sato feeling a twinge of guilt, but more so than that, he was happy and satisfied. Still, if you don’t think you’ve got the appetite to polish one of Guilty’s cookies off all by yourself, he recommends cutting it into half and splitting it with a friend, so you can share both the guilt and the joy.

Store information
Guilty’s (Aeon Mall Tsudanuma branch) / ギルティ―ズ（イオンモール津田沼店）
Attached to Heart Bread Antique / ハートブレッドアンティーク
Address: Chiba-ken, Narashino-shi, Tsudanuma 1-23-1, Aeon Mall Tsudanuma 1st floor
千葉県習志野市津田沼1-23-1 イオンモール津田沼1F
Open 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
Website

Photos ©SoraNews24
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