Dancing Deer Baking Co.

It was a typical day at work. I was parked in front of my computer, surfing the internet. Suddenly an instant message popped up from my sister. "Stevie!" she typed, "I found these cookies at Whole Foods that are SO GOOD. They're from a company called ...

The ginger cake had a bite of spice that needs whip cream or ice cream to compliment but the flavor was great and the texture was moist. But this cake is very small. In the picture it looks like a typical size cake but it is one third the size. The ...

There was a sale offer in the New Yorker for a Dancing Deer gift package, so I decided to try it. We have a company in San Francisco and I was looking for an attractive gift to send clients at Christmas. Thank God I sampled the product first, before ordering it for everyone on our list!! The cookies are nothing more than you'd find in the cookies and crackers section of any grocery store (and they are packaged the same way). There were several varieties included and not one of them was anything better than the most average, mass-produced cookie. The gingerbread one was, in fact, awful. Also, they included an ad for the particular product I bought, saying it was a sale item!!! I breathed a hue sigh of relief that we had not just blindly (without sampling it) sent this gift to our clients. The small wood boxes are nice looking, but the green grosgrain ribbon that tied the two boxes together was frayed. All in all, a substandard product WORTH NOWHERE NEAR THE COST!!!

First let me say that service is WONDERFUL with this company, and higher-end packages include an attractive wooden box. I've sent quite a few of these packages, and everyone raved about them, so I finally bought one for my own home. I was SO disappointed and embarassed! As a baker of longstanding, I found the textures of the cookies, widespread use of shortening instead of butter, and overspicing to be a turnoff.  In particular, the lime sugar cookies tasted undercooked, and the other major shortening-type cookie, the molasses clove, dominated the package. Next year I will bake and ship my own cookies and treats.

I have purchased items from Dancing Deer and have to admit that I feel their quality has deteriorated over the past few years. I just received an order that included tasteless chocolate chip cookies with very few chips and none of the flavor that brown sugar usually adds. When I bake with brown sugar the flavor of molasses is usually detectable in the cookies, not so with Dancing Deer. The cookie was totally bland. Their brownies were not much better. They taste like half baked gooey dough, which some people may like, but I find unappealing. Their nut brownies have no nuts baked in, just a few crushed nuts sprinkled on top. Another short cut not expected in a high end brownie.

The packaging and marketing are very nice!  The food quality is unfortunately, terrible!  The cookies are undercooked and taste like they are mass-produced.  Similar to the taste of a product you would find in a gas station convenience store that has lots of chemicals in it to stay soft for a long time.  The brownies are dry and taste like cheap boxed mix.  The peanut butter variety was especially bad.  The spiced products (like the gingerbread) are wet and overly-flavored.  The ginger was WAY too strong. 

Every year we feel terrible when we throw away what I'm sure is an expensive gift from our client!  There is no way we can tell them to save their money...so we are reviewing here.