The Cookie Factory — Restaurant in Town of Halfmoon

Husband wanted cake tonight so we went to The Cookie Factory in Clifton Park after dinner. We’ve been to this place once before a couple years back and weren’t overly impressed, but they were all that was open other than the grocery store.

We ended up getting a medium size box of a variety of treats for $20. We both joked how the same box at our old favorite place would have cost almost double (and it would have been worth every penny!) Here is our review:

🧁Chocolate Oreo Cupcake: Pros: Cake part was not dry or stale. Frosting was thick with a creamy texture. Cons: Cake was flavorless, and small, filling minimal, frosting left a greasy aftertaste like a shortning base frosting would and it was SICKLY sweet. The Oreo on top was soft, wet and stale.

🥕Carrot Cake Slice Pros: Traditionally a seasonal item, but available in July. The cake part was moist and being a sheet cake, we appreciated the layer. Good size slice. Cons: Frosting was very clearly artificially flavored to mimic cream cheese rather than being made from real cream cheese. The cake was lacking the warm spice one expects with a carrot cake.

Eclair Cons: clearly canned filling used, not real pastry cream. Overly sweet chocolate frosting not ganache, choux pastry missing the light and airy texture it’s known for. Very similar to a Dunkn Donut Boston Cream donut. Good-ish in its own right, but NOT an eclair. No pros on the eclair, and the biggest disappointment.

🍪Chocolate chip cookie Don’t even get me started! 🤦🏻‍♀️ dry , flat, crumbly and only flavor was sweet.

🍫We didn’t try the brownie yet. Not sure that we will after having tried everything else.

I know this place has been around for decades and does great wholesale business but come on! Look, I get it. Lower quality ingredients paired with a less labor intensive process, results in lower production cost. Lower production cost allows the bakery to sell its item for less which is ultimatly more attractive to the public, allowing them to sell a larger quanity. I mean in today’s economy cheep is sought after. But where has the desire for quality gone?

In my experience , I’ve found the majority of people have never experienced true authentic baked goods made from scratch using real quality ingredients. Or it’s been so long that they’ve had such a thing, they forget just how good real tastes. People actully like the artificial stuff and I’m guessing it’s because it is all that they are used to and that is sad sad sad.

I will say The Cookie Factory had a decent size selection, and even an hour before closing, the cases were exceptionally full (That can be good but also bad. Makes you question the freshness not only for today, but in the coming days as I can’t image they are tossing everything but rather keeping it to sell the next few days) The presentation of the items were also great. Nice clean cuts on the cake, shapely cookies, cute decorations on cakes, cupcakes and cookies. Not a lick of frosting out of place. They looked a million times better than they tasted that’s for sure! The atmosphere was roomy and clean but not very decorative or welcoming. The 5 or so tables were not screaming an invite for me to sit down and relax with my treats. Neither were the young girls working. While they were not rude by any means, they were brisk and to the point. It was an hour until closing after all, but a smile wouldn’t have hurt.

Needless to say my oven is going to need to be running this weekend because tonight’s bakery visit did not scratch the sweet tooth...

There were 2 girls working on this Friday afternoon that had no idea what they were doing. When asking about cookie prices, neither of the girls could give us a definitive answer about how much each cookie cost-- there was even confusion about each shelf's value. When we walked out of the shop, we had spent $14.50 out of a $15 gift card. This was disappointing, because as we were selecting our cookies, we added up how much the girl told us they would cost, making sure that we didn't spend the whole gift card. Because of her inaccuracy, we ended up doing the opposite of what we wanted. It seemed that the prices that one girl told us were different than what was keyed into the register. To make matters worse, there was a coupon for $2 off of $15 that we could have used, if only we had bought one more cookie. We didn't realize this until we had left the store and got into the parking lot. The training in this store needs to increase, and prices need to be clearly listed to ensure that the customers know exactly what they're getting. I'm extremely disappointed in my experience at the Cookie Factory in Clifton Park, and we will never be returning. We'll stick to Bella Napoli for our baked goods-- they have more choices, as well as...

I almost didn't know this location existed because I'm usually veering off to the right.

Never knew a Cookie Factory existed on one of the routes I take to get home, and that's because I don't look to the left when I'm normally turning right to heads towards Clifton Park center. But I'm glad I did learn about it.

Stopped in and bought a box of goodies, a lemon danish, a lemon pocket cookie, a cherry cheesecake cup, a sugar cookie, a raspberry drop cookie, a peanut butter cookie, and a turtle cookie. All for just over $16, what a deal!

The sugar cookie tasted just like I remember CF cookies taste like, there's just something they put in the batter that really makes them stick out. The peanut butter was slightly dry, but packed with nutty flavor. The raspberry drop was fantastic, a sweet almond flavor with the tart raspberry center. The lemon pocket was a little underwhelming flavor-wise, but was nice and soft. The rest I'm saving for another day, because goodness that was a lot of sugar.

Sadly my dinner this night was quite mediocre, but Cookie Factory was there to turn a sad cheat day into a...