'Self care' in cookie form: Gourmet bakeries for indulgent discs
Weeks after its opening, Gabby Dunkin was among a steady stream of customers filing into and out of Dirty Dough at Glendale Town Center.
“We're big fans of cookies in general, for sure; but this one I never heard of before,” Dunkin said, having purchased a couple of large super gooey cookies, each nestled in its own robin egg blue box.
With its opening Dirty Dough is the latest in a plethora of gourmet cookie shops around Indianapolis offering indulgent $4-and-above discs loaded and/or topped with all manner of goodness.
Most of the shops feature house-baked signatures or rotating menus which followers find on social media. Think strawberry shortcake, orange creamsicle and a peanut butter cookie wrapped around a chocolate cookie with a fudge center.
What hath Crumbl wrought?
Insomnia Cookies was the first in the market, bringing its late-night delivery shtick to a Broad Ripple location about 11 years ago. It had the market to itself for a long while.
More recently social media darling Crumbl has taken over having surfed viral posts to more than 800 locations. Only two years since opening its first local store in Fishers, it now has seven franchised locations in the Indianapolis area.
Food and beverage analytics company Datassential in a 2022 report pegged Crumbl as the fastest-growing chain of dessert shops and the fourth-fastest-growing food chain in the United States.
The company has nearly 7 million followers on TikTok.
More shops are rolling out.
The Dirty Dough shops at Glendale and Fishers were the first and corporate-owned second outside of the chain's cradle of Utah, opening to long lines of customers in May and June, respectively.
Dirty Dough has 28 stores open, and another 60 in the works. A Zionsville store is slated for summer 2023 opening.
The gourmet stuffed cookies are baked warm and decorated with toppings and drizzles to order.
Count Abby Hackl among those delighted with the arrival of the fancy schmancy cookie shops. Dirty Dough was the first she’s tried. She’d heard of Crumbl and Insomnia, but was unaware they had Indianapolis-area outlets.
“I've never lived near one,” she said. “I thought it was still just in LA and New York and big places like that.”
Hackl made her way to the Glendale Dirty Dough shop from the nearby AT&T store and picked up a half dozen, having had no prior experience with the brand.
“I just got a phone and I saw it and I saw the store and it looks super trendy; very modern. It looks like not a chain even though it may or may not be. It looks more local homemade. I really like that.”
She was a little taken aback by the $4 charge per cookie – although prices decrease with quantity.
“Some sacrifices need to be made in the name of self-care,” she said.
There's no shortage of places to find cookie-focused upscale bakeries, with several opening in the Indianapolis area in the past few years. Check these out when you have your next craving.
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The Cavity Factory cookies
Instagram.com/thecavityfactory
Launched as a food truck business in fall 2022, The Cavity Factory will open a downtown Indy commercial kitchen shop this summer.
Owner Destinee Smith told IndyStar the kitchen will be a six-minute drive from Monument Circle and that she hopes to open a storefront in about a year, allowing for online ordering and delivery to customers outside of Indiana. She announced to social media followers that she’ll offer more hours than the weekends with which the business started.
In the meantime, she continues to entertain hordes of customers who show her up to her pop-ups, beating her hot pink truck to the locations and buying out her stock — sometimes inside an hour.
Watch for the likes of red velvet cookies and cream, chocolate turtle and Fruity Pebbles.
Crumbl
Multiple locations: Greenwood, Keystone Shoppes, Avon, Brownsburg, Carmel, West Carmel and Fishers
The menu rotates each week with six new cookie flavors.
Its open-concept bakery allows anyone to see the bakers create cookies.
Editor's note: Gallery below is from our sister site in Montgomery, all flavors may not be available each week in Indy.
Dirty Dough
Glendale Town Center, 6159 N. Keystone, Indianapolis, 317-537-0007
13180 Market Square Dr., Fishers, 463-278-1110
6634 Whitestown Parkway, Zionsville (opening summer 2023)
Eight cookies a week, including six regulars and two weekly specials are on the menu; each featuring a combination of layers, mix-ins or fillings within the dough and so gooey that eating the middle typically requires a fork.
They are decorated to order.
Big sellers include Cookies n Creme with Oreo chunks, white chocolate chips and stuffed with a cream filling. Rotating specialties might include the Better Than, a chocolate cookie with milk chocolate chips and Heath bar chunk, filled with sweet cream and salted caramel.
The stores also sell ice cream.
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Insomnia Cookies
809 Broad Ripple Ave., Indianapolis, 317-427-6391
917 Indiana Ave., Indianapolis, 463-212-7475
Philadelphia-based Insomnia Cookies was the first of the upscale cookie chains to open in Indianapolis, settling up shop in Broad Ripple 11 years ago. It opened in the IUPUI area in January 2023.
Stores are open for pickup and delivery of warm cookies until the wee hours.
There’s a Cookie Magic membership that comes with waived delivery fees, a free cookie each day.
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Mary’s Mountain Cookies
110 W. Main St., Carmel
317-663-7271
Franchisee Melissa Fox opened a shop in Carmel in May 2021.
Mary’s Mountain Cookies is unique in that its cookies come in two sizes — a 2-ounce for $2.25 and a 4-ounce for $3.95.
Emphasis is on the use of local vendors, Fox said. It sells Glover’s Ice Cream (Frankfort, Indiana) and uses milk from a dairy in Sheridan, Indiana.
The chain, founded by Mary Johns at a Colorado dude ranch, has 23 stores; with a 24th launching soon.
Most popular is its Oreo cookies and cream cookie with Oreo frosting.
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Momma Shell’s Cookies
303 E. Main St., Plainfield, 317-563-1688
Rachelle Huether started the business selling large cookies with lots of frosting as a delivery service in April 2020. Chocolate chip cookies that she calls “Norms” and sugar cookies are always on the menu, but four or five others — lemon blueberry, cinnamon, salted pretzel caramel among them — join in rotation.
The shop also sells bread, giant cookie cakes and ice cream sandwiches.
Contact the reporter at 317-444-6264.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 'Self care' in cookie form: Gourmet bakeries for indulgent discs
