Pumpkin-Cranberry Cookies Revisited

On Saturday, I made up another batch of the Pumpkin-Cranberry Cookies I wrote about previously.  My goal was to make the cookies with two different toppings, plus some with no topping at all, and taste-test the three to determine which was the best.

First I made a pan of cookies topped with cinnamon sugar, made with a 1:3 cinnamon/sugar ratio. 

Topped with cinnamon-sugar
and ready for the oven

Fresh from the oven.

I also made a pan of the cookies topped with the same coarse sugar I used last time, and I finished off the dough with a pan of plain ones, with no topping.


Ready for the taste test.
The cookies at top right are topped with cinnamon-sugar.
The bottom right ones are topped with coarse sugar.
The ones on the left are plain, with no topping.

 With all the cookies done, it was time to taste-test.   Juli and I did our taste-testing on Saturday, and I also brought some to work to taste-test with my coworkers.   Each taster ranked the cookies from favorite of the three (1) to least favorite (3).   The results were as follows:

Taster         Cin. Sugar    Coarse Sugar   Plain
Jeffrey                 1                 3                 2
Juli                      1                 3                 2
Taster 1              3                 1                 2
Taster 2              1                 3                 2
Taster 3              3                 1                 2

So, while three people chose the cinnamon-sugar as their favorite of the three, the other two rated that the least-favorite of the three... and those two both picked the coarse sugar as the favorite, while the other three picked that as their least favorite.  And, all three picked the plain cookie with no topping as their second favorite of the three.

So, all in all, the results aren't very conclusive at all.  Probably your best bet would be to try them for yourself and see what one you prefer.  Or maybe one of our readers has some other ideas for a topping that might beat out any of the others we tried.  If so, please share your ideas.