Limited Time Only – Pizza Hut’s Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie

Announced online on March 25th I wondered why? Why debut the Pizza Hut Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie now? Are we celebrating the changing of the season a month late to parallel the earth-in-crisis weather experienced in Sydney? Is this a feeble attempt at a sweet autumnal dish? Could this be a chocolate/Easter tie-in? As a keen fan of variety it’s unfortunate most of these posts have been centered around Pizza Hut, but they’re the only fast-food joint brave enough to churn out limited time only specials frequently.

Online the Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie is nestled between soft drinks and large oven baked chips in the extras column. Coincidentally their hero shot of this monstrosity is delicately bestowed upon the holy wooden board (torn baking paper and all, so now), beside a glass of both lemonade and coke. Three arrive at my door (that’s 18,876kj for $28.40) and the scent of cooking chocolate fills my home. It measures 19cm wide, significantly smaller than the usual Pizza Hut pizza with more calories than most savoury offerings in their range, minus the iota of nutritional value of scant vegetables at least a supreme pizza would provide.

The flavour? Sugar. The texture? Gritty sugar. I’ve never consumed anything so sugary. The pieces are soft, around 1cm thick, and crumble the moment you attempt to lift them from their aluminium home. I’m well familiar with the supple bite of a soft Mrs Field’s cookie or the unfathomable chewy stretch of some Momofuku alchemy, but this a whole new genre of biscuit I’m coining sugar mush. Not even dedicated years of cryeating nor all of my miserable unhealthy food conquests combined will even compare to the enormous malnourishing zero-return in this “cookie”. All the calories, none of the perks. No flavour, just sugar. I can still feel the granules clinging to my teeth after a liberal bowl of olives to cleanse myself afterwards. I read a comment stating it’s “great with ice cream” – I hurl ice cubes at the thing in immature retaliation, some leaves from nearby shrubbery don’t go astray either.

Pizza Hut’s Ultimate Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie is akin to the sloppy romance of chocolate covered strawberries or sparkling wine in the bedroom. It reminds me of men who are exclusively into women in g-bangers, and exclusively talk to their mates about women in g-bangers, womanising loudly. It is a loathsome, offensive brute disguised in a pious white box. Can somebody please post one of these to I Quit Sugar HQ and watch world World War III erupt? Hurl one at paleo Pete Evans and maybe his face will melt off like the Wicked Witch of the West. Some men just want to watch the world burn. I tug my hypothetical collar awkwardly just thinking of the children who will be subjected to this disgusting thing. I try a piece that had been refrigerated for a few hours and I reel back and swear louder than usual – still bad, just hard.

“1. Do not microwave. You and the cookie deserve better” declares a Pizza Hut’s social media on March 30th. Do you yourself a favour: Do not consume, if in the presence of said cookie place into the nearest garbage receptacle immediately. There’s something to be said about cryeating, but if this cookie arrives in your company abort immediately for the good of both your physical and mental wellbeing, for the love of God, lest you wish to be transcended to hell and back in a few mere bites.