La Mere Poulard puts a generous amount of butter in these biscuits or cookies.

BUTTER!

I had to type that in bold all caps — with an exclamation mark — just to emphasize how incredibly buttery tasting these cookies are.

La Mere Poulard cookies were first baked in 1888 by Annette Poulard, the local baker’s wife in Mont Saint-Michel, France at the inn she opened. La Mere Poulard pays homage to those original cookies with its own versions, made with no preservatives or GMOs. Produced in France for 15 years, they are now readily available in the United States.

The cookies are made with eggs from free-range hens and sugar from beets. It’s not surprising that after the first ingredient listed of wheat flour, comes butter. Because these cookies taste unabashedly of sweet, creamy butter.

I had a chance to try samples of three types of the cookies. Admittedly, as someone who likes to bake cookies from scratch or doesn’t mind driving out of the way to buy really stellar bakery cookies, I can sometimes be a snob when it comes to packaged, store-bought cookies. But these blew me away.

All of the cookies are wonderfully crisp, rich tasting, and beautifully deep golden in color. The French Sables are thin and taste of vanilla. The French Caramel Biscuits are thin, sweeter, and taste as if toffee-caramel has been stirred into the dough. The French Palets are thicker shortbread cookies that crumble, then melt in your mouth.

The colorful boxes.

Four of the thinner cookies (one serving) have about 310 to 320 calories. Two of the thicker shortbread (one serving) weigh in at 314 calories. Naturally, given the high butter content, the saturated fat is about 10g per per serving.

The cookies are about $4 per box, and available at Walmart and on Amazon.

These are cookies to eat when you want to pamper yourself. And that’s never a bad thing, right?

Winner of Last Week’s Contest

In last week’s Food Gal contest, I asked you to tell me your favorite take-out food — and why you enjoy eating it to go. The winner will receive a $75 gift card to the new Culinary Courier & Market in Los Gatos. The card is redeemable only in person at the store.

Chinese chicken salad from Culinary Courier & Market.

Congrats to:

Paulina Dao, who wrote, “My favorite take out is from Truffle Butter Poke Bar in San Mateo. I’m too tired to cook food. Poke is a nice healthy option, where you can pick and choose exactly what goes in and on your bowl. And then I have the convenience of being able to eat it in bed with a glass of wine and a TV show.”