Believe it: Cookies without butter earn four-star rating

They may have been distracted by the chocolate chips, but food panel members couldn’t believe the cookies in a recent taste test were baked without butter.

We made two batches of cookies to test the new I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Cooking and Baking Sticks. One batch included real butter. For the other, we used an equal amount of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. The baking sticks are made from a blend of oils, including canola and soybean.

The product lived up to its name. Tasters gave both versions a solid four-star ranking on our five-star scale.

Only Lindi Messenger was able to discern a difference in flavor.

“Full of chocolate chips inside a delightful sweet and crunchy cookie. Tastes home-baked,” she said of the cookie with real butter.

She gave the second cookie one less star, saying, “Buttery and sweet cookie with lots of chocolate chunks. … Leaves a trace of artificial ‘butter’ flavor in your mouth.”

Other tasters munched away blissfully.

“Loaded with dark chocolate chunks. Great partnered with a good cup of coffee,” said Jenny Whittaker.

Vicki Deschaine added, “I never met a soft chocolate chip cookie I didn’t like. I can’t tell the difference between these two. They’re very good.”

Using the baking sticks rather than butter helps cut saturated fat and cholesterol. Butter contains 8 grams saturated fat and 30 milligrams of cholesterol per tablespoon, while the baking sticks have 3.5 grams of saturated fat and no cholesterol.

Skip Hubbard liked the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter cookies better. “Kind of flat and not as good as the other,” he said of the cookie baked with butter.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Cooking and Baking Sticks

Price: $3.49 per pound

Nutrition per serving: 100 calories, 11 grams fat (3.5 grams saturated, 100 percent fat calories), no protein, no carbohydrate, no cholesterol, no dietary fiber, 95 milligrams sodium.

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Comments: “Great classic cookie flavor. Slightly cakey and tasty.” – Skip Hubbard

“Tastes homemade. Loaded with chocolate.” – Larry Inman

“Same homemade flavor. Dense dark chocolate.” – Peggy Kazanis

Tillamook Butter

Price: $3.19 per pound

Nutrition per serving: 100 calories, 11 grams fat (8 grams saturated, 100 percent fat calories), no protein, no carbohydrate, 30 milligrams cholesterol, no dietary fiber, no sodium.

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Comments: “Yummy chocolate chip cookie. Lots of chips. It would be great warm from the oven.” – Nancy Robinson

“Nice crisp cookie. Your basic chocolate chip cookie.” – Tina Johnson

“Splendid bittersweet chunky chips and not oversweet cookie dough. Good to go.” – Andy Hoye