The cookie

It doesn't look especially weird right now, but it is. The cookie is gingerbread, with little fruitcakey fruit bits inside, covered in chocolate. So that's weird enough. The actual strange bit involves the bottom, where there's some kind of white substance:

Bottom of cookie
(A bit blurry, I know. Sorry.)

While eating the cookie, I honestly couldn't tell whether or not that layer was some kind of paper which had gotten there by accident (perhaps it was meant to be a divider between the cookies in the package?) or on purpose. The chocolate layer wrapped around the edges, so it seemed as though it was meant to be there on purpose, but it was completely tasteless and reminded me strongly of cardboard.

So, some dissection was in order.

Cutting the cookie
(Always use an X-Acto to dissect your cookies.)

The cut cookie
(Viola!)

It may not be apparent from the pictures, but it's got a kind of waxy feel to it, and even under close inspection I wasn't sure what it was. I did notice that it seemed to have two layers, so I cut those apart carefully as well:

The two layers of the bottom

Stranger and stranger! The texture between the two layers was very reminiscent of some kind of styrofoamy packing material. Here's a closeup:

Closeup of the texture
(Packing material!)

So, all in all, results are still rather inconclusive. It should be noted that despite the cardboardness and weirdness, I did eat three of these things, and E also ate three, so I'm not sure if that counts as a cookie success or cookie failure. Given that I'm unlikely to ever buy it again, I guess failure, but other than whatever the hell that substance was, they were rather tasty.

The aftermath
(The aftermath.)

Note the kind of strange way it tears off, if torn:

The aftermath (a bit blurrier)
(Sorry, more blurriness.)

Oh, and I should mention that I assume from the ingredients list that this stuff is the "thin wafer," composed of unbleached wheat flower, potato starch, and salt. I remain somewhat unconvinced, though. We may save this batch to help pack Christmas presents.

Ingredients list

That is all!