Kitchn Love Letters

The $3 Find I Never Leave IKEA Without (It’s the Most Underrated Item!)

published Aug 4, 2024
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
this is the 22nd UK IKEA Store. IKEA, founded in Sweden in 1943, is the world's largest retailer of ready-to-assemble or flat-pack furniture.
Credit: Graeme Dawes / Shutterstock

More than Scandi-style furnishings, a BILLY bookcase, and plant-based wax tealight candles, what gets me excited on a shopping trip to IKEA is filling my shopping cart with sandwich cookies. Yes, that’s right. Give me a package — or a few — of these $2.49 Kafferep cookies over the Swedish chain’s Swedish meatballs. 

Credit: Kristine Hansen

What’s So Great About KAFFEREP Biscuits?

These sandwich cookies actually come in two flavors: Rainforest Alliance Certified chocolate and raspberry. The fruit-based one is my favorite. Both flaunt a cute heart-shaped cut-out with the filling visible (and enticing!). It’s rare to find a raspberry-flavored cookie that’s not a sticky mess, but these fit the bill. The cookie itself is vanilla, much like a golden Oreo.

Another aspect I love is the tidy roll they’re wrapped in — no plastic trays that just get tossed in the trash. 

Credit: Kristine Hansen

The story about how I discovered these cookies is like most grocery items: by accident. I’ve been shopping at IKEA for about two decades now, including when I lived in Southern California during my 20s and needed cheap-but-stylish furniture, along with kitchen items in my modest two-bedroom home near the beach. I used to beeline to the kitchen-gadget and closet-organizing sections and completely ignore the groceries.

But when an IKEA store opened near me in Milwaukee a few years back, it was time to start peeling back the layers of this mammoth retailer. Now I didn’t have to shove everything in the car and then haul it back from the Chicago area. I could also visit as often as I like. One day I came home with one package each of the sandwich cookies — and I haven’t stopped doing this since. It helps that the groceries are near the check-out lines at IKEA … as a little reminder.

Credit: Kristine Hansen

What’s the Best Way to Enjoy KAFFEREP Biscuits?

 Swedes have a coffee-break tradition called fika where coffee is paired with cookies. If these cookies are in my pantry, they are on rotation with my afternoon cup of coffee, as I find it too sweet to be a morning snack.

One winter I even stuffed these in my husband’s Christmas stocking, as they fit perfectly and I know he loves them as much as I do.

Buy: KAFFEREP Biscuits with Raspberry-Flavored Filling, $2.49 for 6 ounces at IKEA

What are your favorite IKEA groceries? Tell us about them in the comments below.