Fall has always been fun time for me. I dread the heat of summer so cooler days are always appreciated. Summer is also a pretty slow time for the gift basket business so the coming of Fall was a sign of better times to come. One of our highlights was seeing what new seasonal products our vendors would come out with. Never did we imagine that we would be able to come out with our own creations. While traveling around the country setting up new retailers I had several suggestions for a Pumpkin Spice cookie, which we had never thought about. After asking around we found out that pumpkin is becoming a year round favorite for many people.
After much experimentation and arguments about spice level, we finally created a Pumpkin Spice Cookie. This was more of a challenge that I had anticipated as I found that getting more pumpkin flavor was not a matter of adding more pumpkin, but doing something else entirely! I won’t say what I did, but I will tell you it was counter-intuitive. I have already discovered there is a group of people out their that like the flavor of pumpkin but hate pumpkin pie! I believe it is a texture thing for most, or if they are like me they had an incident in the past where they had eaten an entire Pumpkin Pie in one setting. In my defense, it was a very good pumpkin pie and I was much younger!
For those of you that like to experiment with your baking, don’t be afraid to try something a little different that makes no sense at all. Just be sure to keep good notes in case it works!
Lastly, for those of you that are following our Seasonal Cookies for Toby Tobin, tune in Saturday to KMBC, 980 am, find out what our Fall Tobin Cookie will be.
~Robert
Here at the Best Regards Bakery we all went back and forth on what kind of cookie would really capture the spirit of summer. It came down to two finalists, Peanut Butter & Jelly cookie sandwich and a Sunflower cookie. In the end the PB&J won out because of the wonderful Black Raspberry Jelly that I use as a filling (not blackberrry). It is really the star with the Peanut Butter Cookie playing a strong but supporting role. The concept of the PB&J Cookie was easy, but there are so many different jellies, jams and preserves out there that this was pretty difficult.
The black raspberry is primarily grown in the northeast and northwest parts of the US. It has a bolder flavor profile that a simple red raspberry and the seeds are nowhere near as annoying. It was pretty good, but I still had to tinker a bit with it and gave it a little all natural boost to make it really pop. One thing that I discovered in my research is that there a whole lot of good regional options on jellies/jams out there. I would suggest that next time you give something new a shot instead of buying one of those jars of high-fructose corn syrups masquerading as a jelly.
Just for fun I also made a Peanut Butter & Chocolate Sandwich, which is wonderful, but won’t really ship well because of the heat more that 1 day away. We will continue to make a few extras of those for the locals that want to stop by during the summer.
I am starting to work on the Fall cookie already and have a couple of great ideas already, but welcome new feedback. Let me know what you think.
Thank you to those of you that are spreading the word about this blog, it is very much appreciated. I know that word is getting out because I met several people at Corks & Forks last week, a fund raiser for Harvesters that mentioned the blog and website that they had just recently discovered. That was a great event that raised funds to provide hundreds of thousands of much needed meals.
I had more than a few people ask how in world a gift basket business ended up making the best cookies and chocolates that they have ever experienced! Here is the rest of Our Story. Pre 9/11 the economy was booming and vendors felt they could make any amount of money they wanted. Service was sliding, hiring was tough and vendors were not open to feedback and customer suggestions. We felt that we needed a quality food gift for less than $5 that was made locally. No one was interested, so we started toying with the idea of creating our own cookie and contracting it out. I collect cookie and chocolate cookbooks (I love to drool over the photos) and decided to see if I could create our own unique chocolate chip cookie. In my research I found 56 distinctly different chocolate cookie recipes. Many are surprised at the number, but think about it. There are 3 different kinds of flour (actually many more, but trying to keep this discussion simple) all purpose, cake and bread flour and all will make vastly different cookies. Then you have several kinds of fat to use including margarine, butter and shortening. Back then I didn’t even give any thought to specific quality ingredients like European Butter or Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla. Lastly you have several kinds of sugar including granulated sugar, brown sugar, corn syrups and molasses.
After several rounds of preliminary baking I narrowed it down to 3 distinctly different recipes and I had everyone that I knew taste test them and rate them on taste, texture and appearance. Not surprisingly, the best tasting cookie was the ugliest, the prettiest didn’t taste very good and the one with the best texture was not much to talk about. My next challenge was to play alchemist and figure out how to get the flavor of cookie A, the texture of cookie B and the appearance of cookie C. This whole process took several months of personal sacrifice and suffering by friends and family.
We then found a bakery that agreed to bake these for us, got all the logistics worked out, pricing, packaging, labels and did a mailing to all of our customers. It was an immediate hit and we quickly received an order for over 2,000 cookies for a big event. Our baker freaked, immediately raised our price 30% saying she had to pay people overtime to fill our order and gave us a list of weeks that we were not allowed to place orders. Ohhh-kaaaay… I guess that this is the opposite of a quantity discount. We pulled the cookie off the market and decided to regroup. This is now in the post 9/11 recession and if you remember everyone is pulling back. We decided to create a plan to expand and start our own bakery in the next 12 months. That would give us time to source used bakery equipment and find a place. As luck or fate would have it 2 weeks later a really nice couple from KC, MO put an ad in the classified selling a full size Blodgett oven, 30 quart mixer and 50 trays for $1,500. We raced over, paid cash and stuck it all in our garage. One month later we found a space in Olathe, moved and were in the Cookie Bakery Business.
I then spent some time perfecting the recipe and discovered the powers of Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla (future post), European Butter (previous post) and other outrageously wonderful ingredients.
As they say, for every door that slams in your face, another opens.
OK, I am veering off my imaginary list of tasty topics because sometimes life just throws a twist or two into your life. My inspiration for this blog is my obsession with perfecting sweet treats one goodie at a time. I have found that many people love the story behind the cookie or chocolate almost as much as the cookie itself. My motivation for finally starting this blog recently goes to two different media personalities, Toby Tobin and Mark Clegg. It is always great to meet these people and see what they are really like. Toby is as crazy and fun in person as he sounds on the radio. Mark is much more charismatic and warm in person that he can be on the evening news.
Now to the bus. In the past 10 days after our profile on KSHB 41 evening news we have met many new people that had never heard of us. You have to understand that we have operated in obscurity for 15 years just selling gift baskets (phone and internet orders) tucked in the back of a business park. Because of Toby Tobin, in the last few months we have had people drive to KC from hundreds of miles away just to buy our cookies and chocolates. It has been quite the transition for us as we aren’t really comfortable with compliments. In another twist, last week we had a call from Caren who runs a tour bus company. She was taking 20 people on a food tour in KC and wanted to know if she could bring them here. SURE! (my stock answer to opportunities like this)
Step 1: panic, wondering why us. Step 2: what do we do. We just did what we do well and set out samples, lots of samples plus our special coffee (future post). I intended to get a picture of the real bus, but it got kind of crazy so I just borrowed the photo above from google. We shared our story, gave them lots of samples and answered lots of questions. It seemed that every cookie reminded someone of a favorite story. It was a blast.
This has also prompted us to finally get around to another item on our to do list: Open House. We finally decided to just schedule it for next Friday/Saturday May 2-3. We will have tons of free samples of all of our cookies and chocolates for everyone to try, share some stories and answer some questions. It just might be worth the trip. If you are bringing a bus, call ahead so we can put on an extra pot of coffee.
European butter made in Wisconsin! Yeah right, then who is buried in Grants Tomb?
Yes, it is true, we only use European butter in all of our big fresh baked cookies (even the oatmeal). The simple reason is that I have tested our recipes with everything the same except for the butter and the clear majority can tell the difference and prefer the European over the regular butter. I have had skeptics tell me I am making this up and you can’t tell the difference. I always ask them, can you tell the difference between whole milk (about 3% butterfat) and skim milk (0.5%)? Can you tell the difference between Cold Stone Creamery ice cream and cheap grocery store ice cream?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture set the standard for butter to have a minimum of 80% butterfat. U.S. butter manufacturers, being the fiscally responsible people they are, that is all that they use - butterfat is where the money is. Europeans, having a longer history of being foodies require a more luxurious 82% - 83%. That extra 3% can make a huge difference, especially in baking. If you shop around you can probably find European butter, but remember the key is the percentage of butterfat, not where it is made so read the label. Chances are it will be unsalted, so watch the expiration date (salt is an effective preservative). Be sure to freeze it if you are not planning on using it right away.
If you love to bake on your own, start a baking journal where yo ukeep track of the changes you test out on your recipes and their impact. One time bake up your favorite cookie and try a different butter or vanilla (future post). You may surprise yourself and your family.
Who is buried in Grants Tomb? No one is “buried” there. President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife are entombed, not buried there. It is a huge beautiful above ground building. A very famous trick question. You never know what you will learn and where.
I did not sleep too well Friday night. Local radio icon, Toby Tobin said that he wanted to do a live call-in to his radio show Saturday morning to talk about the new cookie I created to replace Toby’s Chocolate Avalanche Cookie. I offered to go in to the office to open up for half a day Saturday, since he was kind enough to talk about us live on the air. We are tucked in the back of a small business park and are normally open M-F only. I figured I might get a few calls for info, but at least I would get some office work done. Wrong again.
Toby called right at 7:30 am and told everyone how funny it was last week in the studio when we announced the new cookie. When he announced it, no one in the studio wanted to even try it, saying they didn’t like coconut. Great, I am going down in flames on live radio, call me Les Nessman, WKRP. I might as well be dropping PiZa Colada Cookies from a helicopter. Toby finally shamed them all into trying the cookie, which they loved once they realized they could not taste the coconut. You see, while creating this cookie that is exactly the response I expected. Personally I don’t like coconut either and the only dish that I like with coconut is coconut fried shrimp. In creating this recipe I decided that I wanted the coconut to play a supporting role to enhance the pineapple, not do battle. I will share the process that I went through in a moment. First, back to the studio.
The live segment with Toby lasted maybe 2 minutes at most, but he was great, gave out our phone number, website and even direction on how to get here. Remember, this a Saturday morning, 7:30 am and snow showers threatening. Within 15 minutes two cars pulled in our parking lot jonseing for a PiZa Colada Cookie! Over the next 6 hours we had more walk in customers than we get in a month and sold out of PiZa Colada Cookies. Not only that, but they out sold the Chocolate Avalanche Cookies 4:1. The reactions were very telling. The people that hate coconut said they couldn’t even taste the coconut, but thought that was the best tasting pineapple they have ever had. The people that like coconut loved how the toasted coconut interacted with the pineapple. Mission accomplished, for at least a day.
For those of you that might be interested in the process, here is how I did it. The challenge was on to create something good enough for people to forgive and forget. I created and baked over 30 different original cookie recipes to try and capture the essence of Spring. I tried some very tart lemon cookies (good potential, but needs more work), margarita creme cookies and even tested several peanut butter cookies. I had Toby & EJ Tobin out early March to do the initial taste testing (the sacrifices that people make) and let me know how I was doing. Toby was very nice but basically said it was not even close. The peanut butter cookie was very good, better than any he had ever had, but not worth driving across town for. My back up cookie (I learned in sales to always have a backup) however, was wonderful and unlike anything he had ever had. They loved the PiZa Colada Cookie (attempt #1).
I will give you a glimpse of the process I go through. The first step is to pick a starting point, a cookie recipe with the same texture that you have in mind for your new creation. In the case of my PiZa Colada Cookie I wanted a moist and tender cookie, not chewy or crunchy. I have found that the most difficult aspect of developing a cookie recipe is the texture (be sure to take lots of notes). Step two is basically a stab in the dark to incorporate the flavors involved, in this case pineapple and coconut. Many people don’t like coconut, so I did not want it to be too strong, but to play a supporting role. On my first try, it was okay, but the coconut was too strong and you could barely taste the pineapple. This is the one that Toby & EJ tried and liked. Now I had to tweak it a bit.
First I decided to toast the coconut to develop a more mature and subtle flavor. Next I decided to triple the amount of pineapple in the recipe. I tried three different techniques here, but I can’t share that part (trade secret). I baked those three recipes up, tasted wonderful, but looked bad (way too much moisture). I was pretty excited at this point, because I knew that I had a winner in the making. Six more test recipes later the PiZa Colada Cookie was done. I had captured the essence of a PiZa Colada, the wonderful flavor of pineapple subtly enhanced by the coconut.
My next problem is I have to start working on the Summer Cookie. I am open to suggestions on what flavors or ingredients just scream summer to you. As you can see, don’t limit yourself to thinking about cookies, but it may be a favorite drink, pie, cake or other treasured summer memory.
How ironic, that this Blog begins with the end of our most popular cookie. I will get to that in a moment. Our full story can be found elsewhere on our website, but I will share what is relevant here and now. My wife started a gourmet gift basket business back in the early ’90’s and from day 1 we would go to most of the Fancy Food Shows in NY & SF to find the absolute best gourmet cookies, chocolates, snacks and nuts to put into our corporate gifts. All was well and fine until 9/11 and the recession that followed. We were lucky and did not lose anyone that we knew, but our industry took a big hit. The specialty food industry used to be dominated by small family owned businesses that were hard hit by the recession. Unfortunately many of them responded by cutting corners on ingredients. One cookie company in particular that we sold quite a bit of changed thier recipe from using butter to margarine. I tried to tell her to raise the price as much as she needed, people will pay for quality, but not medicrity. Here I am 6 years later with my own cookies/sweet treats blog, so you can guess how they responded.
Now, to the cookie. A Kansas City radio icon, Toby Tobin who has been on the radion for 30+ years saw us on a morning show giving away a Pumpkin Cookie recipe was intrigued enough to have EJ (wife) call and order a couple of dozen cookies to try for himself. Long story short he talked me into coming onto his lawn/garden show to talk cookies. While live on the air Toby said, “You know what would be cool? If you created a special Toby Tobin Cookie?” My reply was, sure! A half hour later he followed up with, “You know what be even more cool? A limited edition Cookie for each season!” Sure! All the girls back in the office were cracking up, wondering how I would pull something like this off (this was Thanksgiving weekend, our craziest time of year). From Day 1, the whole concept was a limited edition cookie that would be replace on the first day of the new season, in this case Spring.
It took several hours of personal sacrifice but I finally created the cookie you see above. I use European butter, our own blend of melted chocolate, European Cocoa and real cane sugar. I will talk about each of these ingredients on another post. Imagine the corner piece of a pan of the best brownies you have ever had, but chewy and you are still not there. I am a strong believer in having layers of flavor seducing the tastebuds not a single blast of just one flavor. With this cookie you are actually presented with 3 distinct layers of wonderful chocolate in a moist chewy cookie.
Now, when I agreed to do this I was thinking that we would sell a couple of hundred cookies to people asking specifically for it from the radio show and include the rest in some of our gift baskets. What I did not expect was that people would drive to KC from St Louis, Springfield and Joplin, Missouri and from all over eastern Kansas (3+hours) just to buy this cookie. I have always enjoyed listening to Toby’s show, but did not really think about how large and loyal his audience is. Personally when I travel, I am all about the food. Every major city I go to I have my favorite restaurants that I have to go to, like Zia’s on the hill, Burghoffs, Mesa Grill and Tadich Grill. What I did not even consider was that we could even remotely be anything like that. Wrong.
As we approached the end of Winter I started to get some unfriendly comments from little old ladies that said I was off my rocker to get rid of this cookie for any reason. One of the even works for me! I kind of held fast, but extended this cookie until April 15 (a good day for unreasonable deadlines). You see, it would be too difficult to make too many different kinds of obcenely wonderful cookies all the time and maintain our quality. Just like restaurants can’t keep special of the day for every day.
So here we are, I have finished the next cookie, Toby’s Pina Colada Cookie, but that will have to be another post. I am new to this whole blog thing, so be patient with me. I have a couple of blogs that I love to read every day, my favorite being CandyBlog by Cybele.