I was hired to make baseball cupcakes for a baby shower. The colors of the shower are red, white, and blue. That's all the info I needed.
This was my first time A) playing with gel colors. B) making multicolored cupcakes. C) attempting any decorating on cupcakes.
Gel color is soooo much fun to play with and takes so little!
I wasn't thrilled with the swirl cupcake examples I was finding online. I attempted this instead.
And I'm actually quite happy with the way they turned out...like little color-block cupcakes.
The decorating took some practice and I'm not claiming other than some of them look like baseballs and some of them look more like red seaweed. I did my best and I'm pretty happy with them!
Networking. One of the greatest lessons I have learned since the day I decided to turn this cookie hobby into a business: tell everyone you know what you are doing. You never know who they know or what they need.
Several months ago we were having the inside of our house painted. The painter was here every day for three weeks and he became our friend. Turns out this painter also worked as a food runner/server at the Wrigley Mansion and it was his idea to introduce the head Chef to my baked goods. So one Saturday night I baked and baked and baked and early the next morning the Painter stopped by to pick up all the boxes of baked goods to take to work.
The Wrigley Mansion hosts a Sunday brunch and I was expecting the cookies and scones to be passed around the staff to see if I passed the test.
Hours later, I was sent this picture and my heart jumped out of my chest.
When the Painter arrived with all the yummy stuff the Chef declared, "Plate 'em up!" and that was Oh Katie! Cookies introduction to the Wrigley Mansion. Hours later I was sent more pictures showing only a few scones and cookies that remained. Yes!
That week I developed a menu and price sheet featuring what I think are my two greatest baking strengths: cookies and scones and got it to the chef.
A couple weeks passed with no word from the Chef and I wasn't sure what to think about it. But I did call once and left a message for him, just saying, "Hey! Remember me? I really rock the baking." Still nothing for a few days.
Then one lazy Saturday afternoon I received a message that went something like this: "Hi Katie, this is the Chef from Wrigley Mansion and I'd like to place an order for 6AM tomorrow morning. I would like 10 dozen cookies, 10 dozen scones, 10 dozen muffins, and 5 dozen cupcakes. If you have any questions give me a call back. Thanks."
Ummm...I believe I immediately began to experience symptoms of shock: dry mouth, unable to form words, pacing, shaking hands. My husband was at work and would not be home for many more hours. I texted him and told him to call me. I then called my best girl/guy friend, Schuyler. He was unable to come help me bake but he did keep me calm by helping me focus on what needed to be done and in what order.
I called my friend, Anna. I didn't know if she could bake, or if she was not on call, or if she had her daughter for that night, or any number of things.... But I called and asked if she could come help me bake. She immediately said yes! Woo Hoo!!! I woke up our youngest from his nap and loaded all three youngins into the car.
I don't even have muffins or cupcakes on my menu. So I did not have commercial muffin pans that could bake massive quantities at a time. I called my mom to tell her the exciting news and she offered to watch the kids for a few hours. Thank you!!! After I dropped the kids off I ran to Standard Restaurant Supply to buy massive muffin pans..and boy did I find what I was looking for!
A muffin/cupcake pan that bakes 35 at one time!!!!!!!! So I bought two. ; )
Then I made a mad dash through Costco, where my husband works. He was able to assist me, you know, helping the idiotic customer who can't find all she needs.
One more mad dash through the grocery store cause, you know, you can't get everything you need from Costco and you can't get everything you need at the grocery store. And I'm still searching for unbleached flour in bulk, if you have a lead. Thankseverso.
Arrived home and lugged in all my supplies and new equipment. Scarfed down some food. Anna arrived and it was Bake Time!
What luck that Anna is such a great baker. She asked for her recipe and just jumped in. Anna is also logical and a great problem solver. I was trying to talk her into just letting us call it a night and I would wake up early and bake the scones. Luckily, Anna wouldn't have it and said, nope, we're going to get all this done tonight. Thank God for Anna and her logic.
I had such a strange sensation for the first many hours that we were baking. I was so overwhelmed and would keep asking, "Do you really think we can do this?" I was so uncertain and yet still forging ahead. The first batch of cookies, Snickerdoodles, failed. That did not help the tiny bit of confidence I was trying to cling to.
It was the hottest day in Phoenix so far and I have yet to remedy a good cooling solution. So to say it was hot in that room is an understatement. "Hot as balls," is a term I think Anna and I threw around in our after-midnight giddiness. Although we have yet to figure out what that term actually means.
Baking with Anna turned out to be a quiet and meditative dance. Neither of us said much the entire night. We just did what we had to do, checking in here and there with each other. It was nothing short of lovely. And I don't think I can thank Anna enough for giving me her entire free night.
We baked until 3:30 Sunday morning.
At about 3:00AM I realized I had miscalculated the number of scones and was short by two dozen. At that time I could not have cared less. However, when I finally got to bed around 4, I set my alarm for 5:45AM to bake those final two dozen. I was damned if I was going to show up with even one item less than what was ordered. And that's what I did, I woke up at 5:45 and baked the last 2 dozen scones. I then ran upstairs to get dressed in a presentable and professional manner. My husband loaded everything in the van and began tending to children who had already started waking.
I love mornings. Watching the Earth come to life in the early morning is refreshing and renewing to me. It was a joy beyond all measure to pull onto such a beautiful property so early in the morning and to unload all these fresh baked goods to a grateful Chef. (And to drop off that invoice.)
Hours later I received more pictures from my friend. Seeing everything look so fancy and to know people are enjoying them...Priceless.
I'm in Phoenix now, Yay! I built a bakery in our new home, double YAY!!!!!
Wanna see?
The "Oh Katie Cookies" etched in the glass of the new doorway was a HUGE surprise by the construction guys. I think I nearly peed my pants! (I use that term a lot, I think.)
Drum roll please.... this is "Charlotte!" (and me.)
Ain't she pretty!!!! (The oven, that is.)
Look!!!! I even have a fancy 3-bin sink.
And this is Univex 20QT Mixer. She is bowless and beaterless at the moment. (She's naked and a little embarrassed, I think.) But I'll get her fixed up right quick.
And here are the perfect, Perfect!, first batch of cookies to be produced in the Bakery.
And finally, this is Jim, the owner of North Valley Construction. He is the man that took my ideas and made this all happen in only 4 days! I am so grateful!
I came across this recipe in some random way on Twitter. Guess it happens that way, right? Started reading through it and I believe the dialogue in my head sounded something like, "Wait, huh? Wha? No! How's that... Whoa. What the what?"
And I simply could not stop thinking about it. The recipe calls for equal parts bread and cake flour. Bread and Cake Flour. Did you get that??? "There's different flours?" you ask.
OK, OK, trying not to laugh. As soon as I'm done laughing...
But seriously. Did you see "Stranger Than Fiction"? One of THE most romantic and thoughtful gestures ever!
Difference between flours. Here's a great little explanation from www.thekitchn.com
First, what's actually the same about all these flours is that they are made from wheat. What makes them different is how they're milled, what kind of wheat they're made from, and even what time of year the wheat was harvested. But what it really all boils down to is protein content.
Protein content is directly related to how much gluten can be formed using that particular flour. Gluten helps create structure and determine texture in your final baked good. Flours with low protein contents will generate less gluten and flours with high protein content will create more.
To get the light and airy structure of cakes, you want a flour with very little protein. But to form the dense chewy structure of bread, you want a flour with a lot of protein so that you can create as much gluten as possible.
Here is the approximate protein content of all the common types of flour:
Bread Flour: 14 - 16%
All-Purpose (AP) Flour: 10 - 12%
Pastry Flour: 9%
Cake Flour: 7-8%
The cookie recipe calls specifically for bittersweet baking chips with at least 60% cocoa. Easy enough. Ghirardelli makes these and they are beautiful! See?
The next thing that interested me about this recipe: after you mix the batter, it's sealed and kept in the fridge for no less than 36 hours before baking. I could go in to all this guessing about the what and why about that, but I don't really care. I just do what the recipe says. One of the biggest mistakes when it comes to baking is NOT following the recipe.
And then and then and Then! After using your handy dandy scoop to prepare the dough on the pans... Let's talk scoops.
I have a couple of these and it drives me up the wall, it comes off it's track and I want to throw it. I don't have a clue why I allow it to remain in my baking tool drawer. Maybe I'll make a Christmas ornament out of it.
But I also have a few of these and I love them!
They come in lots of different sizes. Woo Hoo! get a few of these for your baking. You can create evenly sized cookies and muffins. They are just really a useful tool.
After you scoop the dough on the pans, spacing them pretty far apart, press down slightly. I have found this will help them bake more evenly and be so darn pretty when they are done.
Here comes the next crazy thing about this recipe - lightly sprinkle the dough with sea salt before baking. Can you imagine? OK, so it's not unheard of, but still. I have to say it makes for an amazing flavor: the sweetness of the dough itself, the bittersweet chocolate, and then the slight taste of sea salt - words cannot describe how amazing these are.
I will never bake another chocolate chip cookie again. I mean, not another recipe. I mean, I will bake thousands of these!
Confession: Yesterday I made brownies from a box. It was disgusting and I swear to never do it again. But my daughter asked to make brownies together and in my sleep deprivation I was too lazy to get out the sifter and all the ingredients to go with it.
And there was a box of brownie mix begging and pleading to be used. "America's Favorite Brownie," the box yelled. Hardly. I will not admit to any knowledge of how that box got in there. I won't do it. But it was. And I did.
Bakers, please forgive me. For I know now what I did.
Challenge: I invite you to make some real brownies this coming weekend. You will never go back to that cheap, convenient box again. I swear. Or at least if you do, the guilt will overwhelm you. If you are Irish Catholic by birth, as I am, then I know that to be the truth.
Do you know the story of how Oh Katie! Cookies came about? Well, grab yourself a glass of milk and let me tell you about it and I might just share my cookies with you.
Exactly one year ago my husband was laid off from his graphic design job via an email. Classy, eh? I was enrolled in a local college taking classes to pursue a nursing career. I had to get employable and nursing was a direction I thought I should go. We have three very small children and to say we were panicking when that email arrived is a massive understatement.
I heard a voice, or was pulled to reach out towards a specific friend. I contacted Kristi and said we need your help. She came up from Phoenix and spent the night. Kristi is a specific type of person that I had never met in my life. She's an entrepreneur. It never occurs to Kristi, or people like her, to "go get a job." They find out what people need and create a service towards that need. They work for themselves. My husband and I had never heard of such a thing. Our upbringing taught us, you need money? Go get a job. Any job. It doesn't matter if you are happy or fulfilled. You need to pay the bills.
The intent of Kristi's visit was to help us get my husband going on his own in the design field. Or so I thought. At one point, my husband brought up these cookies that I was making and selling online a couple of years previous. Kristi perked up. "Tell me about these cookies." I gave her the condensed version of the cookies I had come to love that I called, "Amarette-oh's."
A mini chocolate chip sandwich cookie with chocolate and Amaretto filling.
Hold everything!
Kristi demanded to know the entire history of these cookies and why I was no longer selling them.
History:
I came across a recipe some time ago. I made them and they were incredible. I thought maybe other people would want them as well. I was involved deeply with an online forum board called A Moms Hideout. And I began using that outlet as a "test kitchen." I was experimenting with different ways of baking the cookies, changing the formula of the filling, and testing different methods of shipping and packaging.
I got a great deal of invaluable feedback.
The biggest mistake and the most valuable lesson I have now learned from all of that is: I attached my self worth to whether or not people bought my cookies and so I never worked the numbers.
When Kristi pressed on about the cookies and demanded we work the numbers I can't tell you how many times I brushed her off telling her it was absurd for me to consider starting a business. I was still breastfeeding our baby AND was in school! (Back off crazy lady!)
Kristi wouldn't let up. So we did the numbers. She was able to break everything down into tiny bits and show me that if I just baked one day, 8 hours a day, I could create so many cookies and that was all I would have to do. Easy, right?
This is Kristi helping me in the early days.
Another big item I learned from breaking down the cost and including the time was, I was basically paying people to buy my cookies. I was never charging shipping, which was the greatest cost. I was too scared people wouldn't buy them. However, it was only this one forum board that I was exposing my cookies to.
So I came up with a cost: $1 a cookie. I was still terrified out of my head that no one would pay that amount for the cookies. But once I separated my self worth from whether or not people bought them, it became easier for me to tell people the price when they asked.
In the last year, so many things have changed, numerous lessons have come to me, and thousands of Oh Katie! Cookies have traveled the world. I have been in the local papers and have made several local deliveries. Oh Katie! Cookies has been featured in online magazines. I was also a recurring guest on Our Milk Money weekly radio show.
Back when I started I was using pre-made cookie dough. I then came across the most incredible chocolate chip cookie dough recipe that works perfectly for my cookies. I have several different flavors of fillings available and have to often hold myself back from trying so many different flavors. So I came up with a way to still have fun with flavors: Flavor of the Month!
I tried many different ways to get the cookies the perfect size: rolling the dough into balls, using a small scoop, various cutters... The most perfect cookie "cutter" I found was....
a salt shaker top. This little gadget is perfect in size and for not hurting my fingers when I press it into the dough. And yes, I cut every single cookie by hand to this day. One day that might change, but for now that's how it is. And that is why when you get a package of cookies, they are not all uniform in shape and size. There are tiny variations because, hey, it's all done by hand.
Because I was afraid I would never be able to replace the salt shaker top if I lost it, I have since found an actual cutter that is close in size but a tad larger.
I am very fortunate to have a designer as a husband. He has designed my business cards, the stickers, the website. I can't imagine the thousands of dollars he has saved me in design costs. I honestly don't know what I would have done. When he designed my website it was his idea to use Rosie the Riveter.
Knowing how much I love her and all that she represents, it was a perfect fit. When he first unveiled the website to me I was thrilled and then panicked. I thought for sure she was copyrighted and we wouldn't be able to use her. Turns out, she's not!
We also held a tiny photoshoot where I dressed as Rosie and held my cookies in her famous pose. Pretty fun, huh?
In the past year I have used three different kitchens. It is the biggest inconvenience I have at this time. My goal is to build a commercial kitchen right in my back yard. The kitchens I've used are always far, inconvenient, and when I get there and forget one item, the entire day is a bust. Don't get me wrong, I've been grateful beyond measure for the use of these kitchens, but it's a pain and I want my own.
In the past year I've learned of more things that don't work than things that do. I've had many people approach me and ask to donate my cookies to their events with the promise of "exposure" and endless future sales. I've donated hundreds and hundreds of cookies - paying for shipping myself - and never heard so much as a peep after.
I've done a few different venues where "tons of traffic" was supposed to be, paid crazy fees to stand behind a table where dozens of women are racing past me to get to their next workshop, with no time to stop and try a sample or ask questions.
I've learned Facebook and Twitter do work. Keeping in touch with my fan-base works. Sharing my own trials and tribulations of baking works. Respecting myself and honoring the price of the cookies works. I give "deals" to a certain extent, but overall, I don't. The value of these cookies doesn't go down because I have known you for longer than my newest customer. I have never paid myself for any of my time. One day I hope I will but for now, for these first few years, the business is most important: lots and lots of supplies and packaging materials.
In the past year I have come up with the name Oh Katie! Cookies (My husband didn't like it at first), acquired a business banking account, PO box, business license, and finally Quickbooks! Oh, and the greatest news of all: I bought my own KitchenAid Mixer!!! I was borrowing Kristi's. And before that, I was mixing the cookie dough by hand. I was even adding the filling by using a small butter knife. Can you imagine?! Then I discovered pastry bags. Brilliant!
Oh Katie! Cookies was also a unique Thank You favor at a wedding last month. It was so much fun to come up with the matching color scheme and a personalized sticker to add a special touch to a wonderful day. I was honored!
I was in talks with a restaurant down in Scottsdale. I blew their socks off, I did. But it never worked out. Neither side pursued the other and it fizzled. They wanted a volume and a discount that I was not ready to produce. Maybe some day. I know I have a great product though.
I even made a commercial!
I've mailed out hundreds of Oh Katie! Cookies to as far away as Afghanistan. Shipping is the most expensive aspect of this business. It troubles me a lot but there is nothing I can do. Using United States Priority Mail is the cheapest and fastest way for me to get my cookies to you. I don't charge a single penny over what the actual cost is. I know it's a lot and I imagine it's deterred a lot of sales, but it's worth it, I promise!
In the year to come I hope to have my own commercial kitchen, have Oh Katie! Cookies in at least five different gift stores, have Oh Katie! Cookies as wedding favors in at least three weddings, become a greater presence in the field of corporate Thank-You gifts, have a more unique packaging concept, keep my current loyal customers happy, add 200 new loyal customers, start a recurring order program for the Flavor of the month, and grow my mail order service.
Sounds simple, right?
As a great big Thank You to all my loyal and new customers, I am offering the original flavor that started it all, Amaretto, at the discounted price of only $10/dozen. Shipping is the exact cost.
I would never have made it this far without the help of so many amazing friends and loyal customers. Thank you to every one who has ordered these as gifts and thank you's. It always makes me so happy to know these are going to randomly show up at someone's doorstep.
Oh, and my husband's graphic design business, per se, never really got off the ground. But he did get a job at Costco where he is thrilled. Design work still comes in to him on a weekly basis, but it isn't what pays the bills. We've also learned that not everyone is an entrepreneur. He's perfectly happy working for a large corporation and doing his design work on the side. And I know for me, I can not imagine working for someone else. Takes all kinds, I guess.
I finished out that semester of school but I did not continue. I need to ride this cookie wave as far as it will take me. School will always be there.
If you love to bake as much as I do, I go through tons of eggs! I can't imagine how many hens I would require in order to keep up.
And until I have the desire to raise hens, Costco it is.
Sometimes, I come across a recipe that requires only one part of the egg, either the white or the yolk. Take yesterday, I made The Best Coffeecake Ever by the Pioneer Woman. The recipe requires three whipped eggwhites.
It just so happens that I am currently reading through The Essential Baker by Carole Bloom and recently read the three different ways to separate eggs.
1.) To use an egg separator tool. Which looks like this
2.) To do the ol' Eggshell Shuffle: where you crack the egg open and, while holding the egg over a bowl, pass the egg back and forth betwixt eggshells and allow the white to fall to the bowl.
Image from Simplyrecipes.com
This was my tried and true method to date and there have been several times I have messed up and dropped bits of yolk into the egg whites - which can render the entire meringue goal useless.
3.) Now I have discovered the most amazing, simple way to separate eggs and I do believe this will be my method from now on. Crack the egg open and place the egg into your cupped hand - over a bowl! - the egg white will fall through your fingers and you are left with the pretty, happy, little lonesome yolk.
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