Friday, December 14, 2012

Selling my goods to a local cafe...

I've always had a dream of opening up my own cafe.  It would be in Woodside, CA tucked into one of the spaces somewhere within the 4 corners (for those of you who know the area, you know where I mean).  It's cycling central due to being at the base of the best climbs on the peninsula and just far enough away from home where most cyclists end up stopping for one reason or another.  The cafe would be cycling related in that I'd have cycling gear on the walls, bicycle parking outside or an attendant to watch your bike, cycling videos playing non-stop, and of course if any bike races are being broadcast, you know they'd be on!  I'd have kick ass coffee, because that's how Tim and I roll.  I'd also have an array of delicious baked goods, but always on rotation and would be whatever I felt like baking that day. 
Upon thinking how I'd make that dream a reality, I did kickstart a small organic cupcake business out of my home when I was living in CA.  For various reasons, I didn't love that experience.  My oven ran hot, the cakes were all of various types and folks never seemed 100% satisfied with them.  I grew frustrated pretty quickly and decided that perhaps selling my baked goodies wasn't the best idea afterall.
Fast forward to life in London, and every week the mums from nursery to do a coffee morning where usually folks bring something to contribute.  Of course I enjoy this immensely and always bake whatever I feel like that day and something that I know is a crowd pleaser.  My goodies received such rave reviews that a dear friend of mine decided to take it upon herself to become my personal PR spokesperson.  She recently moved a town away and has had difficulty finding a coffee shop with decent baked goods.  So much so that she entered the cafe on the corner of her road, said in so many words that their baked goods were crap and told the owner that he had to try mine and sell them in his shop.  To which the owner replied, 'ok'. 
Alas, here I am...a cafe is interested in meeting with me, sampling my goodies and giving them a whirl at selling them in his shop. 
Of course the big question I'm in the throws of answering is, what baked goods should I bring to him to taste?
I figured about 3-5 different items would be a good start.  In the running are my scones, and cranberry swirl coffee cake (because that cake is my PR friend's favorite and she wants it locally!).  I'm now deciding what the remaining items should be.  Ideas on the list include the morning buns (croissant cinnamon buns: received rave rave reviews, though they are hard work to make), blueberry muffins, double chocolate almond biscotti and buttermilk cinnamon buns.  Out of those items, what 1-3 items would you add to the scones and coffee cake?  Or do you have better ideas that I can try out?  The plan is to present him the items next Friday, so I have a week to prepare.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

Follow up: Nutter Butters

I'm learning that I'm terrible at documenting as I go.  Thus, I did make the Nutter Butters shortly after the last post, and they were delicious and received RAVE reviews.  The dough was incredibly sticky and therefore had to be very cold to work with and you had to work quickly.  After doing a handful of cutouts, the dough had to be returned to the refrigerator to be chilled again before continuing.  The dough was simple to make, but just forming the dough into cookies was very time consuming.  I'm also not sure about the cookies being frozen before baking.  I tried both ways - popping them directly into the oven after cutting the dough, and freezing then popping into the oven and didn't notice a difference.  Due to the rave reviews, I think i'll make a few batches of these cookies again and follow the recipe to a T.  I'll also take notes and pictures of the progress and then post it for you to see :).  I'll also post the recipe.