Crunchy, Chewy, Gooey

A Sprinkle, dash and flash into the oven, check your temperatures, calibrate your range and load up on chocolate chunks, but be sure to spread the batter evenly, choose the right amount of gluten and prick the top to know when to start the cooling.  These are the things that accumulate my hours of late as I develop this new line of baking mixes set to hit this fall.

Last year, I developed Mo’s Bacon Chocolate Pancake Mix to bring my original bacon + chocolate concept back to its roots in Ft Wayne Indiana on the side of the highway.  It all began with chocolate chip pancakes lingering with drizzles of maple syrup and strips of sizzling hot bacon on my childhood breakfast plate.  The response to the pancake mix has been uplifting and inspiring.  I have always enjoyed customer feedback but the comments, questions and suggestions from people who have been mixing, flipping and serving these pancakes has added a new level of engagement with customers.  It is a more of a two-way street as we must both put in effort, working together, before the final product is ready for tasting.

The development of mixes is very different than the development of a new truffle or candy bar.  Knowing that someone will take these ingredients into their kitchens and produce the final product him or herself means a new type of information must be provided… instructions!  In developing the pancake mix I found that separating the yolks and whites of the eggs made a big difference and that mixing the batter too much released the precious air bubbles caused by the baking soda resulting in flat flapjacks.  Added hints and tips along the way made the directions a bit longer but also revealed some great tricks of the trade. My hope is that there is no guessing involved in how things should look.

Though not quite like cooking together, this new relationship with home cooks has been inspiring and fun.  I start the process and send it out in the world for others to help finish and also add their personal touch.  Baking mixes open up room for more creativity from people like you.
Always motivated by a challenge, I found the chemist in me stimulated as I work towards the perfect baking mixes. In the past months, I have likely made over one hundred batches of cookies.  The scientific aspect of baking, the portions, ingredients, processes, temperatures and even the perfect size cookie scoop can make all the difference.

I look forward to working together with you in just a few months. Until then, I will continue to make dozens more batches of brownies, cookies and cakes, honing the ingredients and noting the tips and tidbits that will help make them divinely delicious.

Tags: brownie mix, chocolate chip, cookie mix, toffee, tricks

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 9:45 am and is filed under chocolate, sneak peek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.