Cookie mix production is finally in full swing and Cookie Central (AKA the granny flat kitchen) is proving ideal. My application to register my business with the local council was approved and we passed the Environmental Health officer’s visit with flying colours (we’d even bathed the dog, but that was pure coincidence – honest! – Poor hound can’t understand why she’s not allowed into the kitchen with me, when she’s allowed into every other room in the house.)
I have cupboards full of lovely, organic, fairly traded ingredients and boxes of jars, cartons and stickers to turn into prettily packaged mixes. Yesterday’s mix-du-jour was Tastes Like Christmas – spiced cranberry and sultana cookies. Today I’m concentrating on My Sweet Choc Chip. Why these two in particular? I’ve got my first order! I’ve also booked stalls at five craft fairs, a total of eight days in all. It’s official, Heather’s Cookies is in business.
Or, now you see them: now you don’t. The lads at the Reindeer (our local pub) fell on these like a swarm of locusts when I let them taste-test them on Wednesday evening. The ravening horde fell silent for all of 30 seconds; no mean feat, let me tell you. Comments (once they’d regained the power of speech) included, “I could eat these for breakfast”, “This is ace; chocolatey, but not too sweet”, “I like the crunchy bits” and – the surest sign of approval – “Didn’t you bring any more?” Thanks guys!
This cookie mix contains Fairtrade plain chocolate, cocoa and organic cacao nibbs: A grown-up’s chocolate cookie, ‘though I’ve a feeling The Nieces are going to love them too.
Gulp! I’ve let two of my jars of cookie mix out in public for the very first time.
The first, “Oat ‘n’ Raisin”, went to our friend for his birthday and was well received… once I’d explained what it was. “Granddad” is not a cook by any stretch of the imagination, so his present will be shared with his grand-daughter and is ear-marked to become an activity during the school summer holiday. Grandma is under strict instructions to be absent during Granddad’s baking lesson: She needed no second-telling.
The second, the patriotically named “Red, White and Ooh!”, makes its debut tonight at a charity fund-raiser for Help For Heroes: It has been donated as a raffle prize. To me the jar, complete with its Heather’s Cookies label, stands out and looks lovely amongst the other prizes on offer, but I’m on tenterhooks in case people don’t think it’s much of a prize. Perhaps, like Granddad, they won’t immediately understand what it is; or get the joke in the name; or… I’m full of “what ifs” and this is only the start of the launch of my “baby” – I’m not even asking anyone to pay me for it!
Why “Red, White and Ooh!”? – The mix includes cranberries, white chocolate and raisins and when my taste-tester first bit into one the comment was, “Ooh! This is yummy.”
Sunday:
Phew! The Very Nice Man who won my cookie mix (well, his cookie mix now) loved the idea; got the joke and is looking forward to doing the baking. Thank you Very Nice Man.
The website’s being built (thanks, Paul). The carton’s being created (thanks, Pete).
I can’t pass a cookery book, bakery, cafe without checking out the cookies for inspiration. My Cookie Book goes with me everywhere and lives on my bedside table overnight.
It’s all getting rather exciting.
This was a first. I’ve been to shows, fairs and such-like in my previous incarnation, but never an Expo and never for food and drink and (gasp!) never to the NEC in Birmingham. I know, I know, how could I get to the grand old age of 53 without ever having been to the NEC.
Be that as it may, this was an interesting day out: I met folk who also make cookie mixes; folk who make every other kind of food; folk who sell ingredients, some organic and ethical; folk who sell containers; make labels; make label printers; make and sell everything imaginable to do with food and drink; I suppose that’s the point of an Expo, really.
I’m just about to bake a batch of Nutty Apple Cookies from Mum’s book.
Mum’s book is an A5 size, loose leaf folder into which she put recipes. In no particular order, from anywhere and everywhere, some handwritten; some typed on card on our old, manual, Underwood typewriter; some from magazines and newspapers; some written by friends. It’s stuffed full.
The Nutty Apple Cookies smelled delicious during baking. They taste good too, but Hubby (Taster-in-Chief) thinks they may be a little too nutty and we agree that they need a little longer baking, possibly in a slightly cooler oven? I’ll try again. Watch this blog.
Auntie Heather's Homemade 