On Good Grub, we feature home-based food start-ups that’s whetting our appetite.
If last year was all about cupcakes, 2014 is about cookies. At the Best Food Forward fair held recently in Rockwell, Makati, one of the standouts was Bald Baker, which makes chewy confections. “I have been baking since I was 12,” says owner and — no surprise here — bald baker Cy Ynares.
“My mom worked in a cookie shop called Larry’s Cookies in Washington, DC, where my family migrated to when I was eight. I’d go to her after school and watch how cookies were made and sold by the pound. That’s where I found my passion for baking.” He never pursued it from the get-go though and it took the toll of working in an advertising agency for him to realize that it was the path he was meant to tread.
For Christmas last year, he baked muffins and bars and sold them as holiday presents to family and friends. “I got super busy with so many orders. It was crazy. Even then, it felt monotonous to me. Doing muffins felt very robotic. Plus, I’m allergic to icing and cupcake is not exactly one of my favorite food.” So he killed his short-lived business and hung up his apron to work on another hobby, doing prints on shirts.
Four months later, he started baking out of the blue and this time, made cookies simply for personal consumption. Friends got to sample his stock and it didn’t take long for them to beg him to produce more — they were even willing to pay. That snowballed into what Bald Baker is now: a promising home-based food business.
Cy currently carries a modest four-cookie line, but is working on three more to add to the list. Each weighs 65 grams and is on the soft and chewy side. His dough contains less flour and uses mallows to bind the ingredients together and give it that lovely chew.
All four flavors aren’t sickly sweet and imbibe an endearing body that would drive you to eat more than you normally would — and apparently, help turn dire situations into something good. “One time, someone called me and said, My boss loves your cookies and he just got mad at me so I desperately need to buy some of your stuff now.”
Bald Baker, www.facebook.com/thebaldbakerph, +63 917 5116370. PHP60-PHP65 depending on the flavor. Photo: From Bald Baker’s Facebook page.
The Chocolow is the classic choco chip. It uses three kinds of chocolates — dark, semi-sweet and bittersweet — and is topped with mallows, making it super gooey and sinful.
Birthday cookie marries a bunch of sweet flavors and textures in the form of white choco chips, milk crumble, mallows and sugar confetti.
Salted Caramel leans towards the salty side with the addition of pretzel and Himalayan pink salt.
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