Like Eating Cookie Dough

One of the “must” stops this summer at the St. Helena Farmer’s Market was for Annie Baker’s cookies. And although every week my intentions were to save the cookies for dessert, they usually never made it past the Farmer’s Market. These moist, gooey cookies remind you of eating cookie dough and are in fact tagged by Annie herself as the cookie “for those who love cookie dough more than the cookie”.

Anne Baker married into the name. But it obviously fits her perfectly. Joking that she changed her middle name to “the”, she now has quite a following as “Annie the Baker”. But she hasn’t always been a baker. Working in downtown Chicago as an accountant in the banking industry, she began baking in her free time and realized it was her true passion. Deciding to follow this passion, she left Chicago to study at the Culinary Institute in St. Helena. After graduating from the Baking and Pastry Certificate program, Anne became the pastry chef at Mustards Grill where she worked for five years.

Lucky for us, Annie was also hard at work perfecting her cookie. The recipe is her own and it took her many trials to achieve the taste she wanted. She looked at every ingredient and researched how each ingredient affected the way the cookie spread when baked. One of her secrets – cutting the butter in half. This past spring, she finally perfected her cookie and headed to the Napa Farmer’s Market and St. Helena Farmer’s Market to launch “Annie the Baker” cookies.

Now you can find “Annie The Baker” cookies at Sunshine Foods, Yountville Deli, NapaStyle and the Oxbow Public Market. You can also ship them anywhere in the US from a great site called Foodzie: http://anniethebaker.foodzie.com/

There are five delicious flavors available – Semi Sweet Chocolate Chunk, Toffee Milk Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter with Mini Peanut Butter Cups, Oatmeal Double Chocolate Chip and Doodle Snicker. I’m partial to the Toffee Milk Chocolate Chip but you really can’t go wrong with any of the flavors.

Learn more and contact Annie at http://www.anniethebaker.com/.

Written by Linzi