It’s no coincidence that at a time when pubs and alcohol consumption are on the decline, bakeries are appearing at a rate of knots. Amy Gastman, founder of plant-based bakery Crumb, believes the bakery boom is a byproduct of the cost of living crisis: “I think it’s a result of people perhaps not having the money to spend on ridiculously expensive restaurant meals but still wanting to treat themselves,” she tells me. “Indulging in a croissant or a cookie or whatever is like a little luxury. It feels indulgent but in a small way. I know a lot of people would feel comfortable paying £4 for a cookie but less likely to spend £150 on dinner.”
A beautifully baked cookie can provide instant, sugar-induced joy in a gloomy financial climate, not to mention being half the price of an alcoholic drink at the pub. “I also think a cookie feels like less of a commitment than say a doughnut or a cupcake,” Gastman continues. “I wouldn’t necessarily eat either of those everyday but I would definitely eat a cookie (although I am obviously biased).”
Noticing the rising trend, Abigail Scheuer, founder of Le Choux in west London, started selling cookies alongside her signature French choux buns: “Although our choux were popular, they didn’t seem to speak to the British audience straight away,” she tells me. “As a result I created the first cookie as a way to bring people in to try our products. Everyone loves a cookie!”
At this point, it’s important to recognise the differences between a biscuit and cookie. The biscuit – a traditional British baked treat – will snap or crumble when you bite into it, whereas a cookie has a buttery chew, a crisp and gooey texture, with an underbaked look in the middle but firm around the edges.
But just like the debate over which pizza style reigns supreme, the question of what makes the perfect cookie is a bone of contention in the cookie-verse. “For me, the perfect cookie has got to be soft with an element of crunch – either a crisp exterior or a crunchy element inside. It also needs to have enough salt to bring out the flavour of the butter and the chocolate,” says Scheuer.
Most of the bakers I speak to cite New York as the source of inspiration for their gooey creations: “I’ve been heavily influenced by Levain in NYC,” Gastman tells me. Ratika Arora and Andrew Scott, co-founders of Sablé bakery, stumbled across the style on a trip across the pond a few years ago. “This wasn’t any cookie, this was a thick, indulgent, chewy and crispy cookie, multidimensional to the cookies you get in the UK. We knew this was something special.”
It seems that the chunkier-than-average style is the cookie du jour, notching up views online thanks to its eye-catching and bulky aesthetic. “The likes of Crumbl cookies from the US have completely infiltrated my TikTok ‘for you’ page,” Gastman tells me. But it’s not just Americans who ace the cookie game: Gastman cites Brooki Bakehouse in Brisbane as a major influence, while the Van Stapele cookie in Amsterdam is famed for its dark chocolate dough enfolding a gooey white chocolate centre.
Chelsie Collins and Kristelle Levy, co-founders of popular London cookie bar Blondies Kitchen, sell a vast range of styles to widen its customer base, from thin and chewy to bite-sized NYC Thicc and Cookie Nuggets: “However, for me, it’s our signature range that is the perfect cookie. Flat, chewy all the way through with a softer centre and a slightly crisp edge,” Collins confesses.
Cookies are a humble bake, with a versatility which can hold almost unlimited flavour combinations, allowing bakers the freedom to experiment: Le Choux sells high-grade variations including hazelnut and gianduja; pecan and caramelised white; and butterscotch and dark chocolate. Crème in Soho has introduced an orange and dark chocolate cookie for the colder months. Crumb’s November monthly special is The Barney, named after Gastman’s family dog who passed away last year: “he ate literally everything so that is what the cookie is going to have in it. Double choc chip, stuffed with vegan marshmallow and peanut butter”. At Wicked Cookies, a UK-wide delivery service based in Nuneaton, you’ll find over 50 different cookie varieties, and with that, options for various dietary requirements including vegan and gluten-free.
The business opportunities are also seemingly endless. Blondies Kitchen has answered the cravings of cookie dough lovers with an artisanal build your own hot cookie dough bar at Brityard on Regent Street in London, with prices starting at £7.50. “We bake each hot cookie fresh for every customer, using only the finest quality ingredients including Cotswold flour, pure butter, free range UK-sourced eggs, Belgian chocolate and quality toppings,” says Collins.
Blondie’s Kitchen was one of the first to challenge the cookie-cutter offering of Britain’s commercial chains. They began trading in 2016 – a time when “no one was doing cookies other than Millie’s and Ben’s,” Collins tells me. Collins and Levy were originally catering on the side of their full time jobs; Levy had the original recipe, (the classic on the menu today), and told Collins they flew off the counter at her old job. The duo started baking and selling them alongside their full catered offering, and eventually, people stopped asking for the other things, and just wanted cookies. “We realised we were onto something and decided to do one thing and do it really well. That’s when we developed the menu and took the plunge to leave our jobs,” says Collins.
The duo’s first pop-up – a milk and cookie bar in Old Street station – sold 10,000 cookies within a fortnight of trading. Not long after in 2017, they were invited to open a pop-up at Selfridges Food Hall. After becoming the most successful pop-up in the history of the food hall, the pair were offered a permanent spot, and seven years on, you can still find them baking their dough for their gooey-eyed fans.
Despite the pleasures of making cookies for a living, like any other retail business, cookie sellers have faced a perfect storm of financial setbacks over the past few years: a pandemic, business rate increases, an energy crisis, and current supply issues and price increases for ingredients such as butter and cocoa. “We’ve been massively impacted, I’m sad for any retail business right now because the struggle is real,” Collins tells me.
“A lot of businesses are sadly being forced to switch from butter to margarine, or chocolate to compound chocolate but we just won’t do that to our customers or the integrity of our product,” she continues. “It’s really hard to show customers the value behind our pricing as this is often questioned. We decided we’d rather sell a truly quality product than sell something sub standard with more additives, preservatives and essentially “fake ingredients” to make an extra margin. We are just staying hopeful things will change for the better eventually and if we can get through this, we can get through anything.”
Scheuer has noticed chocolate’s price hike impact bakers’ flavour combinations: “Cookies can be made without chocolate – think pistachio, oat, caramel. Although all of our cookies are still chocolate cookies, veering away from the traditional fully chocolate treats is something I’ve noticed in the industry due to chocolate shortages.”
With increased consumer interest in healthy and sustainable eating and an on-going debate over the new-found risks of ultra-processed foods, it can feel bleak for the future of the cookie. But despite the odds, it seems our appetite for the sweet treat won’t be sated: Wicked Cookies sells over 100,000 cookies a year, and according to director Sally Rees, the cookie’s future is a bright one: “[Cookies] are available in all price points, from mass produced supermarket options to the highest quality artisanal masterpieces. They are highly portable, easy to eat on the go and limited only by the imagination of the baker and the quality of the ingredients. It’s no longer about ‘chocolate chip’, the simple cookie has graduated to a whole new level.”
Whether it’s a personalised cookie the size of your head or an artisanal treat to perk up a dreary afternoon, it seems the humble cookie will sit in the hearts and stomachs of cookie lovers for the foreseeable – the cookie monster truly would be proud.
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