2021 flavor development recap

December 12, 2021

I love doing our year-end recap. Here’s what I developed by season (tbh by weather, hence summer runs through September, and “winter” runs through February).

winter (Jan-Feb)

red velvet with cheesecake filling

spring (March-May)

choco pb swirl
matcha with white chocolate ganache filling

summer (June-Sept)

cookies ’n cream
strawberries ’n cream
campfire
pink lemonade
gourmet chocolate chip (update)

fall (Oct - Dec)

frankenpudge
pecan pudge (update)
oatmeal white choco cran
pecan sandies

Total new flavors: 9

Total updated flavors: 2

*note: frankenpudge was a new offering, but it takes matcha and coal pudge, so it's not accounted towards either new or updated flavors.

Most surprising season: summer

We were so shocked that customers flocked to fruit-forward cookies like strawberries ’n cream (cult following) and pink lemonade (my personal favorite - development process here.) We’ll keep that in mind for next spring & summer :)

Our personal favorite flavors: pink lemonade and choco pb swirl

Amy’s pick: pink lemonade - just a scientific wonder, a great learning experience, and I can’t wait to bring other cookie flavors into life. Flavors that you wouldn’t think can be cookies.

Lawrance’s pick: choco pb swirl - an underdog. Both of our peanut butter flavors have been SO underrated, but we don’t have enough peanut butter lovers in our customer base yet. Can’t wait to bring them back.

Most ripe for improvement: spring

I develop flavors as I go, and it’s a given that not all of them are as well-received. Matcha with white chocolate ganache filling was the dud for me. I wanted to make a less-sweet filling, but ganache is literally chocolate + heavy cream. It’s bound to be sweet. You can adjust sweetness by adding more or less chocolate, but using less chocolate can result in a runny filling that leaks out of the cookie. And that’s exactly what happened. I must not have stress-tested it enough - when we baked more of these, they leaked. It was a hot mess. I won’t be bringing back ganache-filled cookies anytime soon. Due to our current licensing, we don’t have too much wiggle room to play with, say, lemon curd or custard fillings. For now we’ll stick with cheesecake fillings - but fear not, there are plenty of other flavors to test.

Changes to the seasonal schedule next year: MORE!

We bring back popular flavors, and nix the duds. Pretty simple so far because we haven’t been in business for that long. As I test and complete more flavors, there’s room for a faster rotation of the seasonals. E.g. for summer seasonals, we can keep things on the menu for 1 month vs. 3 months and bring in new stuff. It’s pretty up in the air right now,

New flavors…

We don’t reveal the flavors we’re testing until they’re ready because they can get stuck at 90%. All I can say is that I hope to make stuff like pink lemonade - not necessarily more fruity flavors, but more flavors you wouldn’t expect. Stuff that surprises you. Stuff that I learn from and am proud of.