Tag Archives: schnecken

Queen City Cookies Schnecken Featured On ABC’s Sonoran Living

Posted on by
Reply

http://girlmeetsfork.com/featured/summer-fancy-food-show-on-abcs-sonoran-living/

Discover Susie Timm’s fresh look at amazing specialty food as seen at the summer Fancy Food Show. It’s a great time to be alive with these options. Enjoy!

What Makes Great Food?

Posted on by
Reply

Taste of Cincinnati is upon us in just a few weeks. We’re pumped to attend this year! It’s a first for us and we barely can contain our excitement. Plus, we’re rollin’ in the Schnecken Shack. From the meeting last week with the chamber’s organizing force, I got to thinking what exactly makes award-winning food? (regrettably, the organizers didn’t see fit to include food trucks in the “best of” category this year.)

For us, great food is more than taste. It includes ingredients (it is made with the best, be free of icky junk). Great food is a feast for the senses too. Beyond the mouth, it has to look good too. Interestingly, studies show people eat with their eyes before anything else. So, texture, color, shape all influence my decisions on whether something is great, or just so so.

What about you? What makes you ooh and ah over a treat or meal?

Artisanal Products. What Exactly Does that Mean?

Posted on by
Reply

Lot’s of conversation lately about the definition of artisanal. What is, what isn’t. Can big corporations create an artisanal product? To some extent, I find the discussion similar to the word “all natural” or any of the other buzz words that drive us to buy a product. There’s so much mispresentation and/or downright fraud in the food industry that it’s hard not to be skeptical about what claims manufacturers make.

And if you think it’s all big bad corporations that mislead consumers, think again. I am dismayed at the number of “local growers” who sell at farmers’ markets who really purchase their “homegrown produce” from wholesalers. That’s why reputable farmers’ markets actually tour the farms of their growers.

One thing I know for sure is at Queen City Cookies we create edible art everyday. Each baked good we make is created by hand in small batches. We cut the cookies by hand, decorate them by hand, and package them by hand. Each bakery artist leaves a bit of their personality and lots of love with every cookie, pie, schnecken, and package.

I believe you can see as well as taste the love in our products. So feel secure in the truth: Our products  are truly artisinal.

But just in case the whole discussion is a bit tiresome, grab a piece of schnecken, a slice of crack pie, or a cookie and check out this post. I think it adds a bit of humor to the topic.

Enjoy!

http://m.eater.com/archives/2012/05/02/lewis-black-artisanal.php

Queen City Cookies Launches Schnecken Shack

Posted on by
Reply

Wanted to share this great article with you. Enjoy!

My Soapbox: Peggy Shannon, Queen City Cookies

Elissa Yancey |                    Tuesday, April 17, 2012
 Queen City Cookies

Look for Queen City Cookie’s reigning royalty, founder Peggy Shannon, driving a pink, elephant-adorned “schnecken shack” starting next week. The city’s newest food truck will house plenty of sweets and lots of new creations, from pig pockets to donut toast. And it will be hard to miss. Shannon gives Soapbox the scoop on truck menus and elephant art, selling to Dean and Deluca and building a new Cincinnati landmark within an historic one.
Soapbox: Why a food truck? Peggy Shannon: They’re fun, scrappy and festive and allow us to share our treats with a wider audience. I love the smiles when people taste our delish baked goods, so it’s fantastic to take them on the road. There’s a bit of carnival, gypsy aspect to trucks that I love. There’s something very democratic and wild about a food truck. I’ve wanted to do one for a long time, but needed to focus on our store at Findlay and finding a new bakery for us to expand into first.
SB: What are you calling it and why? PS: We’re calling it our Schnecken Shack because I love the idea of joyful shack with happy schnecken and dancing around to the B52s. Think “Love Shack,” me in a beehive serving our ooey, gooey buttery bliss schnecken, maybe bacon flowers floating through the air and you got it! It’s fun, it’s who we are. It’s creative and oh, so turns the serious bakery on its ear, or in our case, since the truck looks like an elephant, trunk.
SB: What will you serve? PS: We’re focusing on three areas of service for the truck, so the menu will change out during the day. For our breakfast fans, individual schnecken rolls (or by the box for those who can’t get enough), pig pockets (adorable pig pop overs filled with ham, cheese) – yes, they look like pigs!, my latest creation, donut toast (a baked donut in the shape of toast that’s sprinkled with cinnamon sugar (inspired by my love of the domino sugar bear as a kid), frittatas, a vegan popover option, crack pie (which lives up to its name) and of course, Coffee Emporium coffee to kick start the day.
Later in the day, we’ll have ice cream sandwiches made with Madison’s gelato and our cookies, amazingly dense Oreo brownie explosions, Bundt cakes (think bourbon), cupcakes and light-as-a-feather meringue swirls in cardamom, Madagascar vanilla, heavy cream, violet lavender, tangerine, raspberry.
We also have a full line of beverages — Steez Tea, Synergy drinks.
SB: When will you hit the streets? PS: We’re hoping to be at Court Street for breakfast on Wednesday, April 23, if not earlier. You know how that goes.
SB: Who designed it? PS: Lisa Ballard, our graphic designer, and I work so well together we can finish each other’s sentences. She’s so clever and fills in all the intangibles of our brand. I had the idea the truck should be an elephant and have the blanket area open to serve from. We just had more and more fun coming up with the design. Lisa thought to put the elephant in the back window, which I think is a stroke of genius. It completely expresses the essence of who we are: fun, unexpected, attention-to-detail and delicious. We don’t do anything half-way, as evidenced by the elephant head (hood?) ornament. I wanted to have a hood ornament but thought back to the outbreak of Mercedes ornaments that were stolen after Run DMC’s version of “Walk This Way.” I knew it had to go on the top so it would be harder to steal. Kate Schmidt was my first thought to create this work of art. She brings a sense of joy to the truck that I hope carries through in our baked treats. Check back mid-summer, I might cover the interior with strings of lights and elephant chakakates.
SB: Where are your cookies sold now?  PS: Dean & DeLuca, which is a dream come true. Dean & DeLuca Japan has also requested them. Sur La Table, Fox & Obel, in Chicago. Of course our store at Findlay Market and online at queencitycookies.com. Locally, Cork & Bottle, Market Wines, Dutch’s Larder. We’re in private label discussions with Henri Bendel in NYC and later this month, we’ll be online with Karma. We’re carried in specialty grocery and gift stores in about 18 states.
SB: What’s next? PS: We’re creating a new retail and production bakery in the St. Pius Church compound on Blue Rock in the heart of Northside. The church will house our retail bakery, where we’ll offer a variety of classes and rent the space for private events. It’s an incredible space, full of light and the great energy of a building built in 1872. The structure is of brick and stone, in the ornately unique gothic Romanesque style of architecture. This church is the only instance in Cincinnati of a church with a dome and steeple in the center of the cruci-form edifice. Our wholesale/productions bakery will take shape in the gymnasium. We’re committed to becoming a Cincinnati landmark, like Graeter’s and Skyline, so I’m delighted our new home is a landmark on its own.
We’re also very excited about our partnership with the Cincinnati Opera. With the opening of the 2012 season, Queen City Cookies will become the official bakery of Cincinnati’s grand opera company. From Die Meistersinger to The Magic Flute, Queen City Cookies has partnered with Cincinnati Opera to create cookies as magical as the performances at Music Hall. Our founding mission includes the support of extraordinary institutions in Cincinnati, so we are delighted to partner with the world-class Cincinnati Opera.
We’re also actively pursuing GSFI (Global Food Safety Initiative). To give you an idea on the complexity of this program, I was told by one of the inspectors that we’re only one of a handful of companies our size in the past 10 years that has pursued this certification process. Once the bakery has reached this level of certification (which is an eight-month process), we will be recognized as one of the safest food producers in the world. This certification allows us to work with Kroger. We’re look forward to offering premium, all-natural baked goods to a wider audience.
And of course, I’m very excited about the upcoming Queen City Cookies Art Camp with Happen, Inc. This year we will invite other creative groups to share the camp each week, so look for yoga classes, creative writing, cookie decorating and more to be added to each week’s festivities. Last year, we offered free art activities and fed about 100 kids each Saturday, so I’m hopeful we can expand those numbers this year. The free art camp is held each Saturday in Children’s Park, in Northside from Sept. 8 through Oct. 6. Please email us at service@queencitycookies.com for more information Food Truck Funand a class schedule.

Menu Making

Posted on by
Reply

Handmade with Love is Everything

Saturday was a day of tests, turns, triumphs, and challenges. Creating a menu for our new endeavor that intrigues, satisfies, and is fiscally responsible is an art. The world is full of amazing tastes, textures, shapes and delights.

Did you ever wonder how people make their selections as to what stays and goes? It’s a tough call with so many wonderful options. But with limited space…and limited resources (both cost of goods and labor) I believe each baked good has to earn its keep.

We compiled a list of our favorites and then, one by one, judged them against each other. Time to make, cost of ingredients — each of these nudged one or the other out of the running. Our divining wand shimmered and sparkled at options that were unique and mind boggling beautiful.

That beauty is what Queen City Cookies stands for. We create magic in bites of joy that transports our guests to another world of happiness, if even for a moment. Now you don’t get that in everyday, average baked goods sold at convenience stores. It comes in thoughtful, awe-inspiring attention to detail, and a whole lot of love and passion for what we share with you.

Queen City Cookies Schnecken Shack

Posted on by
Reply

Worked today with Lisa Ballard, our fantastic graphic designer, to create nothing less than an Oh My Goodness LOOK At THAT new food truck. We are close to launching the truck into the streets of Cincinnati.

It’s exciting to imagine people’s faces the first time they see the truck. We work hard every day to create a sensory explosion of magic for the mouth and the eyes. We’re getting close, but still have a long way to go.

Here’s some of the early drawings. We’ll see how the finished product looks!