Focus on Coop Suppliers:
Baker's Daughter Confections

by Suzanne Fisher

You may have noticed the new truffles and brownies offered in the gourmet department of Honest Weight that go by the name of Baker’s Daughter. They are the genuine article, created by baker’s daughter April Zhang and painstakingly manufactured in her parents’ bakery, M & M Bakery in Westerlo, near Meadowbrook Dairy. They are also beautifully packaged, as per her husband’s (Wei) design, in environmentally friendly cellophane bags. Honest Weight has the honor and (believe me) pleasure of premiering these gems on the market. They are a perfect Valentine’s Day gift — but once you try them, you will want to invent other reasons to bring them home.

Currently at Honest Weight are three types of truffles: bittersweet chocolate, milk chocolate and hazelnut. The ganache, the creamy filling in each truffle, is made of a mixture of Meadowbrook cream and chocolate or, in the case of the hazelnut flavor, gianduija, an Italian mixture of milk chocolate and hazelnuts, produced by the highly respected chocolate company Callebaut. The bittersweet ganache is made with Valrhona chocolate, (containing 70% cocoa solids), which is one of the world’s finest, according to our gourmet expert, Gustav. The milk chocolate truffles contain the Callebaut brand of milk chocolate. All three types of truffles are covered with a semi-sweet coating of Icam organic couverture chocolate. The term couverture refers to chocolate with a higher cocoa butter content, which is easier to melt. Each truffle is shaped by hand and covered by hand, one at a time. April says it takes about a pound of the couverture chocolate to coat 65 to 70 truffles.

April purchases most of the ingredients she uses for her truffles at Honest Weight, in the gourmet section. Although she buys in bulk, these same items are available for regular customers in pieces, rather than the 7- or 9-pound blocks they come in. The alchemy of making truffles is more involved than one might imagine, however, with the chipping of large hunks of chocolate and the temperatures of both the ganache and enrobing chocolate presenting their own challenges. When these temperatures are not exactly where they should be, the couverture will crack, and then those truffles cannot be sold. These end up as samples or treats for April’s family.

As of this writing, April plans to also have two types of brownies available in February. She has been experimenting with brownie recipes for a year, and is now just finalizing the packaging for them. They both contain organic whole wheat pastry flour, organic butter, and organic sugar. One will contain organic walnuts and is a cocoabased recipe, while the other without nuts will contain Valrhona chocolate.

The process which led to April’s development as a confectioner is inspiring. She is a member of Honest Weight who fulfills her member hours as a cashier. She was working as a teacher and took leave to have her daughter. She then began looking for a way to have a part-time job or business so that she could stay home with her daughter. She originally came up with the idea of selling brownies at Honest Weight and was working on that plan, but when she made some truffles near the holidays and brought them in for folks at the Co-op to taste.They were an instant hit — and she was suddenly in business. April credits the support and feedback from Gustav and other friends at the Co-op for helping her to develop flavors and recipes for her truffles and brownies. She now is working to keep up with supplying us with her luscious truffles as well as producing her gourmet brownies.

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