Category Archives: Bakery

Girl Scout Cookies as an ingredient

Feb. 8, 201310:27 a.m.

The Thin Mint Cookie Truffle I just devoured

My daughter joined Girl Scouts this year, meaning I am having my first Girl Scout Cookie sales experience since the mid 1980s.

The sales setup is different this year. The girls get the goods up front rather than taking orders and delivering a month later. That means I’m hauling bags and boxes of cookies everywhere I go. I’ve been opening a little Girl Scout Cookie store at my desk every day this week. If my co-workers have a mid-afternoon sugar crash, I can fix ‘em up for just $3.50.

I’m fairly obsessed at the moment with the idea this year of using the cookies as ingredients rather than snacks. Girl Scout Cookies are good on their own, sure, but they can be re-purposed into something even better, as I’ve learned each year when judging Cocktails & Cookies, a fundraiser for Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland.

I’m a judge again this year for the event, which is scheduled for Feb. 22 at the Wichita Scottish Rite Center. It asks local chefs to create fabulous desserts using Girl Scout Cookies as a base, then a panel of judges chooses who did it best. There have been some pretty amazing inventions over the years, including the lemon cookie truffles that Kelly Dugan of Velvet Cream Bakery won with in 2012.

My co-worker Melanie used the Thin Mints I sold her on Monday to make these amazing Thin Mint Cookie Truffles, shown above. They were deadly good, and used only four ingredients.

Tickets to Cocktails & Cookies, which also offers It includes heavy hors d’oeuvres, sweet cocktails and more, are $100 a person. Get them here.

By Denise Neil | Tags: , Filed under Bakery, Fundraisers | Comments

Now open: Josephine’s Pantry

Jan. 29, 20132:54 p.m.

Josephine’s Pantry, a new restaurant that’s an ode to the owner’s late grandmother, opened a little more than a week ago at 818 N. Mosley.

Melvin Watson, who also owns My Dad’s BBQ at 1332 N. Cleveland, is serving breakfast and lunch from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sauturdays and Sundays. (New weekend breakfast spot alert! New weekend breakfast spot alert!)

He’s serving items such as cinnamon rolls and pancakes at breakfast, and catfish, burgers and salads at lunch. An attached bakery, complete with its own pastry chef, sells cookies, cakes and more.

For more information, call 316-371-6111.

By Denise Neil | Tags: , Filed under Bakery, Breakfast, Just opened | Comments

Marie’s moves to the domes

April 4, 20125:26 p.m.

Marie's former space at Twin Lakes.

Marie’s Bakery & Cafe closed in December in its original spot at 2106 N. Amidon. But as of Monday, Marie Hunt’s “healthy” bakery has a new home.

It has reopened inside the Riordan Clinic at 3100 N. Hillside, which many people in Wichita know as “the domes.” The clinic closed its once-popular cafe last year. But its director found Hunt and decided that their healthy eating and cooking goals matched up perfectly.

Hunt now is serving breakfast and lunch items from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. The cafe is open to the public and specializes in healthy wraps, sandwiches, salads, soups and vegetarian dishes. For more information, call the clinic at 316-682-3100.

By Denise Neil | Tags: Filed under Bakery, Healthy restaurant food | Comments

Velvet Cream Bakery’s bite of heaven

Feb. 27, 20124:15 p.m.

Kelly Duggan, owner of Velvet Cream Bakery and the winning dessert maker at Saturday's Cocktails & Cookies event.

Saturday night’s Cocktails & Cookies event at the Drury Plaza Broadview once again sent me into a sugar coma, but I regained consciousness in time to gather all the pertinent information about the Chef of the Hour, Kelly Duggan.

Duggan is the owner of Velvet Cream Bakery, and her cookie truffle was the winning dessert at the event, in which local chefs try to create the best dessert using Girl Scout Cookies as one of the ingredients. This is the second year I’ve helped judge at the event, which is a fundraiser for Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland. It’s a tough job…

Duggan, who started her bakery out of her home two years ago, created an amazing bite of lemon heaven she called a “cookie truffle.”

She used the Lemonades Girl Scout cookies, combining them with cream cheese for a soft center that she encased in white chocolate and topped with a limoncello lemon curd. (She’s posted the recipe on her blog.)

My fellow judges, KSN personality Barbara Baan and Old Chicago East manager Sean DiGiovanni, and I were pretty united in our love of her citrus-y creation, which packed a lot of flavor into a little package.

Duggan also told me that soon she will begin selling her cake pops and cake truffles out of W.O.W. Cakes, a wedding cake business at 2724 N. Amidon.

Cocktails & Cookies had an awesome invention called FanCam, sort of a social media photo booth. Here are me and my date, the lovely Katie Grover.

All the desserts were pretty fabulous, and other entrants included Chef Ben George of Tallgrass Country Club and Adam Courtney of AVI.

You’ll have another chance to sample Duggan’s creations at next month’s Death by Chocolate, an Exploration Place fundraiser scheduled for March 31.

I’m a judge at that one, too, so I’m already prepping for my next sugar coma.

By Denise Neil | Tags: , , , , , , , Filed under Bakery, Fundraisers, Uncategorized | Comments

Question of the week: Wichita’s best cookie

Feb. 22, 20122:14 p.m.

What with Valentine’s Day and Girl Scout Cookie delivery time, cookies are everywhere these days.

I can’t stop thinking about them, which isn’t just a seasonal problem for me. It’s a constant problem.

My question of the week: Which local baker or restaurant makes the best cookies? I have a few nominees, including the amazing frosted sugar cookies baked at Connie’s Cookies and the crumbly, not-t0-sweet French butter cookies made at bakeries such as La Galette. 

Who, besides your mom, bakes your favorite cookie in Wichita? Answer in the comments section below.

By Denise Neil | Tags: , , Filed under Bakery | Comments

Coming soon: Las Tias de Beto

Feb. 3, 20122:25 p.m.

Local foodie extraordinaire Andrew Gough alerted me to a new Mexican restaurant in progress (gracias), and after lunch today, I stopped by to check it out.

It’s called Las Tias de Beto Family Mexican Restaurant and is set to open in the middle of March right next door to the Juarez Bakery at 1068 N. Waco Ave.

Manuel Fernandez, who is one of the owners of Juarez, is a partner in the new restaurant, too. He said it will offer the standard fajita/taco/burrito options plus fish and steak dishes typical of Northern Mexico.

It’ll be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and will offer margaritas, beer and possibly wine. The dining room, which at the moment is a swirl of dry wall, cement and test-paint-splotches, will seat about 58.

I’ll let you know more as construction continues.

By Denise Neil | Tags: , Filed under About-to-open, Bakery, Mexican food | Comments

Great Harvest is getting crusty

Jan. 31, 201210:52 a.m.

Tim and MariAnn Heeren, owners of Great Harvest Bread Company

For the most part, cooks can get by with the ingredients sold in Wichita stores, especially since the arrival of the “Gucci Dillons” at Central and Rock.

But there’s one exception.

Wichita is severely lacking in crusty bread department. None of the grocery stores carry anything resembling a nice, crusty loaf. Panera will do in a pinch, but the good stuff tends to go early.

Great Harvest Bread Company, which recently completed its move from 6509 E. Central to a bigger space at 535 N. Woodlawn, has just added a new selection of crusty breads, owner Tim Heeren told me this morning.

He now offers several varieties of sourdough loaves, including asiago and Kalamata olive flavored, as well as crusty French baguettes and ciabatta bread.

I haven’t tried the new bread, but I can vouch for Great Harvest’s fabulous braided challah bread, which it sells each Friday. Slice it, toast it, slather it with butter and honey, thank me later.

Great Harvest’s new breads are available from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. They’re open on Mondays, too, but they spend that day making the “starter” that fuels the bread.

By Denise Neil | Tags: , Filed under Bakery | Comments

J.Rae’s a new bakery in New Market Square

Dec. 30, 201110:56 a.m.

J.Rae's pretty cookies are making me feel all springy.

While Christmas shopping last week, I noticed a very pretty new awning facing Maize Road in New Market Square.

What’s going on inside is even prettier. 

J.Rae’s is a new bakery specializing in those pretty frosted sugar cookies, cupcakes and cheesecake. It opened on Nov. 25 at 2537 N. Maize Road.

Owner Jana Morris, who opened the original J. Rae’s three years ago in Ft. Worth, is a Cheney native who recently moved back to the area and decided to open a second J.Rae’s with her sister, Kim Uppendahl, and her niece, Alyson Voth.

One of J.Rae’s specialties is sports-team cookies, and in Texas, they’ve perfected the Texas Longhorn and the TCU Horned Frog. The Wichita store has Jayhawk and Wildcat cookies always in stock. They’re working on a Wichita State cookie, Voth said, but a Shocker is a little more difficult to turn into a cookie than one would think.

J.Rae’s hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Wednesdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. For more information, call 316-721-0090.

By Denise Neil | Tags: Filed under Bakery, Just opened | Comments

Sugar Sisters has reopened in Delano

Dec. 27, 201110:44 a.m.

The new Sugar Sisters awning

Hello! I’m back, and I have some sweet news.

Sugar Sisters, the restaurant and bakery that used to operate in the space at 4811 E. Central now occupied by Bocconcini Italian Eatery, has reopened at 917 W. Douglas in Delano. The business closed last January after struggling with finances and service issues.

But owner Kelli Sykes said that’s all behind her. She opened the doors on Dec. 16 and has hired cheerful, energetic people to work with her, she said. She’s serving a more streamlined menu, the star of which is the giant bierocks (served with or without cabbage) that were a hit at the previous Sugar Sisters incarnation. You can check out the full menu, which also includes salads, quiches and several sweet treats, by clicking here.

Sugar Sisters hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. There’s seating inside for about 14.

For more information, call 316-519-3814 or visit the Sugar Sisters Facebook page.

By Denise Neil | Tags: , Filed under Bakery, Just opened, Lunch | Comments