28 Nov Everybody Wants a Sugardaddy
What is the anatomy of the perfect brownie? For some, the answer is a crispy edge, which is why our friend Matt Griffin invented his Baker’s Edge pan (you’ve read his story in the Artisan’s Corner article Living on the Baker’s Edge.) For others, however, the ideal brownie lies at the opposite side of the spectrum: the edgeless brownie. At Sugardaddy’s Sumptuous Sweeties® in Columbus, Ohio, owners Mark Ballard and Tom Finney are dedicated to perfecting edgeless brownies for every taste (including some special Gilded Fork collections for our boutique!).
Chef Mark had a chance to sit down and speak with Tom and Mark about their mission, from creating a name for the company to baking the perfect brownie and building a business catering to the luxury market. Longtime life partners, Mark and Tom decided to turn their combined business experience and Tom’s talent for baking into a family business, so while Tom heads up the kitchen, Mark is the driving force behind Sugardaddy’s gorgeous packaging and gifting solutions. Here are some excerpts from Chef Mark’s interviews with Tom and Mark, which can be heard in full on ReMARKable Palate Podcast #61.
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Gilded Fork: Tom, you say you spent years developing these recipes. Tell us about your love of baking, and how the business came about.
Tom Finney: Actually, it started several years ago. I have to preface that by saying that brownies are absolutely my favorite dessert of all time, and so I started on this quest about six years ago to bake the perfect brownie. Looking at various recipes, there were elements and nuances of each that I liked, and I tried to combine the best elements of each one. I started with our chocolate brownie, which is what we call our Auburn Original because it was our very first chocolate brownie. Taking the elements and nuances of each recipe that I worked with, I developed my own recipe. And to me it’s the perfect brownie — it’s not too fudgy, where it is sometimes so dense it feels under-baked, and it’s not so cakey and light that it’s more like a cake than a brownie. So to me, there’s that perfect density.
GF: What’s nice about the Auburn Original is that it’s got walnuts in it, but it’s also got a little something else to give it a kick. What’s that dash, that secret ingredient that goes in there?
Finney: That would be espresso powder! It’s really interesting — you say “espresso powder” to some of our clients, and they’re like, “No, no, no I don’t like that!” then, “I don’t like any form of coffee or espresso flavoring.” And then when they taste the sample, it’s amazing that they go, “Oh, I love this. This is great!” And the espresso just helps bolster and boost up the chocolate flavor.
GF: So that’s a baker’s secret that we can pass on to our readers. It’s the amazing thing about coffee — it does have those characteristics that help to intensify the flavors of other ingredients.
Now, how did Sugardaddy’s come to be a business — going from an idea in your head and some really tasty brownies to an actual business? What was the structure and the vision behind it?
Mark Ballard: As with anything, it’s a journey. It’s not something that happens instantaneously overnight. But Tom has always had this love of baking, and made these killer brownies. And I would say to him, “Tom, you’ve got a great product, and you could sell these.” So when you take the warm, cozy classic of the American brownie, what can you do to make it more unique and actually much more luxurious as you think about it in terms of dessert or in terms of gifting? It was really an evolution. We started with one flavor, and extended that and made it into the chocolate collection, which then became the Brunette collection, because as we started to talk about blonds, we thought it would be cute to have a blond collection and a brunette collection. And then all of a sudden the name Sugardaddy’s hit us and struck us as the right way to frame this, and as we really started talking about the brand, we thought about how we could really begin to brand brownies. So one thing led to the next. It was an evolution.
GF: I don’t want to let you gloss over how Sugardaddy’s came into your head as a name because I’m sure it’s intrigued people who have differing connotations of the word “sugardaddy”.
Ballard: Well, it is a fun name. I think it resonates with people that everybody wants a sugardaddy. And so we’ve kind of turned that into “Everybody wants a sugardaddy…brownie, that is.”
GF: Is that a catchphrase?
Ballard: Yes, “Everybody wants a sugardaddy.” Everybody wants one; but not everybody wants a chocolate brownie, and maybe not something with nuts, so that’s how all the collections really started exploding. But what we wanted to do was contain it and not be whacked out with our flavors as we launched. So we came up with this collection of eight: four brunettes, which are the chocolate base, and four blonds, which are the butter-brown sugar base, and then went beyond that to ask what’s going to make this spectacular? What do we really want to do with this? We really wanted this to be a gifting destination, a place where people would come, and it would be a wonderful experience. Give a product that really does, at the end of the day, add value to somebody’s life or to somebody’s relationship.
GF: And I like that you decided to go that way, because the truth is, these are large brownies! They’re very indulgent, so they are the perfect thing for a gift because you probably would feel guilty about buying them for yourself and eating them every single day. One other thing I love is that you have these luscious fruit swirls on the top of several of them, both with your strawberry blondie and with your dark berry brunette.
Finney: Yes, those are all done after the batter has been put in the pan, and then we go back and do a hand-swirl on top in strawberry jam and raspberry jam. It’s very brand-appropriate for us. Our website and all our packaging use a swirled background.
GF: So let’s talk about the signature aspect, which is the fact that these are edgeless brownies. These are round, cut out brownies. What brought you that as an idea for marketing your product?
Finney: It’s very interesting. We knew we wanted to go with an edgeless brownie — I’m not a fan of the hard edges. And after watching people in front of a bakery case, inevitably they were pointing to the ones without corners or edges.
Ballard: We made it edgeless because we wanted to signal in terms of the shape that it is not your everyday brownie. Now, for the leftover edges, we certainly didn’t want to throw those away, the question was should we give them away or sell them? We started playing with the words, and decided that a sugardaddy would call them Sugardaddy’s Pocket Change. Because they’re these little bite-size morsels, these little leftovers, it would be pocket change to him. We sell out nearly everyday of pocket change, because it’s packaged in these cute little cellophane bags. It’s a quick pick-up kind of item. So people say “The brownies seem so large. I’m not going to take a brownie, I’m actually going to take a pound of pocket change.” And we find on many days that we actually have more of a demand for pocket change than what we have available. There have also been times when people will order pocket change from the online store, and we have to bake and cut up big pans of brownies to turn it into pocket change.
GF: That’s one of those things where the solution to the problem actually becomes more in demand in some ways than the actual solution. I just think that’s a great business story, and something that’s inspirational. Never throw anything away — always try to find a way of turning it into a profit.
Let’s also remind our readers that they will be able to order the special Gilded Fork Sugardaddy’s collections for the holiday season.
Ballard: That’s the other thing that I know makes our company unique: It’s all customized. Not only are your brownies and blondies made-to-order, but you get to pick the flavors. With eight flavors, you get to build your package. You get to choose the back color, message on the card, a monogram if you want it, and flavors of blondies, brownies or a combination.
Photos: Copyright 2006 Sugardaddy’s Sumptuous Sweeties®
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You can order any of the four special Gilded Fork Gift packages from Sugardaddy’s in our boutique: The Brownie sampler, the Blondie sampler, the Brownie & Blondie sampler, all of which come in a silky white bag with gold bow and glossy postcard from the Gilded Fork; as well as the Trifle Bowl Gift Set, which includes Sugardaddy’s Pocket Change®, an elegant glass bowl for making a party dessert and a recipe book with lots of ideas.