If you’ve been following our blog, you’ve seen us supporting small businesses and of course our favourites local places!
So today, we gonna talk about delicious American cookies, and we’re not joking, they are baked in Amsterdam!
The heart of the Moosehead Bakery, is Mimi, an American girl, that has been living in Amsterdam for several decades now.
After treating her family back home in the US for years with suitcases of Dutch Stroopwaffels, she decided one day, to return with an equal amount of chocolate chip cookies that conquered the hearts of the Dutch cookie lovers in just a second.
They just couldn’t get enough of this typical American pastry!
So Mimi did the only logical thing to do, and started to bake American chocolate chip cookies in Amsterdam.
The “Moosehead Bakery” was born.
In this blogpost we want to give her the chance to introduce herself and her business to all of you with a sweet tooth in, or on your way through Amsterdam.
1) Tell us something about you:
Who are the cookie monsters behind Moosehead?
My name is Mary, but everyone likes to call me Mimi and I am the cookie monster behind Moosehead Bakery.
I have been living here in Amsterdam for several decades now.
I still have quite some family back in the USA where I am from so every year I would take a suitcase full of stroopwafels to my family and would return with the same quantity of chocolate chip cookies.
They just aren’t the same here.
So I thought to myself why not start baking my own chunky cookies?
I started baking and although it took me a bit to get the right recipe once I tried the final batch I looked to my husband, Ronald and we said ‘it would be a crime to keep these to ourselves’ and right there the idea of Moosehead was born.
2) Talking about Moosehead, who came up with the brandname and is there a story behind?
I am originally from the USA, where I still have quite some family.
When I was a child, I used to go to my grandma’s house, who was also a baking fanatic and from whom I learned the tips and tricks around the dough and the oven.
In the entrance of her house there were on each side of the door two moose heads, which are a well knows symbol for Northern America.
So we thought to ourselves that it would be great to name our bakery Moosehead.
3) What stands your brand for?
And what are your sweet dreams and goals for the future?
Moosehead stands for honest pleasure.
Since the beginning it was very clear for us that we would only bake cookies with pure ingredients, meaning that you would never find any additives or flavor intensifiers in them.
At the same time, you will only find fair trade chocolate in all our cookies. Thus, after having one of our chunky moose there is no need to feel guilty and we expect you to want another tomorrow again 😉
But of course, what makes us stand out as well is the shape of our cookies. As they are inspired on the American chocolate chip cookie our cookies are approximately 3cm tall and 10cm in diameter and we just love to say that we have ‘perhaps the chunkiest chocolate chip cookie around’
Our biggest dream would be to open our first bakery in Amsterdam where you can come by and enjoy a (or couple) of cookie along with a coffee or a hot chocolate 😛
We have this vision of making our shop very social and community driven so that everyone feels part of Moosehead! Hopefully we can welcome you very soon.
4) Cocoa is more than a guilty pleasure.
What do you think about responsibilities of the chocolate / cocoa industry when it comes to child labor and slavery?
The cocoa industry has a vast history of corruption, slavery, child labor and deforestation. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine how such a sweet end-product can cause so much harm in our society.
Every day we make decisions between one product or another and due to the limited information provided by food producers we are not aware what effect such a decision could be having.
At Moosehead we do not want to be part of an industry that exploits human beings or the planet.
Thus, from the beginning on we decided to only use fair trade chocolate supporting so cocoa farmers and their families to have fair working conditions, access to healthcare and access to education, giving younger generations the opportunity to grow.
Even though using fair trade chocolate has increased our cost price it was never a choice for us to use products that are harmful and unsustainable. We like to think that with our cookies we are making the world a little bit sweeter every day.
5) We read about your cookie challenge in December.
Will the cookie challenge be an ongoing concept every month during 2021?
Yes, we love to engage with our community and want to make their Moosehead experience as fun as possible. We love to see how people enjoy their moose, so for example this month’s challenge includes to take a picture with your cookie somewhere in the city.
Regularly we will update our challenges and the best of all is that if you are creative enough you can win a jar of your favorite cookies!! So be fast and tag us in your picture 😀
6) Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
We are super enthusiastic about sharing love through cookies and decided to give people the option to send cookies to each other as a surprise.
When you are on our website and click on Cookie for a Friend you can first choose the moose you think your friend/dearest/lover/colleague will enjoy the most. Then during the checkout you just write your friends address and a personal note.
In our bakery we then carefully write the personal message in a postcard and start baking the cookies.
It has been great to see how well people have reacted to this option. We see people sending cookies as a thank you for helping them move, with a ‘get better soon’ note or with a wonderful appreciation to remind that person that they are thinking of them.
For us it is very wholesome to bake cookies which we know are going to be a surprise and will make someone very happy.
7) Which one is your favourite cookie?
Difficult question, you are asking a cookie monster to choose between its guilty pleasures 😀
We can definitely not choose one, but we like to think that each cookie is made for a perfect moment:
Nº1 (pure chocolate – hazelnut) is just super easy going and goes well next to a coffee while chatting with a friend but it’s also a great companion while going on a Sunday stroll around the city
Nº2 (milk chocolate – walnuts) the real guilty pleasure for those who love melted chocolate. Put the moose in the oven, dim the lights, turn on a jazzy playlist and ‘beep beep’ the cookie is ready to be taken out of the oven and let your very own moose-ment (moment with your moose) begin
Nº3 (white chocolate – macadamia) this one has a delicate and refined taste and it is definitely a great treat or reward after you have achieved something big. You go and rock the world!!! Your moose will be waiting for you to celebrate
Nº4 (pure chocolate – salty caramel) this cookie is made for the adventurous so whenever you feel like on the top of the world bring your Nº4 moose with you cause it will give you that extra kick you are looking for
8) Last but not least:
Would you rather….give up on sex or on cookies? 😀
The experience when you have one of our moose in your mouth is just unexplainable, the chocolate slowly melting with the warmth of your breath and your tongue mixing it with the intense flavor of the crunchy nuts and the chewy dough.
Taste buds are on a high, your brain is already craving for more and you… you just start smiling. It’s a whole culinary sex scene happing right there in your mouth.
As serious cookie monsters as we are nothing is able to come in between the love our cookies and us share 🙂
Final thoughts…
You can’t really talk about cookies. You need to taste them.
We for example 🙂 had the pleasure to try Mimis delicious cookies and we definitely will send cookies for a friend (and ourselves of course)…because:
If you can’t change the world with chocolate chip cookies, how can you change the world?
– Pat Murphy
They bake every Monday, Thursday and Friday. You can pre-order your cookies before 12:00 on their baking days and pick up your Moose the same day between 17:00 and 19.00.
SPECIAL VALENTINE:
during Thursday 11th and Sunday 14th they are open for pick-up, to ensure a great experience they would appreciate if you pre-order one day in advance prior 12:00.
Share cookies, share love!
ADDRESS: Amsterdam, De Pijp
Govert Flinckstraat, 251 1073BX Amsterdam (at Restaurant Arles)
PICK UP
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 17:00 – 19:00
