Great article from Yoyomama about their visit to Sweet Flour Bake Shop.

“Remember the childhood joy and sweet anticipation of freshly baked cookies straight from the oven? Now with your own little cookie monsters underfoot, we understand that baking is probably more about mess control than anything else”

Read more at: Yoyomama

You can also find yoyomama on Facebook at yoyomama.ca

Article in The National Post about Sweet Flour’s creative use of social media tools.

We’d like to thank all of our followers for your contributions to our social media efforts.

Ms. Gans says those dialogues help her understand what her customers want. “We have added a lot of different mixes based on feedback. We’re not just asking people, we’re listening to what they have to say online. For example, we found out that a lot of customers wanted gluten-free choices so we added that.”

Read more at The National Post

The Financial Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.

An interesting article in the  November, 2009Bakers Journal on innovation in baking in which Kim was quoted.  Click here for the article

We were excited to be included in Toronto Life’s annual Eat + Drinking Guide as one of the new additions for 2010.  See what Toronto Life had to say:

This custom cookie shop taps into the double chunk–loving child in all of us. The smell of baking cookies wafting from the bakery woos unsuspecting passersby off Bloor West. The concept is simple: customers pick a dough, choose two or three of the more than 20 add-ins (sprinkles, figs, raisins, M&Ms, etc.), and two minutes later, a gooey cookie emerges from the specially designed turbo-baking oven.  For the full article and other great bakery and restaurant ideas click here

Porsha Perrault of TasteTO visited our Store in Bloor West Village.   She wrote of her visit and the Sweet Flour Story…

…Spending a recent Sunday morning in the company of the energetic and diminutive Kim Gans (proprietor of Sweet Flour Bake Shop), I’ve found a compelling reason to make a concerted effort to return more often.

Sweet Flour is a first of its kind bespoke cookie bakery. Though while-you-wait custom cookies form the core business model, they fill out their roster by building muffin tops, steel cut oatmeal, granola, and sandwich cookies to customer specifications through the addition of a dizzying array of mix-ins and spread options (29 at last count).

More here

Amy Rosen of The National Post visited our Store in Bloor West Village.   She wrote of her visit and the trend towards customized treats.

..In the name of research I hit the field and stepped up to the counter of the cheery bakery to make a cookie I could call my own. The first step was to choose the dough: There is a basic sugar dough, oatmeal or peanut butter. I choose the basic. Then Gans gets out my personal mixing bowl and drops a scoop of my chosen dough into it. The next step is choosing from the 24 mix-ins that range from chocolate chunks to name-brand candy bars and a cornucopia of nuts and dried fruit options. I opt for Snickers and pecans because I’m feeling a little nutty. Gans mixes a couple of tablespoons of the goodies into my dough and then forms my cookie using an acrylic hamburger shaper-looking gizmo. Into the oven it goes. It’s a quick and easy process – the two-minute wait being the hardest part.

Just a couple of months old, the shop is already doing brisk business, with people creating mix-in cookies, buying tubs of raw cookie dough, homemade granola and even bespoke fresh-baked muffin tops. If you can’t wait the two minutes, there are custom sandwich cookies (may I recommend the basic shortbread with salted caramel?) some already baked cookies (the Matchmaker, Gans’s favourite, is butterscotch toffee in the regular dough) and even shots of raw dough (using pasteurized eggs) that are kind of fun and kind of gross…

For the full article visit here

Toronto Life writer Catherine Hayday visited Sweet Flour.

Kim Gans, the owner of Sweet Flour Bake Shop, is not from around here. We don’t just mean that she’s from Cleveland (she is); we mean she’s from a wonderland where cookies defy the laws of physics and take just two minutes to reach a state of gooey goodness. Gans brought her desserts to Bloor West Village in the spring when she opened Sweet Flour Bake Shop, a café-style bakery where fresh cookies are made to order.

Read the full article here

CTV News Reporter Dana Levinson makes a visit to Sweet Flour Bake Shop clip165634#clip165634

The Toronto Star’s food writer Susan Sampson visited Sweet Flour.

Select Your Own Sweet Memories

Cookie lovers can worship at a new shrine in Bloor West Village.

Sweet Flour Bake Shop opened last month. The economic climate may be cold, but Gans believes warm memories will give her business an edge – memories of baking with mom, having fun with friends, putting your feet up and taking a sweet time out.

The Sweet Flour Bake Shop puts the custom in customer with personalized cookies to go. Pick original, peanut butter or oatmeal dough, then choose your mix-ins. There are 23, from sunflower seeds to white chocolate chips to dried blueberries. Your custom cookie is popped into a high-tech oven and baked in two minutes. That’ll be $2.50, please. Or try a customized sandwich cookie for $2.25. (How about tender shortbread filled with salted caramel?)

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always had a sweet spot for cookies,” says owner Kim Gans.

She points out that there are more than 15,000 possible cookie combinations at the shop. I didn’t do the math, but did sample some of the goodies. They avoid additives or preservatives. And most everything is warm, including muffin tops, granola and steel-cut oats – all mix and match. For a comforting blast from the past, Sweet Flour offers single hits of raw cookie dough (made with pasteurized eggs) that kids young and old can wash down with shots of milk.

“We’re modernizing nostalgia,” says Gans, a transplanted American who worked 10 years in food marketing and brand management for General Mills. “For me, cookies are about memories.”