Ice Cream Sandwiches With Anna Gordon Of The Good Batch

She's My Cherry Pie

In this episode of She's My Cherry Pie, host Jessie Sheehan interviews Anna Gordon, founder and CEO of The Good Batch Bakery in Brooklyn. They trace Anna's journey from making French toast with her mother as a child to launching a

Key takeaways

• Anna Gordon launched The Good Batch in 2010 selling hand-pressed stroopwafels at the Brooklyn Flea before opening her Clinton Hill bakery in 2014.
• Wholesale accounts drive approximately two-thirds of the business, providing financial stability that allows the retail side to focus on seasonal and festive items.

Main topics

• Early baking memories and culinary influences
• Scaling The Good Batch from a market stall to a brick-and-mortar bakery

Notable quotes

"I think that there is really... There's some exceptions, which I will say, but there's really like no bad cookie for an ice cream sandwich."

Conclusion

Listeners gain practical, professional baking techniques for crafting

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:02) Hi, Peaks. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from the Cherry Bomb Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I am a baker, a recipe developer, and the author of four baking books, including Snackable Bakes. In each episode, I hang out with some of the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes. I'm coming to you live from Cherry Bomb House in New York City's Meatpacking District. Cherry Bomb House is our 10-day pop-up focused on food, fashion, books, entrepreneurship, all the things we love. Thank you to everyone who stopped by. The Cherry Bomb team and I have enjoyed getting to meet so many of you. I'm in the Cherry Bomb House studio presented by Resident, the hospitality company with venues designed to showcase culinary talent. My guest today is Anna Gordon, the founder, chef, and CEO of the Good Batch Bakery in Brooklyn. Anna started her business in 2010, selling hand-pressed strobe waffles at the Brooklyn Flea. And from there, she slowly expanded her offerings, grew the business, and opened her brick and mortar in 2014. Since then, she's become known for her delicious cookies, inventive ice cream sandwiches, and more. She joins me to talk about how she discovered her love of baking and why she wanted to own and operate a bakery. We also dive into her signature Good Witch Ice Cream Sandwich, which includes oat chocolate chunk cookies, chocolate ganache, and vanilla ice cream. Stay tuned for my convo with Anna. Today's episode of She's My Cherry Pie is presented by Square. We know so many of you are out there making culinary magic happen. running bakeries, coffee shops, restaurants, and bars. You're juggling staffing and sourcing while dreaming big. New locations must have menu items and more customers. We see your hustle, and so does Square, the point-of-sale technology that helps you manage everything, all from one place, from payment, staff, customers, insights, and more. A little bit about Square. Fifteen years ago, not all businesses could accept credit cards. Hard to believe, but true. Square set out to change that, inventing the first mobile card reader of its kind. This allowed businesses to take payments anywhere and keep thriving. Square's tools unlocked countless opportunities for small businesses. Today, Square is helping more than 7 million businesses save time and be more efficient. Their tools are like having a tech-savvy sous chef for your business. one that helps automate emails and texts to customers, run sales reports, and create loyalty programs. Speaking of efficiency, Square has a lightweight point-of-sale device that literally fits in your pocket. It's called Square Handheld, and it lets you take table-side orders, process payments, and manage inventory. When your bakery or restaurant is on your mind, which is probably all the time, think big and stress less with Square. Go to square.com forward slash big to see how Square can help you. The new fall issue of Cherry Bomb Magazine is here. It's our first ever home issue, and Melissa Clark is on the cover. Melissa is a beloved home cook, author, and New York Times food reporter and columnist. Lots of you know and love Melissa from her work at New York Times Cooking, but you also love Melissa's cookbooks and swear by so many of her recipes. She's authored and co-written 46 books. This issue celebrates everything home and interiors, from kitchens to dining rooms to pantries. You can pick up a copy now at CherryBomb.com or find one at your favorite local bookstore or culinary shop. If you're in New York City, you can find copies at Casa Magazines, Mulberry Iconic, Kitchen Arts and Letters, and Books are Magic. If you're in San Francisco, stop by Omnivore Books on Food. If you're in Seattle, drop by Book Larder. And if you're in St. Paul, Minnesota, visit Golden Fig Fine Foods to get a copy. And now, here's my conversation with Anna. Speaker 1 (4:16) I'm so excited Speaker 2 (4:17) to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk ice cream sandwiches with you and so much more. Yes, Speaker 1 (4:25) Jessie, it is so good to be here. So happy to be here. So to begin, can you share an early childhood baking Speaker 2 (4:32) memory? Speaker 1 (4:33) I would say, first thing that comes to mind, it's so, it's such an early seed, is making French toast with my mother. And I'm sure... Like so many people listening to this, it might relate. It's the simplest recipe. But with my mom standing next to her, cracking the egg in, whisking it, putting in just enough milk from it goes to a bright yellow to a pale yellow, opening the vanilla, taking a big whiff, putting it in and then soaking the bread and the rest goes on. But I think it was just this very early lesson in intuition. baking without a recipe and looking for visual cues and the core of vanilla smell and the sizzling of the butter. My mom was not a great cook. She did not grow up in a culinary family. For her, it was probably just an activity. And then I kind Speaker 2 (5:24) of took it and ran with it. Yeah. And one more question. When I was little, my dad would make French toast and it was with Pepperidge Farm white bread. So I want to know what bread you guys were using. Honestly, Speaker 1 (5:35) it was probably my mom. Though she did not cook, she was like a health nut. So it was probably some whole grain situation. But now, today I make French toast with my girls and I use the only bread that we have in the house is bread that I make. So we've evolved. Yes. Can I just say that I love French toast so much? Speaker 2 (5:52) So much. When it's like really... Kind of mushy. Don't Speaker 1 (5:57) tell. Speaker 2 (5:57) I love it. Don't tell anyone, but I even like fake maple syrup because it's so nostalgic to me. It's Speaker 1 (6:02) all Speaker 2 (6:02) I ate as a kid. Speaker 1 (6:03) Yeah. It's so nostalgic to me that if I have a choice, I'm like, oh, I'll take fake. I Speaker 2 (6:07) know. Speaker 1 (6:07) It would be fun to do it. My kids don't know what it is, or they know it if we go to a diner, but at home, I've become real maple syrup. But as a kid, it's all I ate. Speaker 2 (6:15) What about a super memorable bake could you ate? So something about like Speaker 1 (6:20) a flavor or a taste or a texture in your mouth from childhood. Good question. We had a bakery in town called the Woodmore Pastry Shop and it was right below the little ballet studio that I went to and it was a treat that we got to go to. And they did a lot of Italian cookies and cakes with like figurines on them. The house favorite cookie there was this soft butter cookie with a ganache that was rolled on. So it was, I think it was that kind of a, it was really a semi-sweet chocolate with the butter. It was a very core early flavor that honestly I'm replicating today in the bakery. Yes. Love that. So you Speaker 2 (6:57) loved being in the kitchen from a very young age. And I know you were baking some things. Were you also cooking? Like, were you doing? Both? Speaker 1 (7:06) Yeah. Yeah. It was just the kitchen. Neither of my parents, I don't have any recipes that they've passed on. It wasn't like that. But the kitchen was a space of fun and exploration. And they kind of just let me have at it. And looking back, I was probably making such a mess and wasting so much food. But I was, yeah, I would help with dinner. I had little cookbooks, like kiddie cookbooks that I would just... tear through and make everything Speaker 2 (7:32) in it sweet, savory, everything in between. Can you think of the kinds of things you were making? Like maybe one baked good and one savory something. Yeah, Speaker 1 (7:42) I remember one of my little kitty cookbooks that was like the toad in the hole. Yes, like toast and you take the hole Speaker 2 (7:49) and then put the egg in. Speaker 1 (7:51) All time. I loved making that. We talked about the French toast. I had the Betty Crocker cookie bookie, which was like... Me too. And I made everything in there. And then, ooh, savory. I mean, anything that had... I was a kid that loved olives and pickles and pickly things. So anything with that. I loved an omelet with black olives and American cheese. It was just a regular. And I learned how to make that really young. And so I was... Very like independent in the kitchen, probably starting with things like eggs. And Speaker 2 (8:24) then it went Speaker 1 (8:24) from there. Speaker 2 (8:24) Love that. Your family, as you have said, not a lot of strong, like, culinary roots. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. But everybody loved food. Absolutely. I love this idea of someone who didn't even care about it so much, but the idea of you and your mom, like, making dinner together and pretending to be on a cooking show. Totally. Please, please tell me Speaker 1 (8:45) about it. Speaker 2 (8:46) And little Anna Speaker 1 (8:47) and mom in the cooking show. Yeah. I mean, it was just. She would put dinner on the table every night. And any chance I had, if we had time, I was like, okay, mom, like, here's the camera, like, but look to camera. And it was like, I can still picture where that was. And we would measure things out and we would talk to camera. And now we're doing this and we're putting this in. I think it was what Yon can cook. Like it was like the food network was starting out. And so that was the inspiration for that. Speaker 1 (9:17) She's sadly not here anymore, but I know she would tell me later on. She was like, Anna, I was just following your lead. This was not me. This was you leading us. Oh, she was the best. I love that so much. Speaker 2 (9:30) So you have always loved drawing and walks in nature. And now they, and we'll talk about this when we talk about the bakery, they really influence your cakes and your cake decorating that you do for Good Batch. Were you doing those things when you were little? Speaker 1 (9:43) Yeah, I was always crafty. I was always very crafty. And it's funny because now my daughter is so crafty. The older the other. The older one. And Speaker 2 (9:52) she Speaker 1 (9:52) comes by it so, I did not really, well, nature nurture, you know. But she comes by it naturally. And so it's funny to see this repeat of history. I loved making little things with clay, always drawing. I was always planning for like the next holiday. So Christmas just passed. I'm like making Valentine's cards. I'm already making decoration. Like, oh, and now it's St. Patrick's Day is coming up. And I'm like, who's coming over? Let me make place settings. So we lived right against the woods and we'd spend a lot of time in the woods. And there was just, I love and still love being fully submerged 360 with woods, which is in the suburbs and in New York City, you really have to find that. But absolutely, that's been an early part of my life. And drawing, Speaker 2 (10:41) I Speaker 1 (10:41) assume, too. Speaker 2 (10:42) Yeah, yes. Because I watched some videos of you decorating your cakes and the ombre colors and all the beautiful colors and tiny little leaves and petals. Speaker 1 (10:52) It's the nature, as much nature and art that I can wear and bring into the pastry. Yeah, I see them. They're not the same, but I see them kind of in this cycle that influences each other for sure. You mentioned Speaker 2 (11:09) food TV that you and your mother were doing. Speaker 1 (11:12) And Speaker 2 (11:12) sometimes healthy home means no TV. Were you allowed to watch TV A and B? Speaker 1 (11:17) If you were, were you watching food TV? TV was definitely limited for me too. When I think about it now, I feel like all I wanted to do was watch The Simpsons, but we weren't allowed to. And again, now my kids watch The Simpsons all the time. Right. And food TV, like I mentioned the Yangon Gu, the Chinese, and I got to meet them once. And that was so exciting. I think as much as I could, but TV wasn't a huge... I get it. Because they were kind of strict about it until they Speaker 2 (11:50) weren't and then they didn't. I would always just go to my friends' houses who had no rules, watch TV all day and eat Captain Crunch cereal because there were no rules about sugar cereal either. And then go home and be like, okay, I'm ready for my hour of TV. A Speaker 1 (12:02) hundred percent. Mine was the Jif peanut butter. Yep. No, we were getting like that peanut butter, the big ground at the store that had nothing in Speaker 2 (12:10) it. Speaker 1 (12:10) There's Speaker 2 (12:11) so Speaker 1 (12:11) much oil. You could never get past Speaker 2 (12:12) the oil. So yeah. I got you.