Whatever your fancy – baking cookies at home or picking up a fresh-baked batch made at your Market Bakery – Market of Choice focuses on providing and using the best local ingredients available, such as Ken & June’s Hazelnuts.
This third-generation farm-to-store Oregon business participates in the Market of Choice Mojo program, which is designed to guide, develop support, target funding, offer distribution solutions and amplify participating food businesses at the store level and through social media.
“The Mojo program brings in small businesses that want to try to sell their products in stores and gives them a helping hand,” says Julie Melcher, whose grandparents, Ken and June, started the family business. She and her sister now run the business side of Ken & June Hazelnuts, while their dad does the farming.
Ken & June’s Hazelnuts are the perfect ingredient for MoC Bakery’s holiday favorite, Chocolate Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies, and can be found in your Market’s grocery aisles if you’re game for baking these delights at home. Or enjoy these shortbread cookies baked fresh by your Market Bakery.
In this Everyday Northwest TV interview, Portland’s The CW Reporter Nicole DeCosta joins Market of Choice Bakery Sales Manager Christina Jessie and Julie to bake these easy treats. The dough has only three ingredients: flour, butter and sugar.
Christina uses all local products to make the dough. She says you can add more things if you want, like a bit of vanilla if desired, “but the three ingredients make a great base for showing off beautiful ingredients like these hazelnuts.”
“All nuts are good for baking, but hazelnuts have a sweetness to them, and they chop up really nicely, even for sprinkling on top,” Julie says.
Christina combines the flour, sugar and butter to make the dough, then presses and smooths the dough into a baking pan. Sprinkling chopped hazelnuts on top, she then bakes it for 20 minutes at 350°. Once out of the oven, she allows the cookies to cool for a minute before cutting into rectangular “fingers.” Dipping half of each cookie into melted chocolate, she then sets each on parchment paper to cool, adding a pinch of pink Himalayan salt on top for that finishing touch. Whether you bake these at home or stop by your Market Bakery to buy them freshly made, they’re delicious!
