Remember the Pinterest craze five years ago of chocolate chip cookies stuffed with Oreos? Ginny Jacobs does. Trying to replicate the sweets at the time was the beginning of an unexpected change in the course of her life that has culminated in the founding of Surprisingly Baked, a new delivery and takeout-style bakery that creates cookies and brownies that all have a surprise inside.
“I don’t know if it was a joke or just a pipe dream. Then it came back in quarantine,” she says. Jacobs and her fiancé, Guy Cook, reduced stress after they started working from home by baking. Then, Jacobs was furloughed from her corporate job, and later laid off. But her baked goods were already winning Instagram fans. When she posted pictures, her followers asked how they could order the sweets, even before she thought of making it a business. “It definitely stemmed from quarantine boredom and hunger,” Jacobs jokes.
With more than a week to go, Surprisingly Baked has already surpassed its $10,000 Kickstarter goal by more than 50%, thanks in large part to Jacobs’ smart use of social media influencers’ shares.
Surprisingly Baked is already taking local orders, with delivery in Northern Virginia and pickup at Jacobs’ and Cook’s home in McLean. “Depending on where you live, it’s free or a couple of bucks,” Jacobs says of delivery. In the future, she also hopes to have a presence at farmers markets, as well as coffee shops and retails stores. But the next step, once the company has been fully licensed at the end of the month, is nationwide shipping.
What exactly will dessert lovers be ordering? How about jumbo chocolate chip cookies stuffed with Nutella? (It’s called the Nutella Phatty.) Salt Bae is a chocolate chip cookie stuffed with salted caramel. Not Your Grandma’s Brownie is a gooey classic layered with chocolate chip cookie dough and Double Stuf Oreos.
Want to enjoy the surprise yourself? Website ordering will be live very soon, but until then, customers can request their cookies and brownies at [email protected].
Photo credit: Laurel Creative
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