In Our Winter 2018 Issue
LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER
The holiday season is traditionally a time of reflection, a time to give thanks for the positive things in our lives. Among the many things for which I am grateful – inclu...
Savor Fine Food
André Kreft's Artisan Cookies
Savor Fine Foods, a Thomaston-based micro-bakery, has been pleasing palates since 2010 with flavorfully juxtaposed, artisan shortbread cookies. However, this small project that started as a means of diversion for visual artist and proprietor André Kreft has quickly grown into a business with regional acclaim and widespread appeal.
At the heart of Savor’s success are André’s distinctive cookies. He has created over a dozen varieties of shortbread cookies with a dizzying array of complementary and contrasting flavors. Using the shortbread as a canvas, he blends unconventional ingredient combinations that marry sweet, sour, savory, and other tastes, leading to unexpectedly unique, rich flavors. The result is bite-sized cookies that pack a spectrum of taste.
André begins with his signature shortbread recipe, which lends each cookie a classic, buttery taste. This, alone, would satisfy even a discerning sweet tooth, but André’s treats take on an entirely different life with the addition of ingredients like exotic spices, salt, herbs, and other unorthodox pairings. Bits of garlic play off lime in the Jacqueline; chocolate dances with orange spice in the Krakatoa; hints of onion lie miraculously balanced against shortbread in the Dried Shallot; and locally grown hot peppers give kick to the Firefly. André also rotates seasonal flavors into his repertoire and expects customers to be able to enjoy both a Black Olive and Olive + Orange cookie this winter.
Part of what gives Savor’s cookies such appeal is the team behind them and the spirit with which André and his bakers infuse their craft. “Our cookies are handmade locally and in small batches,” André says. “They are like tiny jewels, small little luxuries that we can give ourselves.” The emotional value of a comforting treat, to which anyone with a fondness for sweets can attest, goes beyond merely satisfying a craving for sugar, and this is not lost on André. “I want to make people in Connecticut smile, and I’m happy to offer a cookie that will make people open to new ideas.”
As contradictory as Savor’s ingredients appear to be, it is nearly as paradoxical that such sweetness could be rendered through a period of devastating loss. Just over a decade ago, André returned to Connecticut to care for his mother after spending 25 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. A string of deaths, including his mother and spouse, left him alone and in search of answers. In response, André turned to food, but instead of sitting on a couch and eating his pain away, he created Savor. “I was grieving and trying to keep myself on this plane of existence,” André says. “I thought, ‘What would keep me busy?’ and, ‘Why not do something with food?’”
Long before conceiving of Savor, André had enjoyed comparing the dimension of sweetness and saltiness in food, so when it came time to write recipes of his own, he knew that the interplay between those flavor extremes had to play a role. “I could taste them before they were even made,” he explains. “I would then make a small batch and tweak it. I would make another small batch and let customers try them. All of this might take two to three weeks.”
The inspiration for his ingenious recipes grow from his international experiences and interests. For the Coconut Ginger cookie, he was influenced by the taste of candy from an Asian specialty store. The Krakatoa cookies combine the ancient Mexican tradition of marrying chocolate with a hint of spice. Having traveled to both Africa and Cuba, André absorbed the different flavors that comprised these cultures’ cuisine. He also draws upon his time living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where a cornucopia of flavor palettes rise from the different immigrant communities.
Despite the exotic quality of many of his cookies, André sources numerous ingredients locally. The quintessential New England cookie, the Naugatuck, is infused with Birch Beer soda from Avery Soda Company in New Britain and maple syrup from Crowhill Sugarhouse in Northfield. The namesake ingredient for the addictive Dried Shallot cookies is purchased from a spice company in nearby Hudson, New York, and he sources his hot peppers from the Salemme Pepper Company in Milford, which grows an entirely unique and regionalized variety of spicy chili.
As Savor has grown, André has moved from renting space in commercial kitchens to having one all his own in Thomaston, which now serves as both bakery and storefront. André and his team bake about 45,000 of his “tiny jewels” each week, equating to over two million cookies a year, which are hand packaged and adorned with hand-stamped tags. The Savor team’s dedication to craft is apparent from oven to store shelf.
Like any small business owner, André faces plenty of challenges. Savor’s basic commodities – sugar, butter, flour, vanilla, and others – are in thrall to the price pressures of an unpredictable market. A portion of Savor’s sales are tied to farmers markets, and market attendance runs at the whim of the often cruelly uncertain weather. Yet, despite financial and other challenges, André hopes to see Savor continue to grow and support not just his hard-working team, but also the local growers and producers whose ingredients lend his cookies their signature flavors.
Growth, it would seem, is just on the horizon. Now in its eighth year, Savor’s cookies have found an even larger audience thanks to national distribution and can be found at specialty shops as far away as Kansas, Washington, and Hawaii. The dedicated, local cookie monsters who don’t wish to brave the possible rain or cold of a farmers market can always order directly from Savor’s website, their bakery in Thomaston, or any number of retail locations throughout Connecticut.
But whether near or far, for those who refuse to go without, stockpiling might be a good idea: André’s cookies have recently attracted the attention of Yankee Magazine, who awarded his lemon, rosemary, and salt-infused Nicasia cookies their 2018 Editors’ Choice Food Award. It seems only a matter of time before Savor’s inspired confections become a household standard. It’s something that André promises to take in stride. “My cookies may be complex, but I’m easy.”
> Savor Fine Foods: 76 Watertown Rd., Unit 2B, Thomaston; 860-274-9000
Communities Near You
Related Stories & Recipes