The next thing I tried was croissants, both chocolate and almond. Oh my goodness they are wonderful! I took them into the office where I had several different people try them. One said, Excellent, another said, I give them an A! I was very happy with the way they turned out. With my first batch, the appearance was not that great, but they did taste and smell like real croissants. My second attempt I was able to get the appearance to match the taste. I put out some samples tonight and that really helped in selling them! I had 9 packages and I sold them all! (Each package had either 4 or 6 croissants in them.)
Here are some pictures of the croissants.
The recipe called for Almond Paste and Pain au Chocolat. I ended up making the Almond Paste from scratch. A small can of it at the store was over $5! So, I figured, I could make it for a lot less than that. And it turned out pretty well.I was explaining to a customer how I made the croissants and that I made the Almond Paste from scratch and she smiled and me and said, "You know you can buy that in the store!" And I laughed and said, "Well it was cheaper for me to make it and I'd rather not buy what I can make."
Another customer came to the table and looked at some of the ingredients in my cranberry orange bread and said, "I see you've listed that there is real butter in here, is it really butter or did you use margarine?" And I smiled and said, "It's real butter, I don't like to bake with margarine." And he smiled back and said, "I think you just made a sale!" :) He ended up purchasing the croissants.
Here are a few pictures of the croissants before they went back in the oven.
The Chocolate au Pain was hard to find--so in lieu of that--I just used semi-sweet chocolate chips and actually I really like it. So, I am going to continue with that.
Here is a picture after they came out of the oven! Some of the Almond Paste drizzled out of the croissant and baked on the pan--which made a nice little sugar treat for me! :)
I have been bringing homemade soft pretzels to market and they have become quite popular~here are some pictures of them!
Here are a couple of pictures showing the different kinds~ I have salt, sesame seed and cinnamon/sugar!
Another new item that I attempted was Focaccia bread! The recipe had cheddar cheese in the dough-- and I topped it with olive oil, Oregano, Rosemary, Ground Peppers, Parmesan Cheese, Roma Tomatoes (from the garden!), and a little bit of Mozzarella Cheese! I made the crusts fairly thin--so they were crunchy on the edges.They were 10" in diameter -- so like a small pizza. They were very popular! I sold out of the four I had made in the first 15 minutes of market!
I decided that I would attempt to sell some more pies this week! Here are some pictures of my Strawberry-Rhubarb Pies! I had two of them-- and I even had someone come up to the table looking for a rhubarb pie, how fortuitous! I hope it was delicious!
I'm having a lot of fun attending the markets and it's even more enjoyable when the customers enjoy my food! :) I have been setting out more samples of things that I'm making and that has made a lot of difference in my selling strategy. Right now, I only attend the market on Thursdays. The Monday night markets seem to be dominated by a bakery that brings 2 - 10' tables full of different items. It's hard to compete with that.
A customer told me that I should come back on Mondays because the bakery that overpowers the market doesn't have what I have... but I don't know. People seem to go to them and not look anywhere else on Mondays. I was heartbroken when I made a table full of food and was unable to sell much of it. It takes a lot of time and preparation to go to market--so I'd rather go when I have the best chance of selling everything~or at least much of it!
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