Kook (/ko͞ok/), noun: one whose ideas or actions are eccentric, fantastic, or insane.
At Kooks, we believe in doing things a little differently. We’ve always approached life a bit unconventionally. Our eccentricity fuels our fantastic - and sometimes insane - ideas.
For the last 15+ years, we’ve been baking cookies, cinnamon rolls, donuts and everything in between for all of our get-togethers, soccer games, movie nights, and for no reason at all. “Want to make some kooks?” can be heard at least once a week in this house. We love making treats and sharing them with our friends, families, neighbors and colleagues. We gather inspiration for our recipes from our travels, our favorite memories, our loved ones, and testing, testing, testing - always seeking our ‘Aha!’ moment.
We founded Kooks to share our love of small-batch cookies and goodies with our community. We make everything from scratch from our home base in Ventura, California. Your order is made for you, freshly baked and available for local delivery.
The Process
Cookies at their core are simple. Just a handful of ingredients: butter, sugar, egg, flour, maybe a little salt or vanilla, a rising agent. Then, whatever flavors and mix-ins you’d like. Simple. Straight forward.
However, without the right ingredients or patience to let things come together, you’ll likely be left with cookies that are flat or crumbly or maybe they’re lacking complexity or didn’t turn out the way you envisioned. We’ve been there.
We’ve tried countless flour and sugar brands. We’ve tested butter after butter. We’ve made our recipes with every variety of egg. We’ve refined the ratio of white sugar to brown sugar. We’ve tweaked spice compositions. We’re constantly sourcing new ideas, new ingredients, new brands. We share our creations with our friends and get their honest feedback.
We’ve tried it all. We refine, constantly. We’ve completely thrown out recipes after years of making it (we did warn you that we’re eccentric). We’ve honed all of our experience and refined our passions. We’re finally ready to share everything we’ve learned over the years.
The Team
We’re Jon and Kaitlin, the founders, bakers, and kooks who decided to start a scratch-made bakery, specializing in cookies.
Our history is steeped in the food service industry: Jon’s first job was baking at 15; we met waiting tables at 20. We’ve gone on to work in different restaurants - from fine dining establishments to cafes and pizzerias and everything in between – in seemingly every role imaginable.
From the start of our relationship, we’ve spent a lot of time in the kitchen. It’s a place to come together; to reflect on the day; to share dreams and goals; to merge ideas that create new, delicious goodies; to create memories.
