FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS CAFE Get Baked TAKE A BITE OUT OF DENVER’S COOKIE SCENE. BY ASHLEE REDGER Denver has become a city full of bakeries. Last year, we heralded a “hot baked goods summer,” but the wave of new places to fi nd artisan bread, delicate pastries and crisp- chewy bagels has not slowed. While many talented bakers are focused on churning out showstopping fl aky creations, like Poulette Bakeshop’s citrus custard-fi lled laminated brioche buns or Rebel Bread’s tiramisu crois- sant knots, it can feel as though more tradi- tional favorites — like cookies — are getting overlooked in the hubbub. There are a few local connoisseurs, though, that believe the humble cookie can be just as innovative and delightful as the trendiest laminated pastry. Kristy Greenwood Bortz founded Victory Love + Cookies in 2008. Two years earlier, she’d been diagnosed with cancer and took a hiatus from her baking and management position at the Denver Bread Company, where she’d worked for a decade with the bakery’s owner, Greg Bortz. “He always says I came with the building, because I was the second employee that he hired,” Greenwood Bortz shares. She remembers want- ing to come back to the bakery while taking time off to heal in 2006 and 2007 — but with a few changes. “I was a good employee to [Greg], but I don’t really like taking orders,” she admits. “So when I decided to open my own thing, it was just because I wanted to make my own rules.” The two (who are now married) have shared the Denver Bread Company space with their separate but complementary concepts for nearly fi fteen years. If you visit the retail counter at 3200 Irving Street, you can see how Greenwood Bortz’s creativity has fl ourished within the Victory Love + Cookies brand. While the bakery does have some familiar fl avors, like chocolate chunk and oatmeal raisin, there are up to two dozen different types available on any given day, from cayenne and black pepper-spiced chocolate Diablos to Strawberry Margarita cookies that get sprayed with tequila and triple sec when they’re pulled hot out of the oven. The selection also rotates to include seasonal flavors like salty maple pecan shortbread and chocolate ginger cookies. “Our fl avors are a little more geared to- ward adults,” Greenwood Bortz explains. “They’re not nearly as sweet as most cookie companies’.” For the holidays, Victory Love + Cookies will be offering grab-and- go gift boxes as well as prepared gingerbread cookie dough that’s ready to roll, bake and decorate at home. “Yes, I want people to come in and buy my cookies, but I also want them to have the experience of doing that in their own home with their children,” Greenwood Bortz says. The holiday offer- ings will be available starting on December 15. In the meantime, Victory Love + Cookies has its best-selling ginger cookies and other cold-weather fl avors avail- able now, and provides nationwide shipping year-round. Near Congress Park, on the corner of Colfax Avenue and York Street, is The Urban Cookie. Founder Denon Moore is the for- mer owner and operator of the Denver Cupcake Truck as well as multi- ple baking-related businesses, including Cake Crumbs Bakery in Park Hill. After ten growth-fi lled but strenuous years in the in- dustry, she sold her businesses in 2017 with plans to transition to another fi eld, but she couldn’t ignore the call to bake. With help The Urban Cookie has a rotating menu that includes seasonal, vegan and gluten-free options. With her history of bakery success in You can fi nd Gnarly Mountain cookies in restaurants, local markets and banquet halls around Colorado. from her husband and sons, she opened the cookie shop in January 2021. With her most recent venture, Moore focuses on well-loved cookies that come from family recipes, new ideas from team members and customer requests. The Urban Cookie menu consists of fourteen seasonally rotating fl avors. The newest menu, launched in early November, introduced chocolate crinkle, ginger molasses, raspberry thumb- prints and a sweet-potato pie cookie with a toasted marshmallow fl uff topping. There are also favorites like Rebellious Red Velvet, Iced Cranberry & Oat and Double Chocolate Chunk & Chip available all year. One of the Urban Cookie’s special- ties is the Grandma’s Misfi t, which is a spritz-style cookie. Tradition- ally, spritz cookies are made using a cookie press, which pushes the dough through a cutout to form it into its fi nal shape (versus rolling out and cutting with cookie cutters, as you might do with shortbread). Grandma’s Misfi t is a bright-green almond-flavored cookie topped with fl uffy dollops of cinnamon buttercream and sprinkles. It was inspired by Moore’s grand- mother, who would make the cook- ies for her as a child. “I think that’s one that is totally unique from any other cookie shop in town. We know if someone is looking for something different, they can come in and take that one home,” Moore notes. All of Moore’s cookies (and take- home dough) are sold in sustainable packaging and made with the best ingredients that she can fi nd: Belgian chocolate for the chocolate chunk cookies, high-end butter, and granu- lated sugar derived from sugarcane rather than beets. “It just gives things a little bit richer fl avor, a little bit deeper fl avor,” Moore explains. “But I think the main ingredient is the institution; it’s the way we run it. We have happy employees making cookies with love, and I think that shows when a customer comes in to get a cookie.” mind, Moore has an exciting new project on the horizon: franchising. She and her team recently completed all the legal obligations to start sharing her concept, and they hope to grow from one to a hundred stores in the next ten years. “We’ll have a similar concept where our other store owners will be able to contribute to their local economy and community,” she says. There will also be a giving program estab- lished in each of the franchised stores to give back to each outpost’s local neighborhood. Moore says that she hopes to fi ght the stigma that franchises are just big corporations where customers don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, instead emphasizing that the new stores will be locally owned and operated. “We’re hoping each of our individual store owners will be doing exactly what we’re doing here in Denver in their community,” she explains. The Urban Cookie is located at 2260 East Colfax Avenue; in addition to visiting its retail counter, you can get cookies delivered to you locally, shipped across the country or catered for events. The recipe for Gnarly Mountain starts with giant soft cookies, a handful of elevated flavors and a generous sprinkle of epic Colorado branding. The company, founded by Zack Weiss in the pandemic days of 2020, is carving fresh trails by leaning into distribution rather than a traditional brick- and-mortar bakeshop. “Gnarly Mountain kind of took off once we started doing wholesale. A lot of companies just said yes right away, which was a really nice sign,” Weiss remembers. The individually wrapped cookies can be found in breweries, continued on page 24 23 westword.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | WESTWORD NOVEMBER 17-23, 2022 DENVER DISH GNARLY MOUNTAIN
