Behind the Scenes at Nestlé HQ! Solon, Ohio

Sep 4, 2015

It’s cookie time! Being a food and travel writer definitely has its perks.

I often get to try a variety of amazing foods and travel to exotic and unique cities; Hawaii, Tokyo, Nashville, London and Mexico City are just a few of the places I’ve gotten to travel to this year! (posts coming soon)

How do I decide if I go to a place? Well, for me, it’s usually based on a few criteria:

1) have I been there before? 2) what experiences and knowledge I will obtain on the trip? 3) will the information me useful to my readers?

Backyard Bite working very hard in this picture…

My most recent trip was a visit to Nestlé Baking Headquarters in Solon, Ohio. I sure hadn’t been to Ohio before, and I was eager to check out what the baking HQ of the largest food producer in the world looked like! I was totally stoked about the opportunity!

So, on the 75th Anniversary of the chocolate chip cookie, (yep! it’s 75 years old!) Nestlé invited me and a handful of YouTube influencers and Vloggers (justeatlife, lovelyladycakes, feast of fiction, food beast, honeysuckle to name a few) to work with renowned chefs from across the country to try to create the next great recipe! We first discussed current trends and culinary fads (cronut, Nutella, gourmet salts, etc.) talked about food fusions (ramen burger!?) and the concept of scratch baking (semi-homemade).

I love to bake. But I don’t consider myself a “baker” per se, so this trip for me was about taking notes and leaning from the best.

…we were tasked with coming up with a recipe that would inspire home baker and cooks.

Somebody ate the cookies… uh oh! I swear it wasn’t me…

Our teams worked together for a full day to learn some tricks in the kitchen, and by the end of the 2-day Hackathon, we ended up with a bunch of great recipes and an invaluable education on making quick simple, delicious desserts anyone can make.

Click through for pictures from the event and check back for the recipes!