DeRusha Eats: Cookies At Keys Cafe
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – In small town Minnesota family restaurants serving breakfast, lunch and dinner are pretty common
In the Twin Cities that type of restaurant is Keys Café; a chain of nine restaurants known not only for those meals, but also for their bakery.
This week, Jason DeRusha tasted out some of their items, all baked from scratch.
Every day in the kitchen at Keys Cafe in Roseville, Minn. the mixer is mixing.
That's because everything in the bakery case up front is made from scratch in back.
"We actually have three full time bakers and one part time," owner Jean Hunn said. "At this location. Five of our stores have in-house full time bakers."
Jean Hunn's family owns all nine of the Keys Cafes. Her mom started the first one more than 40 years ago.
"Why do you do it," DeRusha asked.
"Quality. Freshness. It's how we were taught. My mother's been doing it for 40 some years. And she probably wouldn't have us do it any other way even though we've never even questioned it," Hunn said.
The pies and cakes are awesome, but there's something about those enormous sugar, chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies that the cookie monster can't help but approve of.
"It went in line with our food. As you know, we have generous portions," Hunn said.
To get the top-selling chocolate chip cookies so big, the full-time bakers start with four pounds of butter.
Then they add flour, eggs, sugar and brown sugar, mixed for about 10 minutes.
And then the batter is scooped out by an expert.
What DeRusha lacked in scooping cookie dough, he made up for in eating cookie dough.
"Unless you're willing, I think it's over for you," Hunn joked about DeRusha's baking experience.
The charm in Keys' Cookies is that they're not fancy.
They're not trendy.
"We don't own the recipes, everyone has them. Very few people have the time, even at home we don't have the time, to do them from scratch," Hunn said.
They are just delicious.
Keys Café's cookies are so popular they now sell the dough at Kowalski's and through Coburn's Delivers, so you can make your own cookies at home.
There's a location just down the block from WCCO in downtown Minneapolis. That location delivers if you live in the area.