Deer Buzz

Impress With A Dancing Deer Rose Cookie Bouquet This Mother’s Day

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Boston, MA) April 2011 - Butter up the women you love this Mother’s Day with this unique Rose Cookie Bouquet from the Dancing Deer Baking Co. Baked from scratch with wholesome, fresh ingredients and no artificial preservatives, this collection of a dozen beautiful, all natural cookie roses is sure to make any Mom smile. The Deers have baked up twelve crisp, buttery sugar cookies decorated by hand in cheerful spring pink, yellow and cream, with a green icing leaf at each base. The bouquet is charmingly wrapped like a dozen long stem roses in bright tissue and natural abaca fabric, and tied with a delicate fuchsia bow. “This unique gift makes a lovely present for your mom, your wife, or your daughter,” notes Dancing Deer Director of Marketing, Laura Stanton, “Who wouldn’t love to open and eat a box of pretty edible roses?” In addition to the attractive bouquet of one dozen decorated rose cookies, Dancing Deer has also added a unique feature to their online store that allows consumers an option to add a sweet mini-bouquet of three decorated rose cookies to any delicious Dancing Deer gift item for Mother’s Day.

Founded in 1994, Dancing Deer bakes yummy cakes, cookies and brownies from scratch with the finest ingredients and nothing artificial. Dancing Deer is passionate about food, nature, aesthetics and community and believe that when people are happy it shows in the food. The signature Molasses Clove Cookie has earned national attention among discerning foodies. Dancing Deer’s rich, decadent brownies have been called “a connoisseur’s nirvana,” by USA Today. Company innovative business practices combine a dedication to great taste with a strong commitment to community recognized by national awards and accolades. Dancing Deer is also one of the first recipients of Boston’s Sustainable Business Leader certification.

Look for Dancing Deer goodies and gifts on the web at www.DancingDeer.com and in gourmet, natural food, and grocery stores nationwide.

Taste Test: Fancy brownie mixes

It took Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, a.k.a. the Baked guys, a year of testing before they signed off on their new line of premium brownie mixes, and that got us wondering about the market for such things.

Brownies are easy to make from scratch; maybe some folks don’t like to keep chocolate on hand or want to bother with measuring ingredients. Mixes offer uniformity and ease.

So we gathered five up-market brands that tout really good chocolate and promise an artisan hand or better flavor than regular boxed-mix brands on the baking aisle. They range in price from less than $4 to $16.

The brownies were baked according to their individual package directions, with specific times and pan sizes. We only added parchment paper to the bottom of the pans to help with brownie removal. Brownies were cooled overnight before cutting.

Our six-member panel had one center-cut brownie from each brand, rating the squares on taste, chocolate intensity and overall impressions.

The results? It’s better to crack some eggs than pour some oil. When fudgy was promised, fudgy was delivered. . .
The winner. (Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post)

1. Williams-Sonoma Brownie Mix (Dancing Deer Baking Co.)
Williams-Sonoma stores, $16
20 servings/200 calories per brownie
First three ingredients: Pure cane sugar, cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate chunks
Need to add: 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, 4 eggs
(Received 4 out of 6 overall votes)
Tasters’ comments (a compilation): Moist, straightforward yet not overly sweet; intense with chunks of chocolate and maybe a hint of coffee

Dancing Deer donates cakes, cash

One of the best-kept secrets in Boston is in a nondescript industrial park in Hyde Park. At the risk of leaking classified Christmas intelligence, the Globe has learned that Santa Claus may be operating a secret satellite workshop, in addition to his North Pole headquarters.

The name of the operation: Dancing Deer Baking Co.

Inside Dancing Deer’s 50,000-square-foot building, sweet smells of peppermint and just-baked brownies fill the air. To the left are deep wells of gooey chocolate, to the right legions of spicy gingerbread men are being pulled from living-room-sized ovens, and in the corner thousands of hand-decorated cookies in the shapes of mittens and snowflakes are being wrapped, with hand-tied red bows atop each.

Dancing Deer is putting the finishing touches on yet another successful holiday season. There is a sense of satisfied relief in the air. Santa would be proud.

“We go from shipping 12,000 packages on Monday to 3,000 on Wednesday,’’ said a weary but satisfied Frank Carpenito, president and chief executive of Dancing Deer Baking Co.

Dancing Deer reports it does a full one-third of its business in the month of December, so Carpenito has reason to be tired and reason to be pleased.

Besides a job well done this holiday season, Carpenito says he enjoys a special satisfaction in the company’s partnership with Globe Santa, The Boston Globe’s annual appeal for funds to provide gifts for thousands of children in Eastern Massachusetts who might otherwise not have presents to open on Christmas morning.

Noting that times have been very difficult for so many people the last few years, Carpenito said: “I’ve been fortunate in my career not to be in need. Any way professionally and personally that we can give back is our goal.’’

The team at Dancing Deer has been on overdrive for months making sure all the carefully packaged cakes and cookies reach their destinations by Christmas. During these busy months the company runs nearly 24 hours a day to get it done.

The work for Globe Santa started back in July as the company began preparations to bake 60,000 cookies for special fund-raising gift packages. Last month, Dancing Deer began offering the packages — full of cookies, brownies, and cakes — online, with $5 from each sale donated to Globe Santa. This year, Carpenito expects to raise more than $2,000 for the charity. The company also donated thousands of cookies for Globe Santa fund-raising events.

For Carpenito and Dancing Deer, giving back to the community is woven into the fabric of the business. The company operates with a “double bottom line,’’ Carpenito said. “We are focused first on delivering on our commitment to our shareholders. But the second bottom line is our commitment to philanthropy, the community, the environment, and our social mission around the way we do business.’’

It’s clear from the company’s history that these commitments are solid. “Reading the stories in the paper really helps you understand the impact you can have on people’s lives,’’ Carpenito said. “As a company we care a lot about that.’’

Founded in 1994 in West Roxbury, the all-natural gourmet bakery was recently recognized as one of the first 23 Certified Sustainable Business Leaders in the state for its attention to environmentally sound practices.

In 2002, Dancing Deer began a relationship with the One Family Foundation funded by the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation, which helps “homeless and at-risk mothers and fathers get back on their feet through education.’’ The company donates 35 percent of the retail value of their Sweet Home products to the foundation.

Last spring the company created a matching fund for Haiti, raising more than $5,000 for disaster relief following a devastating earthquake.

Many things make Dancing Deer Baking Co. stand out from the crowd. The award-winning brownies and chocolate espresso cake are just two of those things. It’s their big-picture outlook, the second bottom line, that makes Carpenito and the company’s nearly 200 employees special.

Back on the production floor, Carpenito does not forget the details. As he walked by two pallets of boxes ready to be shipped earlier this week, he stopped to examine several shipping labels. “I thought I saw some Second Day Air mixed in with the Overnights,’’ he said.

Now correctly sorted, the boxes will be loaded onto an 18-wheeler and shipped to waiting households. It will be the last shipment of cookies, brownies, and cakes that will reach their destinations before Christmas — promising to bring more cheer to more cookie-lovers this holiday season.

Dancing Deer Baking Co. Delivers Gourmet Gifts

Boston Bakeries: Not sure what to get that hard-to-buy-for person on your list this holiday season? Call the folks at Dancing Deer Baking Company and they will find the perfect gift for you. Located just minutes from the Dedham town line, the Boston baking company creates up to 400 packages daily during the off-season but in peak holiday packaging, the company churns out up to 1,600 each day.

“We hire a lot of seasonal employees for about eight to 10 weeks, pushing our total employees up to around 200,” said Frank Carpenito, president and chief executive officer of Dancing Deer Baking Co, which has been in its current location for two years moving previously from Roxbury. “We do all of our products in small batches to keep that home baked flavor. All of our products are natural. We do not use preservatives.”

Inside the enormous 50,000-square-foot bakery and distribution facility on a behind the scenes tour, I learned there is a unique balance between both the automated and manual preparation that goes into the design and creation of each and every baked good that is produced here. For example, all of the brownies are funneled and weighed manually on trays then cut by an automated single blade, sent to a cooling room and then de-panned. “The combination of both automated and manual keeps the artisan quality of our products,” Carpenito said. “All of our cookies are decorated by hand then hand packaged, bagged, sealed and then boxed. The brownies have a shelf life of 14 days while it’s 18 days for cookies. Once they are ready for packaging, they go through a metal detector for food safety. Each year we hire an independent auditor for food safety and we just scored an excellent. Our goal is quality and consistency and being able to over deliver what the customer is expecting.”

With more than 100 different all-natural gift options this holiday that range from $19.95 to $150, Dancing Deer offers something for everyone. Don’t miss their signature flurry gift tower, which includes everything from triple chocolate chip shortbread cookies, peppermint snowflake shortbread cookies, snickerdoodle cookies, chocolate chunk brownies and hand-decorated red mitten cookies.

The gourmet sandwich cookies were a huge hit — chewy vanilla cookies with a thin layer of rich chocolate ganache in the middle. Admittedly, the signature molasses clove cookie just might be one of my most favorite addictions yet. Dancing Deer even prepares a great breakfast gift basket filled with tea, coffee, a bottle of pure Vermont maple syrup, buttermilk pancake mix and pumpkin spice pancake mix.

For more information or to place an order, call (888) 699-3337 or visit them online at www.dancingdeer.com.

CSR Holiday Gifts for the Conscious Consumer

As we enter the season of holiday giving at work, we are confronted with the dilemma of deciding how to celebrate with colleagues without trivializing the challenges of the crippling economy. With every gift shipped to customers, a message is sent about a brand’s core values. Against a backdrop of suffocating unemployment and unprecedented hardship, smart companies are looking for ways to demonstrate social consciousness while establishing an emotional connection with customers.

As 2010 comes to a close, the stage is set for a more enlightened year of corporate giving. The logical alternative to the proverbial fruit basket is Corporate Social Responsibility Gifting (CSR Gifting). CSR Gifting offers the opportunity to provide unique and thoughtful gifts for clients while serving a broader social purpose.

In this holiday spirit, I present twelve CSR Gift ideas for companies with a social conscience:

6.    Dancing Deer Baking Company - Dancing Deer offers wonderful cookies, gingerbread and dark chocolates. 35% of the proceeds go directly to helping homeless mothers and their children.

In challenging economic times, it is more important than ever to show appreciation for customers, but perhaps the days of simply throwing money around to make an impression are over. We may have unwittingly arrived at the dawn of a new era in business, where genuine connections between brands and customers are forged based on a shared belief in social purpose. As Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”