Berger Cookies

[IMGCAP(1)]For chocolate lovers and chocoholics everywhere, the infamous Berger cookie has become an indigenous institution to all wonderful things Epicurean in Baltimore.Nationwide, taking its dubious place alongside our own beloved steamed blue crabs, mention the Berger cookie and the mouths of its devotees water for the renowned, oversized literal mountain of rich dark pure chocolate fudge towering atop a vanilla wafer.So how did this most sinfully guilty pleasure combining a baked good with a candy like confection all come about? It’s history is as substantial as its chocolate topping.According to current owner Charles DeBaufre 2nd, it all began in 1835 when the two Berger brothers moved from Germany to Baltimore. One of the brothers was a baker who founded the very first Berger Bakery in the Fells Point area. The cookie was just one of many Epicurean delights, along with cakes, pastries, breads, and an assortment of cookies.

The bakery kept moving northbound in the city and Berger soon had his three sons, George, Henry, and Karl, all actively involved in the family business. Each son opened his own bakery as well, seizing this lucrative business opportunity, and thus began servicing Baltimore’s three main area markets; Lexington Market, Northeast Market, and Bel Air Market.After George and Karl died, Henry, around 1910, passed the burgeoning business to an employee, C.E. Russell, who likewise kept the bakery flourishing, finally handing down the business to his son C. Edmund Russell, who passed it on to his sons, Dennis and C.E.3rd. In 1969, the business was purchased by two former employees, brothers Benjamin and Charles DeBaufre, Sr., who then branched out the business even further.And that’s where Charles Sr.’s son, Charles 2nd, came into the present picture, as he relates the story. “I had started out in the business around 1973. We had no sales force at the time. Back then we had what we called “jobbers” who sold the cookies and cakes to the stores. I took over as a jobber and serviced the stores.[IMGCAP(2)]“One of our biggest original clients in the mid-1970’s was Valley View Farms. This was in their gift food shop before they had a deli,” he said, “and they carried our cakes and cookies. We serviced at least 40 food stores including independent grocery stores as well.”By 1978, the younger DeBeaufre had taken over the day to day operation and production, overseeing the bakery itself. Through the years he added about 65 Highs stores, more than doubling the bakery’s servicing output. “Every time a new Highs store opened,” DeBaufre said, “we added it in. Along the way, we have serviced selected franchises of Royal Farms stores and 7-11 stores. In the last year, Giant Grocery Stores started carrying our cookies.”Since its inception nearly two centuries ago, the fledgling first Berger Bakery, which successfully developed into the corporation now known as DeBaufre Bakery Inc., has dabbled with such delectable baked treats as a cinnamon crumb topped cake, real fruit flavored and iced cakes in lemon, strawberry, orange and the oh so wondrous scented cherry flavored. In recent years, the business has focused solely on its chocolate, pound, and coconut cakes, and well of course, the chocolate Berger cookie.So what does DeBaufre attribute to the Berger cookie’s success? He musingly said, “I always ask people, do you love chocolate? And if the answer is yes, the rest just naturally falls into place. The bottom portion of the cookie is a vanilla wafer with virtually no taste at all. That’s intentional. That way, the wafer doesn’t detract from or lose its flavor to the flavor of the chocolate fudge on top.“It really is just the basis to hold the heaping flavorful mound of rich, pure semisweet fudge on top,” he said. “Industrial mixers make the chocolate fudge, a homestyle recipe that is classic and which has never changed.”DeBaufre said two things which occurred in 1994 literally put the Berger cookie on the national map. “We started a mail order business then, and about that time, a reporter from The Baltimore Sun called me about writing an article regarding gifts from Maryland for family and friends nationwide. The reporter asked me if we did anything and I just mentioned that we did cookie tins.“Well that statement appeared in just a mere paragraph of the article and before I knew it, with absolutely no advertising, we had orders for a whopping 375 cookie tins that year. So we created a whole new niche market via word of mouth. Now we regularly do advertising and we regularly ship cookie tins during three holidays; Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day.”[IMGCAP(3)]DeBaufre said cookie production and sales dramatically increase during these holidays. “We ship approximately 4,000 tins of cookies during the Christmas holidays alone.”DeBaufre places a toll-free phone number (800-398-2236) in every tin. “Then, people who get the cookie tins as gifts, in Maryland and all over the country, create more word of mouth and they place mail orders for our regular boxed cookies year round,” he said. “We get e-mails and letters. We currently have some 30 corporate clients along with our regular customer base.”In May of last year, DeBaufre knew the business was in need of expansion and moved the operation. Last located on Aiken Street encompassing some 3,000-square-feet, the bakery moved to its current 12,000-square-foot location on Waterview Avenue.Additionally, the bakery has set up its own Web site, www.bergercookies.com, on which orders can be placed.DeBaufre said national mail order business is booming. Some of their largest out-of-state orders come from Florida, which has a huge population of native Baltimoreans.With about 8 million Berger cookies baked and sold per year, the treat is a chocolate connoisseur’s fantasy fulfilled.