And, remember, ask for Jax, so I know who you are.
Mom’s Molten Chocolate Cakes
Makes 4 single-serve cakes
Ingredients
1 stick unsalted butter
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
2 egg yolks
2 eggs
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 450°F.
2. Spray the insides of 4 ramekins with baking spray. Put the ramekins on a baking sheet.
3. Microwave the butter and chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl for 1 minute. The butter should be almost all melted. The chocolate won’t be completely melted.
4. Whisk the butter and chocolate mixture until smooth.
5. Separate two egg yolks from their whites: Crack both eggs into a bowl without breaking the yolks. Then take an empty, disposable plastic water bottle, squeeze it, hold the opening to a yolk, and then release to suck the yolk into the bottle. Repeat with the second yolk. Then deposit both yolks into a clean bowl by squeezing the bottle and pouring them out.
6. Beat the egg yolks, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract in an electric mixer on high or with a whisk until the mixture is thick.
7. Fold the butter and chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
8. Add the flour to the mixture gradually. Don’t overmix.
9. Divide the batter into the 4 ramekins.
10. Bake the cakes for 8 to 12 minutes or until the cakes have risen over the sides of the ramekins and the tops of the cakes no longer jiggle when the baking sheet is given a little shake. The cake centers should still be soft.
11. Remove the cakes from the oven and let them cool for 1 minute.
12. Cover the cakes with upside-down dessert plates, flip the ramekins over, and remove the ramekins from the cakes. Eat immediately!
Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 3 dozen cookies
Ingredients
1 cup light brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 pinch of salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
18 ounces semisweet chocolate, in bars
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Cut parchment paper to cover baking sheets.
3. Put the light brown sugar, granulated sugar, and softened butter into a large mixing bowl and cream together in an electric mixer on medium.
4. In a small bowl, crack the eggs and mix them with the vanilla extract.
5. Combine the egg mixture with the sugar and butter mixture and mix thoroughly on medium.
6. In another bowl, combine the baking soda, salt, and all-purpose flour.
7. Add the flour mixture to the sugar and butter mixture in the large bowl and mix on low. Don’t overmix.
8. Break the chocolate bars into chunks.
9. Add the chocolate, coconut, and walnuts to the mixture and stir with a spoon.
10. Once combined, scoop the dough out with a tablespoon and place the balls on the baking sheet. Leave about two fingers width between each cookie.
11. Bake cookies for 12 minutes.
12. Remove cookies from the oven and leave on the baking sheet for 1 minute. Then, transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool.
Rookie Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts*
Parental supervision necessary for frying
Makes 8 doughnuts and 8 doughnut holes
Ingredients
Vegetable oil
1 (8-count) tube of premade, large biscuit dough (found in the refrigerated dough aisle at supermarkets)
½ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Directions
1. Fill a large saucepan with vegetable oil to a depth of 1 inch.
2. Heat oil over medium heat until it reaches 365°F. You can measure the temperature with a cooking oil thermometer. Or, drop a single kernel of popcorn into the oil as it’s heating. When the kernel pops, you’re ready to fry.
3. While the oil heats, open the biscuit tube and separate the rounds. Use a 1-inch-round cookie cutter to cut a hole in the center of each biscuit. Save the holes.
4. Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a large shallow bowl.
5. Add 2 doughnuts to the hot oil at a time. Cook, turning once, until golden brown—about 1 minute per side.
6. Drain on paper towels and immediately toss in the cinnamon sugar to coat. Cool on a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining doughnuts and holes.
* Ready to graduate from rookie to experienced baker? You can make the Doughnut Stop’s life-changing chocolate cream doughnuts too. Visit jessiejanowitz.com for the original recipe.
The Cheat Sheet
(No, that doesn’t mean you’re a cheater! It means you’re smart enough to read past the last page, so you get a recap of important information for starting your own business.)
The Secret: Find Your Thing
Okay, you’ve got a business idea. Great. Here’s what you need to ask before you get started:
• Do I know anything about this?
• If not, keep looking.
Hint: What do you like to do? Eat chocolate? Skateboard? Draw bunny cartoons? That’s where your business idea is.
The Lingo (a.k.a. Fancy Words You Need to Know)
No, you can’t skip this part, or people will rip you off and your business will fail before you even start. Is that what you want? Yeah, didn’t think so.
Business Plan
an explanation of what your business is, how it works, and why it will be a hit
Hint: If you’re having trouble with this, you’re not starting the right business. Go back and find thing.
Hook
the thing that makes your product especially cool
Still don’t get what a hook is? Some examples:
Our shoes are made from recycled milk cartons—cool!
Our pencil cases turn into rain jackets—cool!
Our Popsicles make you nicer—huh? But still, cool!
If you don’t have a hook, you’re in trouble. Oh, and if you can’t explain the hook in one sentence, it’s not really a hook.
Revenue
money you get from selling your product
Be realistic. People won’t spend a million dollars on a bunny cartoon even if it is really cute and funny.
Costs
the money you spend to run your business
Costs include stuff like what you spend to make your product or pay your workers or rent your store/office.
Profit
the money you make from your business
Don’t confuse this with revenue. Profit is the money you get from customers minus all the money you have to pay to keep your business going.
Actually important math you will need to figure out your profit:
Subtract your costs from your revenue.
$ Profits = $ Revenue – $ Costs
Budget
what you guess your revenue, costs, and profits will be
Hint: You can’t just make this up. You have to do research to figure out what your costs are actually going to be and how much people will actually pay for whatever it is you’re selling.
Contract
an agreement
When you make a deal with anyone, get what you and the other person are agreeing to in writing and make sure you both sign it.
Negotiate
to talk
your way to a better deal
This takes practice, but it’s worth it. And, no, you can’t get arrested for negotiating, though people may yell at you.
Hint: Never take anyone’s first offer.
Investors
people who lend you money to start your business and share in the profits
Hint: People don’t invest to be nice even if they’re related to you. They will invest if they believe in your product, and they see that you believe in it too. They can’t get excited about your business unless you are.
Buzz
when people get so excited about your product that they talk it up all over town and on the internet
The Game Plan: Now What?
Once you’ve got the lingo down, make a road map, something like:
• Step 1: Come up with a business plan and hook.
• Step 2: Figure out a budget.
• Step 3: Make sure your product does what it’s supposed to. (It can’t just be a cool idea; it has to work.)
• Step 4: Pitch investors.
• Step 5: Negotiate and make deals with investors and people you will need to buy things from to make your product.
• Step 6: Create buzz.
• Step 7: Launch business!
Then give each step a deadline so you won’t look up in a year and realize you never got past Step 1. Timelines have also been shown to prevent people from chickening out.
The Starting Line: 3, 2, 1…Start Your Business!
Go!
What are you still doing here? You know where to come if you need a quick refresher, but right now, you need to go find your thing, and that’s all you, so get going!
Acknowledgments
Writing a book is not so different from making pudding: you stir and stir and wonder whether your story will actually come together before your arm falls off. I am so grateful to everyone who gave me the tools and the encouragement to keep stirring:
My mother especially, who first taught me how, writing down my stories before I could write them myself, though their plots bore a striking similarity to that of Star Wars.
The women who so generously read drafts of this book and offered feedback: Rebecca Sokolovsky, Amy Fontaine, Noël Claro, Dagmar Gleditzsch, Rebecca Kirshenbaum, and Randall de Sève.
The Rutgers Council on Children’s Literature and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for giving me the tools to send my pudding out into the world.
My incredible friends at Vermont College of Fine Arts for supporting me, and the amazing faculty for focusing me on what’s important and sharing inspiring stirring advice.
My agent, Carrie Hannigan, and her assistant, Tanusri Prasanna, at the Hannigan Salky Getzler Agency for falling in love with these characters and believing that others would too.
My editor Annie Berger for wanting to bring this story to young readers. This book is so much stronger because of her guidance. A huge thank-you also to everyone else at Sourcebooks who worked on this project, especially Elizabeth Boyer, production editor; Nicole Hower, cover designer; as well as Nina Goffi, cover illustrator. I couldn’t be happier.
My smart, talented, loving friends because stirring would be impossible without knowing they have my back. Without naming names, please forgive me for borrowing Tawatty Tawatty Dabu Dabu.
My father for always believing I could conquer anything I set my mind to.
My brother, Will, who I can always talk to about the painful stirring and know he’ll get it, for his constant support.
And finally, the home team—Toby, who was the first to say I was good enough; Leo, who first called me an author; Sylvie, who always, always believes; and Eddie, who asked, “Are you doing what makes you happy?”—none of this is possible without you.
About the Author
Jessie Janowitz grew up in New York City and is still living there with her husband and three children, all of whom love doughnuts as much as she does.
Thank you for reading!
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The Doughnut Fix Series, Book 1 Page 19
