Johnny & Elle’s Rustic Gourmet
A From Scratch, Family Operated, Rustic Gourmet Handmade Bakery
Johnny & Elle’s Gourmet Bakery & Spice Blends offers unique, quality, items made by the hands of Johnny & Elle. Together, over 30 years working from scratch in catering, festivals, events, and gourmet grocery items. We’re taking our expertise over the years and paving our own path, creating unique recipes and products that are the best in textural and flavor contrast as well as fortification. We are big fans of “Staying In Your Lane” or “Knowing Your Strengths” in the culinary world, so we are sticking to our core traits, our strengths, and staying in our lane. Each of our handmade items has our fingerprint on it, our history, our culinary expertise, and are created to be the best and most unique items you can get your hands on. We truly appreciate taking the time and consideration to see what Johnny & Elle’s has to offer.
Featured Products
Johnny and Elle are masters of seasonings, and pizza is a specialty. Johnny authored The Chicago Pizza Cookbook available here on Amazon, after over a decade of home experiments, note taking, adaptations, making and remaking pizzas to find the perfect fat and flour types for certain desired outcomes. Along this journey, Johnny perfected his Spicy Pizza Seasoning, a flavor profile familiar to Chicago tavern pizzas.
When you walk into a pizza joint and smell that sweet and bitter burnt flour smell coming off the decks of the pizza ovens, that’s one of the smells of Johnny’s childhood. This blend of seasonings is a combination, in perfect balance, to add to your favorite local pizza, frozen, or homemade pizzas. Simply mix in with quality crushed tomatoes for a marinara style dipping sauce for mozzarella sticks, breadsticks, garlic bread, et cetera. Mix in olive oil with some fresh grated Parmesan or Romano cheese and dip some quality, crusty, French or Italian bread for a nice appetizer.
Flavors and Aromatics of Note: Herbaceous, oregano, basil, earthy.
Uses: Dash over any cooked pizza, mix with tomatoes to make pizza sauce for homemade pizza, mix with olive oil and fresh grated parmesan or romano cheeses and dip quality French or Italian bread, dash over your morning eggs, on garlic bread for extra zip.
Ingredients: granulated garlic, granulated onion, sea salt (sea salt, magnesium carbonate), oregano, red pepper flakes, basil.
Shortbread cookies are classic, classic traditional cookie that doesn’t have egg or leavening. A lot of modern interpretations of Shortbread Cookies have been altered to include binders, leavening, or other conditioners to bypass the laborious process of making a delicious, luscious, decadent Shortbread Cookie. To us, a Classic, Traditional, Luscious Shortbread Cookie is almost like eating just the crust from a pie.
Our shortbread cookies are cut thick, exposing the butter in these cookies to warmth for a longer period of time. This allows the butter to melt down, coat your mouth, and leave a luscious rich buttery coating for a euphoric experience. These cookies are meant to be enjoyed slowly, to truly be ‘in the moment’ while you are indulging in our shortbread cookies is our best advice.
What makes ours excellent: Made with curated, high quality ingredients and cut a bit thicker than normal for a more luscious, euphoric experience indulging in our shortbread cookies. These are like the pie crust crumbles that you get to eat when your guest are gone, that guilty pleasure only you know when your guests have gone.
Flavors Of Note: Decadent, Rich, Buttery
Textures Of Note: Soft, Luscious, Creamy
The taste of toasted pecans is a favorite of ours at Johnny And Elles Handmade Kitchen, a carryover from our days catering Cajun & Creole food. By browning the butter first, and salting the cookies with Maldon sea salt, and finally toasting the pecans before adding to the dough, we bring out the rich, luscious fats from the butter and the pecans. Maldon sea salt flakes help open up your tastebuds for the rolling flavors of pure cane sugar, bittersweet Ghirardelli chocolate chips, and a touch of whole wheat flour for deep, luscious, rich flavors.
If you are a fan of sweet and salty, earthy, rich, luscious classic cookie styles, then our Brown Butter Salted Pecan Gourmet Cookies are in your wheelhouse.
What makes ours excellent: Made with curated, high quality ingredients and shaped a bit thicker than normal for more decadent, luscious, experience while it takes time to break down a thicker cookie, coating your mouth in rich butterfat, toasted pecan oils, rolling between the contrast of sweet and salty, dark and earthy.
Flavors Of Note: Nutty, Buttery, Earthy
Textures Of Note: Luscious, Crackly, Tender
Johnny & Elle’s Handmade Kitchen