Meet the small business owners bringing unique cookie concoctions to the Bay Area
Sometimes at the end of a long, chilly autumn day, all you need is a big warm homemade cookie.
No one knows that better than Amy Wong and Lawrance Combs, co-founders of Batch 22 Bakery. Every week, the small business owners make thick, gooey pudges — which is a special nickname for their 6 oz. cookies — out of their home kitchen in Cupertino.
But these aren’t just any old cookies. Batch 22’s flavors range from the All-American Chocolate Chip to Asian-inspired Ube and Matcha cookies. Special seasonal pudges make their way into the menu, like Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread during the fall, and Pink Lemonade and S’mores during the summer months.
Cookie lovers can snag a batch by ordering online at Batch 22’s website. Wong and Combs offer deliveries to anyone living in Santa Clara County, but customers can also pick up cookies at Batch 22’s pop-up shops in Cupertino. Outside of the county, people can buy pudges at selected retail stores, like Ponyo Foods in Milbrae or Tea on Piedmont in Oakland.
Batch 22 was born in the midst of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and has only grown since then. The business’s Instagram boasts more than 4,700 followers as of Oct. 18, and Wong bakes around 200 to 300 cookies a day to fulfill anywhere from 10 to 35 orders. The bakery will expand into a brick-and-mortar shop at 15466 Los Gatos Blvd at the end of this year.
We recently asked Wong and Combs about Batch 22. Their answers are edited for length and clarity.
Q: What is the meaning behind Batch 22?
Lawrance: In the beginning we came through a bunch of different options. We came across Amy’s bakery, but then we thought everybody does that … Amy has a punny sense of humor, so we wanted to make the name some sort of pun or some sort of joke almost. We decided on Batch 22, batch being batch of cookies and Catch 22 being the impossible decision. I thought that it worked very well for selling cookies to people.
Q: What inspired you to start a cookie business?
Lawrance: At first we thought maybe we would start (selling) milk bread, (Amy) was making so many during the pandemic, but she had already battle tested all these cookies. She used to go to the gym and hand out cookies she was testing to random gym goers … They were so good everyone looked forward to them, and the bread wasn’t quite there yet.
Amy: After I had my first Levain Cookie in 2016, I’ve been trying to recreate it. Eventually I did have my own recipe for Oatmeal Raisin, and then I started to make other cookies. I had been testing cookies for three or four years by then . Now people ask me if I would ever branch out to other stuff, but I’m like, no, there are so many other flavors I could make. Cookies are such a specialty, they are so deceptive. They look so simple but are actually quite difficult to master and to create the same thing over and over … tackling new flavors of cookies is enough of a challenge.
Q: What was it like launching Batch 22 during the pandemic?
Amy: We were in the early phase of the pop up bakers. I know there are still a lot of them around, but that was kind of how it first started. A lot of people were at home and lots of people were like ”I’m at home let me try to bake and let me try to sell stuff for pick up.” It was just fun to be part of that early crowd.
Lawrance: I think we grew really fast too, because we promoted a lot of the Instagram reviews and love, all of it was mostly positive … That was the perfect environment though. If people were at work, if everyone was still working at the time, I think it wouldn’t have been as effective. It would have just taken us longer to get where we’re at.
Q: How do you get inspiration for your flavor combinations?
Amy: Some of them are your fall classics or American classics. We try to make it better, or make it the way we want, like less sweet or more complex and flavor forward. Some are more innovative like Pink Lemonade, but then there is a category for Asian flavors like Ube Dulcey or Matcha White Chocolate.
Lawrance: I think the inspiration strikes randomly. We will just be having a random conversation and Amy won’t have been working on any new flavors for a while. It will just click and she’ll be like, “Oh we can make this flavor.” Then she’s on it for six weeks straight until it’s ready or it never sees the light of day.
Q: How does a cookie idea make it onto the menu?
Amy: I usually do a few versions and figure out what is the major problem. I’ll get stuck when its 80% or 90% complete. That’s where the most time intensive part is, just finessing that little issue — maybe it’s not tea forward enough, or maybe it’s a little too sweet … sometimes you find different ingredients to source and that makes all the difference.
Lawrance: There are a lot of cookies Amy made that are really good, like eight out of 10 that are almost there, but then we won’t release them. It’s like the one thing that’s not quite right. She’s been getting really into the food science stuff, she bought food science books to try and solve these problems because that one thing will just bother her enough that she’s like, ‘No I’m not releasing it.”
Q: What are your favorite cookies?
Lawrance: I’m always a sucker for campfire (S’mores-flavored cookie)
Amy: I’m torn between Corn Flake, which is a sweet salty cookie and it’s got miso cornflake crunch we make in house and marshmallow it’s such a complex flavor bomb. I actually eat Ube Dulcey the most.
Amy Wong
Age: 31
Position: Co-founder and baker
Residence: Sunnyvale
Education: York University, Communication Studies
Hometown: Cupertino
5 things to know about Amy
1. She loves to work out
2. She reads 100 books a year
3. Her favorite part about running Batch 22 is figuring out the science behind cookie making
4. Her all-time favorite cookie is the Dulcey Chocolate Chip cookie. Dulcey is a caramelized white chocolate
5. She teaches herself about food science, and would like to study the field in the future.
Lawrance Combs
Age: 30
Position: Co-founder
Residence: Sunnyvale
Hometown: Salinas
5 things to know about Lawrance
1. Works as a competitive youth gymnastics coach
2. He’s a big chess nerd
3. He’s interested in investing
4. Despite running a cookie business, his live revolves around health and fitness
5. He’s a homebody