Restaurants: Life is shortbread

A classically trained opera singer, Amy Goetz says she wasn't "diva enough" to pursue a lifetime musical career. And the owner of local favorite Bramblewood Treats (www.bramblewoodtreats.com) is certainly taking a very un-diva turn this year. She is downsizing her business to take care of her ailing parents -- and rediscover her love of getting her hands dirty in the process.

Goetz's buttery shortbread, based on her Nova Scotian great-grandmother Viola Hadley Kirk's recipe, has been her livelihood for 16 years. Sold at upscale grocery stores and gourmet foods markets throughout the Twin Cities, as well as at various farmers markets, the delightfully dense treats made the transition from her mother's kitchen to a commercial one when she enlisted the help of a co-packer to produce larger quantities of her family's beloved cookie. But Goetz found that bigger isn't always better. The co-packer's decision last year to use new equipment that made the shortbread more brittle and crumbly led her to discontinue their partnership and reexamine her business plan.

"I always had this idea that going big was the thing to do, but ... sometimes you give up the thing you love the most," she says. "It's my great-grandmother's recipe. I can't sell it without selling a piece of my soul."

When cancer was diagnosed in her mother and stepfather three months apart, the decision to scale back became obvious. When her mother suggested that Goetz bake her new inventory in the Tangletown kitchen where the business started, the pieces started coming together again. "I felt myself pull back together. I started this to bake and share treats, not go into business," Goetz says.

So for 2011, Goetz's game plan is simple: sell her signature shortbread, along with cream scones, coconut macaroons, hand-rolled caramels, fudgy brownies and sweet popcorn, at the Mill City and White Bear Lake farmers markets while keeping her wholesale business on hold. Thanks to the state's "pickle bill" for nonperishable food items, Goetz can sell treats that are baked in her mother's kitchen as long as she discloses their origin. This allows her to help her parents and still churn out enough baked goods -- one pan at a time -- to keep her fans full of shortbread.

"This home is very meaningful. My parents were married here. ... I grew up in south Minneapolis and it's my favorite part of the Twin Cities," she says.

Because the shortbread isn't being mass-produced, Goetz has the opportunity to experiment with its base recipe and create new flavors throughout the farmers market season. In addition to perennial favorites lemon zest, espresso chocolate chip, orange chocolate chip and lavender ginger, customers may find orange black pepper or rose varieties from time to time.

"It didn't feel right to have the business go away, and it didn't feel right to sell it, either," she says. "I do this because people love it."