Baked with love: Dohful handcrafted cookies are being shipped all across India with an international touch
A unique combination of flavour and texture with every bite, Dohful makes sure cookie lovers out there get a genuine cookie experience, from their peanut butter marble cookies, chocolate chunk, oatmeal raisin, Macadamia nut to Nutella lava, their cookies are handcrafted solely for you.
Ever had those dessert cravings, and longed for a delicious cookie, but haven’t seemed to find one that was baked freshly out of the oven just for you?
Maybe you have even travelled overseas and loved eating chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin or Macadamia nut cookies with your evening cup of coffee and longed for cookies of international quality standards, with carefully selected ingredients here in India.
Look no further. In order to satiate those taste buds and ease those longings, 'Dohful' brings you exactly what you are looking for in your favorite tea time snack, a wholesome, genuine cookie experience.
Dohful cookies are baked fresh on order.
Dohful' is an online handcrafted cookie company that makes large-sized, individually wrapped cookies. The cookies can be ordered via dohful.com and are shipped all across India.
“Each Dohful cookie is at least 52 gms each. And all our cookies are 100% eggless and contain no preservatives whatsoever. All Dohful cookies are baked fresh on order and we don’t stock any inventory. The cookies have a natural shelf life of 30 days," says Arushi Sachdeva, Co-founder of Dohful.
In an exclusive interview with YSWeekender, Arushi Sachdeva, Co-Founder of Dohful Cookies, talks about her passion for baking, the inspiration behind starting her own cookie brand along with her husband Chaman, and about their handcrafted best-selling cookies that can now be shipped nationwide.
YSW: When was ‘Dohful’ founded and what was the inspiration/goal behind it?
AS: Dohful was started because of our love for cookies.
I was first introduced to Soft Baked Cookies when I was on my honeymoon in Europe. The kind of cookies we had there were very different from the ones available in India.
They were way gooier and more flavourful than I had ever had! And both Chaman and I fell in love with them. We used to search for coffee shops famous for their cookies and go and try them out.
Back at home, we searched for similar cookies far and wide but didn't find anything remotely resembling the experience we had there.
So, we decided to make our own. And that's how Dohful was started.
We started experimenting with our recipes back in mid-2018 and it took us good 70 days to crack our first recipe which was the chocolate chunk cookie.
Finally, dohful.com went live in November 2018.
YSW: Where are your headquarters, and why the name ‘Dohful?’
AS: Basically, 'Doh' is the cute little puppy version of Dough. And the suffix 'ful' comes from the fact that cookies are wholesome, fulfilling treats as they provide the right amount of carbs, proteins, and energy for you to kick-start your day.
So, I guess what we’re saying is - what's in a name? That which we call a cookie, by any other name would smell just as Dohful!
We bake all our cookies in New Delhi and ship them across India.
Their Nutella lava cookie and chocolate brownie cookies are bestsellers.
YSW: How did your passion for baking start, was this something that you picked up early on in life?
AS: I have been interested in baking for a long time now. My mom is actually an avid baker and it just flowed from there.
My teen and college years were spent trying out baked goodies like Brownies and cakes with my mom. I was in Mumbai back then and used to love going to bakeries, exploring new stuff and then I used to try to make similar things at home.
But never in my life did I consider my skills to be of professional stature. And as life passed on, these things took a back seat and I became busy with my day job and then I came to IMT-Ghaziabad to do my MBA.
My passion for finding the right kind of cookies actually led me to reignite things with baking.
YSW: Who are some of the chefs, bakers and other individuals in the culinary world who have inspired you.
AS: Lately, I have been greatly inspired by Christina Tosi, the founder of Milk Bar, New York City. I think she understands desserts, cravings, and nostalgia and her way of approaching a dessert is very fresh which I love.
YSW: What makes you stand out from the other cookie companies and bakeries out there?
AS: We are one of the first to introduce soft baked cookies to India. Our cookies are way different from what has been available till now.
I think there are two very unique things about Dohful. One, we make soft-baked cookies. They are quite special as the texture is somewhere between a cake and a crunchy cookie.
The cookies are slightly crunchy at the edges but very soft and gooey once you bite into them, creating flavours and textures which have never been experienced before.
The other is that all our cookies are baked after we receive the order every single time.
Each pack of Dohful cookies that you receive was baked specially for you. We don’t keep any inventory and bake fresh every day.
Plus, all Dohful cookies are large-sized (except for Nutella Lava Cookies which are 60 gms each). We have not found bigger and larger cookies than these.
Comparing ourselves to other bakeries, we are obsessed with cookies and cookies only. We want to bake just this goodness all our life!
YSW: What are the types of cookies you have on offer at Dohful?
Flavour-wise, we have 6 variants in total and each one has a story behind it.
Choco Chunk Cookies - This is our spin to the classic Choco-chip cookie but with hand-cut chocolate chunks. These large chunks of chocolate form pools of gooey chocolate within the cookie, making it totally out of this world!
Choco Brownie Cookies - These are the cookies with a fudge. It’s part cookie, part brownie which had virtually no crispy edges (because we love fudgy) and all the 52 gms of it is pure, simple, heavenly brownie-like sinfulness.
Macadamia Nuts Cookies - These are made with the traditional combination of macadamia nuts with white chocolate and are actually loved by my two nieces who live in New York. It was upon their special insistence that we started to experiment with this flavour, and trust me, you’ll be surprised by how good it is!
The macadamia nuts are sourced from overseas.
Peanut Butter Marble Cookies - This is one of the most unique cookies I’ve had. It’s made of dark chocolate and peanut butter chips, which we were importing, till just before the pandemic. But now we’re making our own peanut butter chips using 100% natural peanut butter.
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies - Another classic cookie flavor, our Oatmeal Raisin cookie is also a soft-baked chewy cookie.
Nutella Lava Cookies - The latest addition to our collection, this cookie was launched on March 22, just before the lockdown started. And all the people who had ordered this one on the launch day had to actually wait for 45+ days before we could ship it to them! Unsurprisingly, this is the second on our bestseller list after the Choco-Brownie cookie.
YSW: How many members do you have in your core team, and how many cookies and variations do you bake on a daily basis.?
AS: We have 8 people on our team, but the core team is of 2 members with 6 members in the kitchen and an operations team.
From time to time, we also work with a lot of interns and freelancers for various purposes like video editing for our YouTube channel, content writing, and also social media management.
Founders Arushi and Chaman with their Dohful team.
YSW: Where do you source your ingredients from?
AS: We use a mix of local and international ingredients. Macadamia nuts and a few of the dark chocolates are imported but most of the other stuff is sourced locally.
More than where the ingredients are coming from, we focus on the quality and consistency of the ingredients before finalising it.
YSW: How does one go about ordering your handcrafted cookies, and what according to you makes a delicious and sumptuous cookie?
AS: Our cookies can be ordered from dohful.com.
All Dohful cookies are made fresh after we receive the order and are dispatched the same day. We don’t keep any inventory with us.
We have serviced more than 8000+ orders in our journey and it is increasing every day. We have shipped to almost all places where e-commerce can reach.
It’s the process of making the cookie that makes all the difference and ultimately leads to the cookie we want.
The process of cookie making that we follow is a delicate mix of art and science. We don't put our cookies in any preset mold, before or during baking. We scoop out our dough, measure it by grams to make sure we got it right, and bake it.
This results in a way gooier and softer cookie. We have written in detail about it here -
https://dohful.com/blogs/bakersjournal/soft-baked-cookie-secrets
YSW: How do you ensure that your cookies stay fresh and ready to eat, once shipped nationwide?
AS: All Dohful cookies are individually wrapped in airtight wrappers and are then packaged in packs of 4 cookies for each variant.
The packaging is done in a way such that we give a good amount of cushioning between each of the cookies using dry grass as fillers. This ensures that the cookies don’t move from their position in transit and reach their destination in mint condition.
The airtight wrapping keeps the cookies fresh and the natural shelf life of each cookie is 30 days.
YSW: What has the response of customers been like thus far?
AS: Honestly, it has been better than we had imagined. When we started, the concept of Soft Baked Cookies was unknown to India. Or so we thought. But a lot of people when they try out our cookies tell us that they had been looking for cookies like these!
We’ve realised that there are many cookie lovers in our country. Now, it’s just about serving them with the most genuine real cookies ever!
On a daily basis, we receive tons of new reviews all across our Instagram page, emails, website and Google. People have also loved our packaging and are enthusiastically sharing it on social media.
A lot of people have also told us that the box of cookies they received made them feel really special. So, I think the whole experience of getting freshly baked cookies is being accepted wholeheartedly by everyone.
During this Raksha Bandhan, we worked 15-16 hrs. every day to fulfill all our orders. It was a great feeling seeing all our patrons sharing the cookies with their loved ones. I really could not have asked for anything more!
Dohful cookies are soft and chewy, and come in a variety of flavours.
YSW: Do you plan to add more items or cookie flavours, in the upcoming months, if so, what are they? In short what are your future plans?
AS: We’re always experimenting with new flavours and things we can add to our portfolio. We have a couple of flavours in mind which we’ll launch in the next three months.
Most likely we’re going to come up with more centre-filled cookies similar to our Nutella Lava ones.
YSW: What is your advice to other aspiring bakers out there wishing to start their own food business?
AS: In a food business, good is the enemy of great. If your food is good, it’s okay but it might not be able to withstand the test of time. All that can help you survive in a food business is great food.
Many times, food businesses tend to concentrate on good packaging, use of technology, and other frills but all that is just good to have. Ultimately if you can wow people with your food, you’ve won the battle.
YSW: What do you enjoy doing most on the weekends when not baking your artisanal cookies?
AS: Reading mystery novels has been my thing since forever. Murder mysteries, espionage, thrillers, I love to read them whenever I get a chance. I also love to cook all kinds of food and have been experimenting with South Asian curries recently.
I think all in all, reading, food, and Netflix takes up all my time.
Edited by Asha Chowdary