By Pat Kinney
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, Iowa
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) First it was cupcakes…now entrepreneur Natalie Brown, owner of “Scratch Cupcakery” plans to master the business of cookie dough! She is opening shops called “(Just)Dough” that specifically feature cookie dough, kind of like a chain of ice cream stores with various cookie dough flavors.
CEDAR FALLS
Natalie Brown started “from scratch.” Now she’s in the dough — cookie dough, that is — with a new confectionery item.
Brown, the entrepreneur who started Scratch Cupcakery a few years ago, has now started (Just)Dough, selling edible cookie dough by the cone, cup, in canoli, shakes and other ways.
The dough is safe to eat.
“The cookie dough doesn’t have any eggs, and we heat-treat all of our flour,” Brown said.
She started selling items out of the Scratch Cupcakery location at 315 Main St. on the Cedar Falls Parkade just before Christmas.
“There were crazy lines,” she said. “We were just floored.”
Her staff tries to wheel out new products each year, and that kind of response is a bonus.
She hopes to introduce (Just)Dough products at her stores in West Des Moines and Coralville next month. They’ll have a separate display case from other items in the store. She plans to launch a stand-alone (Just)Dough retail outlet in Cedar Falls at a location yet to be determined.
“The concept is a little like an ice cream shop with cookie dough,” Brown said. “We’re looking for (Just)Dough to become a brand like Scratch.
“I don’t have a timeline,” Brown said. “I’m looking for locations. I definitely want it to be based in Cedar Falls, for sure, my hometown.”
Brown opened her first Scratch gourmet cupcake store in Cedar Falls in2010. In 2014, the company won a statewide “Battle of the Brands” competition sponsored by a Des Moines advertising agency, and Brown was inducted into the Junior Achievement Cedar Valley Business Hall of Fame.
She was a 2012 Courier 20 Under 40 honoree. She holds degrees from Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo and Upper Iowa University in Fayette.
