all
about cmbsweets

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cmbsweets
was born on a foggy San Francisco morning in a studio apartment
sandwiched between the Mission and Twin Peaks.
When Carolina came home from the farmer’s market loaded
with a bushel of strawberries, she
dipped a few in her morning yogurt. She ate a few more in the
afternoon. She gave a basket to her neighbors, and brought a few
more to a friend’s house for a barbeque. But there’s
only so much a single girl can do with too many strawberries.
So she did what any other sensible girl might: grabbed the sugar,
one very big pot and a handful of recipes, and out came the first
bath of cmbsweets’
jam. Her friends each got a jar; she passed a few on to her unsuspecting
coworkers and then brought a batch over to a certain 16th street
bar.
The crowd went wild. They wanted more.
Soon Carolina was using that same big pot to cook up apricots
and figs and peaches
and raspberries and began selling
her jam all over town. Now, a year-and-a-half later, cmbsweets’
line of all-natural jams, jellies and sweets includes a dozen
flavors — from pomegranate jelly
to kiwi-lime-ginger preserves to
olallieberry jam— and is available
at markets across the country.
While cmbsweets
has grown out of Carolina’s studio apartment, its homemade
style and flavor hasn’t changed. The company uses only locally
grown seasonal fruits, scouring farmers’ markets throughout
Northern California for small family farms that offer the freshest,
tastiest produce.
cmbsweets'
strawberries, for example, come from
Gizdich Ranch in Watsonville. Vince Gizdich’s family has
been farming the same piece of land for three generations. The
best fruit makes the best jam, and Gizdich’s berries are
so good that Sunset Magazine named cmbsweets’
strawberry jam “The
Best of the West” in June 2006. Twin Hill Organic
Farms in Sebastapol supplies the fujis for the apple-honey
butter, and every batch is sweetened with Wildflower honey
produced by Eggman Family Farms in Terra Bella. Kashiwase Farms
grows California’s plumpest apricots.
cmbsweets adds a
touch of almond extract and a bit of sugar to create a jam that
tastes as fresh as the fruit off the tree.
All of cmbsweets’
products are made with fruit, sugar and lemon juice— nothing
else. Much of the fruit is organic. There’s no artificial
colors, flavors or preservatives. The idea is to make fancy California
food without the fancy California food price.
Taste some. It's really good.
Just
ask Becky.
"Catchy names like Bodacious Boysenberry, Prissy
Li'l Pomegranate and Raspberry Retainer made us try all seven
of the samples by the spoonful. Each was unique and delicious.”
--
Rebecca Williams, Food Writer
San Francisco Chronicle, March 15, 2006
Or Kate.
"Carolina Braunschweig's raspberry jam tastes
like a hot, sunny day in the mountains. Its heady, pure raspberry
flavor carries a Proustian punch, instantly transporting all who
have ever picked berries back to the briar patch of their youth.
That clarity of flavor, along with Braunschweig's judicious use
of sugar, her jams have far less than commercial brands but enough
to give the perfect sweetness, make cmbsweets
jams as close to homemade as you'll find.."
--Kathryn Jessup, Lifestyle Editor
Diablo Magazine, June 2006
Becky and Kate aren’t cmbsweets’
only fans. cmbsweets recently delivered 30 pounds of pomegranate
jelly to the pastry chefs at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco
for their fall-themed wedding cakes and pastries. It’s available
at specialty food shops, wine stores and upscale supermarkets
all over the country. It’s also available online at www.cmbsweets.com.
For more information, please contact Carolina Braunschweig at
jamgirl*at*cmbsweets*dot*com or at (917) 783-6370.
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