Food & Drink 2024 | 13 Baked Treats Caterer of the Year 2024 – Northern Virginia Serving the greater Leesburg area, Northern Virginia, Sweet and Savory by Karen is a local, woman-owned catering business that specialises in delivering delicious homemade treats, including baked goods and desserts. Renowned for its dedication and remarkable skill, Sweet and Savory by Karen has been recently awarded in the Food and Drink Awards 2024. Join us below as we speak with Karen Ranger, Founder and Owner, to learn more about her journey to success. Karen Ranger has enjoyed exploring her culinary creativity since she was a little girl, having discovered her skillset whilst spending summers with her Nam, or grandmother, Irene. Karen soon noticed how happy people were upon receiving food from her Nam and wanted to share this happiness herself. Soon enough, her grandmother began to let her bake and cook things for herself, watching, guiding, and sometimes helping her as she honed her craft. Flashforward and Karen now owns and operates Sweet and Savory by Karen, an outlet for her to share her creativity and passion with the world. Sweet and Savory by Karen was founded in 2014 as a one-person business, though Karen does depend on the help of her husband and sons for delivery and tastetesting services. Operating out of her home, Karen creates her tasty treats in a separate kitchen built specifically for her small business. Without a storefront for regular customers to visit, all goodies are baked to order to ensure freshness and quality, with most sales centred around private sales and specialty events. Sweet and Savory by Karen offers more than 60 unique food items, with the delectable stock ranging from appetizers and sides to baked goodies and sweets. Her more traditional offerings include custom mini quiches, potato pogache, gingerbread cookies, and pumpkin pie, all comforting baked staples that we know and love. What truly allows Sweet and Savory by Karen to stand out in this competitive market, however, is Karen’s equally delicious but less conventional creations that blend tradition with modernity to deliver familiar favourites with unique twists. Examples of such creativity can be found throughout her expansive menu, though the shining standouts include lemon and herb risotto cakes, s’mores muffins, zucchini crumb muffins, a series of chocolate mousse goods, Hawaiian wedding cupcakes, lemon brownies, salted peanut clusters, sweet potato cupcakes, and chocolate bacon brittle. These delicacies, although uncommon, demonstrate Karen’s deep understanding of flavour profiles and sheer culinary creativity. With years of experience in the kitchen, Karen has certainly developed a successful process that enables her to navigate recipes with ease. As a solo baker, she prefers to work alone in the kitchen, which further enables her to follow her proven routine. First, she will map out a todo list, following the order as if it were a recipe and only stopping her methodology to prepare herself for the next step. “It’s all a learning process for me, and I’ve learned when I’m about to take on too much, and I’ll be honest with my client about it,” she tells us. “A motto in my house that I apply to my business is ‘mean what you say and say what you mean, or don’t say anything at all’. To anyone that knows me and my work ethic, this means that if I say I’m going to do something, you know it’s going to get done.” Driving a thriving business alongside her daily life has not come without its challenges, but maintaining a stringent routine has been the key to Karen’s success. Working full-time outside of home, Karen must keep to an efficient schedule in order to complete her baking once she returns home. Last minute orders can be difficult to fulfil as a result, but Sweet and Savory by Karen’s clients are provided with an agreeable timeline that ensures everything baked is delivered within a day to ensure optimal flavour and freshness. This methodology has proven incredibly successful for Karen, as Sweet and Savory by Karen is named in the Food and Drink Awards 2024. Receiving the title of Baked Treats Caterer of the Year 2024 – Northern Virginia, Sep24397 the business has demonstrated its dedication to delivering only the very best, as well as its possession of a unique flavour profile unparalleled by its peers. Looking ahead, Karen tells us that she has exciting plans in the works. “I’m pretty content with where I stand today,” she says. “For the remainder of 2024, I have begun to work on a cookbook, which will not only include all the recipes from my menu on my website but also family favourites and secrets handed down to me by my grandmother.” Contact: Karen Ranger Company: Sweet and Savory by Karen LLC Web Address: http://www.sweetandsavorybykaren.com/
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