In the bakery

One of our friends from church, Ronnie, owns a bakery with his brother, who is a bread maker by trade.   It's just a few blocks from us in an affluent (more of less) part of the city.   Another friend, Kenneth, is working for him and is in charge of managing all aspects of the business.  Because the business is new and small, with only one location, Kenneth decided to try to negotiate a contract with a newly opened convenience store.  Success--as of last week, the store began selling their breads and pastries.  

Beyond this, Kenneth also wants to do something that will differentiate their bakery from the myriad of other bakeries here in the city.  He talked with me about whether I had any recipes that they might try.  He was specifically looking for some different types of cookies, healthy muffins and other kinds of sweet breads.   Friday we had a baking day here in my kitchen!  He left with a loaf of poppy seed bread, healthy whole wheat blueberry muffins and craisin oatmeal cookies.  He shared the samples with Ronnie and his brother and said that they both loved them.  For now, he is going to start the search for the ingredients, which will likely be no small task.  For example, we don't know if he can find poppy seeds and I've never seen applesauce (it's a main ingredient for the muffins), except snack size with sugar and/or cinnamon. 

We've got another baking sample day planned soon.  They would like to have 2-3 healthy muffin options so next time we'll be making carrot/apple muffins and whole wheat banana muffins.  We're also thinking about some good bar recipes and maybe peanut butter cookies and a chocolate, chocolate chip cookie.  We'll see . . . sounds like fun to me.

Stay tuned and I'll keep you posted on whether or not these goodies end up in the bakery!