Baking the way you remember it

Have you ever wondered about our rather long name? Honestly if I had known my business would grow from filling my little Jetta trunk with baking offering my wares to teachers in staff rooms, to serving the Comox Valley from our beautiful "Rolling Pin" trailer, I would have rebranded with a more witty, bakery resonating moniker. It was an evolutionary process from the original Alderlane Farm when we sold eggs, chickens, farmer sausage, pepperoni and bit of baking to being all about the baking. So here we are with our long, often mispronounced and difficult to remember name. If you come by on Farmhouse Friday it will all make sense. As you meander down our thousand foot driveway lined with alder trees and arrive at our unique home it all becomes very clear. The beautiful rendition of our enterprise pictured above was done by my dear cousin Mark Ager, Stratus and Cumulus. He considered layers of pastry, hospitality and relationship and layers of colour for location, personalities and ambiance and he replicated our home beautifully with his artistic talents as an architect. 

MARCH 2023

First weekend of March I am off because of a little surgical procedure on my leg...also happened to have a big fall on the ice therefore I am healing two issues at once as I type this. Prayers welcomed and all fingers crossed that I will be back in fine form for the second weekend of March! Check Instagram, Facebook or my Webpage to confirm.

WHAT'S NEW

Honestly introducing something new to the bakery is a dilemma. Committing to introducing a product I need to be prepared to produce it for...ever! Case in point I have been making the eatmore bars, brownies, peanut butter bars and canary bread since day 1 of my business in 2000 when I brought baskets of baking to school staff rooms. I CAN'T GET OUT OF IT! When customers come for a specific product, we need to have it. Initially I would alternate between brownies and peanut butter bars and quickly discovered that if a customer came for one and I had the other they would be disappointed and possibly would not return. Those were the waking moments of becoming a "bakery", a destination to find a favourite treat. If I didn't have a consistent predictable selection and it was "hit and miss" for a specific item, customers wouldn't return. This started the more refined process of learning to make different sized batches to match the variety, supply and demand.

I was 14 years old and a guest at a table of adults. A table where I was most definitely the grumpy teenager ( I should admit that between the ages of 13-16 my parents would have gladly given me up for adoption because of my sass). Having consumed a large meal of I don't know what but I must have enjoyed it because I was very full and probably itching to be excused to go read Archie comics when a mammoth piece of lemon meringue pie was presented to me. Knowing I was supposed to be on my best behaviour and not embarrass my family I ate it. Subsequently I have done everything in my power to not voluntarily eat anything lemon since. Until I baked this. I humbly confess it was all psychological. Although I highly doubt I will ever order a piece of lemon meringue pie, ever. 

IN THE BEGINNING

Another confession? They are a messy product to produce and a pain to package, a task most of my staff dread! It has become a contract job inspiring the baker to work faster and more efficiently to receive more than their hourly wage! However, when a customer places a large Christmas order of half sized bars as gifts for her clients and then my dear little senior lady who eats half a bar every day with her smoothie for lunch so orders 30 at a time, I have to make sure they are always available. So we shall persevere and continue to produce these gems as long as you keep wanting them

BAKERY CREW

Time to pay tribute to our first official baking assistant who helped launch me on the journey of growing our business from a one woman operation to the current team of 7 part time baking assistants and market day sales team.

Danielle Steiner

Nervous sleeplessness plagued me the night before she worked her first Friday as my brain was swirling with ideas of how to keep her busy. Baking had been a solo endeavour on Fridays and I just didn't know if I would have enough for her to do. 

Danielle  "I started working for Sharon years ago—I was her first assistant, and all I did was make endless pans of Eatmore Bars! But that quickly morphed into more responsibilities, until I was working a full day every week with Sharon, as well as working the farmers’ market. But, fun fact—I am also her daughter-in-law! Not many people I know have such a great relationship with their mother-in-law, but I adored working with her and we had many laughs together. She was a patient teacher, showing me many baking techniques that I still incorporate into my own kitchen today. After a few years, I had to minimize hours as my full-time job became more demanding, but I still loved visiting the market and getting leftovers! I’m a sucker for the “Oh Dears” and “Chocolate Affairs”—but there’s nothing she makes that I don’t enjoy.

Sharon "I never looked back after that first day. There was so much joy in my kitchen as I finally had company, could relax my frantic pace and the incredible bonus of getting to know our daughter-in-law. My heart broke a little but more so burst with pride when she moved on to the incredible opportunity she was given in her career of choice as an editor for EDIBLE Vancouver Island."

LOCAL INGREDIENTS

Yes this is a shameless plug for our own product and another shout out to my cousin Mark who not only created the image at the top of this newsletter he also designed a new logo for our coffee which we absolutely love. Because we are not permitted to sell our coffee by the pound at market due to rules and regulations about locally produced, we have found ways to incorporate Man in the Woods Coffee into our products. The Espresso Chocolate Affair contains coffee bean icing between our buttery black cocoa cookies. Our next product involves placing two of our homemade coffee bean chocolate bars in each coffee infused chocolate croissant creating the Mocha Croissant. 

Chocolate and coffee wrapped in chocolate and coffee