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is this month’s
The brother-and-sister team of Valarie and Tony Blak, co-owners of Blak’s Bakery in Windsor, Ont., which is preparing to celebrate 100 years in business in 2018. For more, see page 8.
SWEET TEA, SWEET CAKE: Honey and Tea Cakes
Bakers Formula.
BY BRIAN HARTZ
ACRYLAMIDE’S EMERGENCE
Is acrylamide the next major front in the nutrition wars? A chemical compound first discovered in 2002, acrylamide has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals. It’s commonly found in high-carb, starchy foods like potato chips, french fries, and, unfortunately, baked goods – crisp bread and crackers, in particular.
The carcinogen is caused by the heating up of food, such as when bread is toasted. It’s also present in fried foods, coffee, and some varieties of baby food.
The real kicker is that a recent U.K. Food Standards Agency study found that the risk of cancer from acrylamide exposure is three times higher in young children than in adults, and as we are all well aware, fried and baked foods are often heavily marketed to kids.
Bakers Journal columnist John Michaelides has written extensively about acrylamide and its causes and effects (or lack thereof). In his Technical Talk column in our January/February 2015 issue, he cited a study by the Food Institute in Denmark that “found a slight correlation between breast cancer and dietary acrylamide intake but concluded that more extensive research is needed to conclusively interpret these findings.”
Michaelides’ concerns about acrylamide don’t seem to be echoed strongly in Canada just yet, but across the pond, it’s a different story. In Belgium and the U.K., consumer watchdog groups are taking food makers to task for selling products that contain acrylamide levels in excess of European Union benchmarks (of course, thanks to Brexit, Britons won’t have to worry about continental standards much longer, but that’s an entirely different topic).
}One of these groups, Changing Markets, found that 15 per cent of the Brussels, Belgium, establishments it surveyed were selling potato fries with acrylamide levels as high as six times the EU benchmark. In a Feb. 23 news release, the group called for “a robust legal framework that sets ambitious legally binding limits for acrylamide in food to ensure that business operators make real efforts to reduce its presence.”
In Belgium and the U.K., consumer watchdog groups are taking food makers to task for selling products that contain acrylamide levels in excess of European Union benchmarks.
In the U.K., Changing Markets –in collaboration with SumOfUs, another consumer watchdog organization – cast a critical eye toward makers of cookies marketed to children, particularly the well-known brands Little Dish and Ella’s Kitchen. Its analysis of nearly 50 cookie products found that 10 per cent contained acrylamide levels that topped EU standards.
“While it is important not to burn your toast … we mustn’t forget that acrylamide exposure from home-cooked food is considered relatively small when compared with industrially or restaurant-prepared foods,” said SumOfUs senior campaigner Nabil Berbour.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have a joint expert committee on food additives that has expressed concern about dietary exposure to acrylamide, and the European Commission and Member States are considering a legislative proposal on acrylamide in food that’s set to go to a vote in June. In terms of regulatory change, Health Canada seems to be sitting on the sidelines for now, though in 2009 it implemented an acrylamide monitoring program and its scientists have been studying the properties of the chemical compound.
Acrylamide might not be garnering ink and headlines in the same way as, say, trans fats, gluten or sugar, but it’s a topic to keep an eye on. You never know what nutrition trend consumers are going to support with their pocketbooks.
Happy reading and baking,
MAY 2017 | VOL. 77, NO. 4
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briefly | Restaurants Canada decries Saskatchewan food tax; Dawn Foods launches new line of clean-label ingredients; Boulart breads win NRA awards | for more news in the baking world, check out our website, bakersjournal.com
Dawn launches new line of ‘clean’ ingredients Saskatchewan food tax under fire
Jackson, Mich.-based Dawn Food Products Inc. is excited to launch Bakers Truth, a new line of clean label ingredients available now in Canada. Bakers Truth products are free from artificial colours, flavours, preservatives and sweeteners, and also contain no high fructose corn syrup or partially hydrogenated oil. The new product line currently features the following options:
• Bakers Truth Crème Cake Bases –Offered in vanilla and chocolate varieties, these bases have the reliability, flavours and versatility to make every day favorites or customized signature treats.
• Bakers Truth Brownie Mix – The highquality cocoa flavour and consistency of the current Dawn brownies are replicated in a clean label version with no sacrifice on taste.
Development of the new line was driven by market research, which revealed consumers continue to seek food options made with fewer but more recognizable ingredients.
“Consumers continue to drive the ‘better for you’ food movement,” said Becky Loveland, vice president of marketing and R&D North America at Dawn Foods. “These consumers want great-tasting products and want to feel good about what they are eating. Supporting that insight is recent research showing that 68 percent of global consumers want to recognize every ingredient on food labels. We developed Bakers Truth to provide the best of both worlds, enabling our customers to respond to this growing trend with additional sweet baked goods options for their consumers.”
Bakers Truth is now available to meet the needs of bakers everywhere, and offers the same functional qualities as Dawn Foods signature items.
“The products leverage the same baking process as their original recipes, delivering the same great taste that consumers love – and the functionality bakers expect – making Bakers Truth easy to implement for customers of all types,” said Audrey Fernandes, senior manager of channel marketing at Dawn Foods. For more information, call 866-277-3663 or visit www.dawnfoods.com/ca.
Restaurants Canada has lashed out at the government of Saskatchewan, saying lawmakers have created an unfair playing field for the province’s struggling restaurant industry by adding an increased PST to food purchased from restaurants, while the same or similar food items at grocery stores remain tax-free. The industry association believes the tax will have a devastating impact on restaurants at a time when they are already facing declining sales due to the economic downturn. Restaurants Canada estimates Saskatchewan’s hospitality industry will be forced to absorb some $140 million in lost sales.
“We’re extremely disappointed with this unfair tax policy that creates winners and losers in the food industry,” said Restaurants Canada vice-president Mark von Schellwitz. “Our members are perplexed the government has ignored our advice, and is instead punishing the sector of the food industry that creates the most jobs and economic activity. Clearly this policy benefits large corporate grocery stores at the expense of thousands of labour-intensive small businesses
that make up the hospitality industry.”
To add insult to injury, the government is also increasing liquor markups by between 4.0 and 6.8 per cent. Both the new meal tax and liquor price increases went into effect on April 1, providing restaurants with little time to adjust to the new taxes.
“When previous governments twice tried to add PST to restaurant meals, more than 130,000 Saskatchewanians made it clear there’s no appetite for a meal tax in the province,” said von Schellwitz. “We believe the people of Saskatchewan are equally opposed to a meal tax today.”
Due to a troubled economy, the Saskatchewan budget cuts back spending and increases the PST with a plan to return to a balanced budget in three years.
“We understand this was a tough budget for tough times, but adding a new 6 per cent meal tax and a liquor tax increase is not the answer. It will only make matters worse for Saskatchewan’s hospitality industry and their customers,” said von Schellwitz.
in Windsor, Ont., celebrates 100 years | BY CAROLYN
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Blak’s Bakery
CAMILLERI
It was all hands on deck this past February 28 at Blak’s Bakery. The regular staff of about 10 was bumped up to 40 that day, also known as Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday.
In Windsor, Ont., it’s Paczki Day.
Paczki is traditional Polish pastry, similar to a doughnut, filled with various flavours, such as raspberry, lemon, or custard. Blak’s Bakery is famous for Paczki and made about 30,000 this year—and sold out.
“This year, for the first time, we closed on the Wednesday after for recovery,” says Valarie Blak-Gill, who owns Blak’s Bakery with her brother Anthony (Tony) Peter Blak.
That would be the first time they’d done so in 100 years. Valarie and Tony are third-generation baker-owners of this Windsor landmark.
Blak’s Bakery was established in 1918 by their grandfather, Peter Blak Sr., a Polish immigrant who came to North America by way of Ellis Island in 1905. An experienced baker who had trained at the prestigious Hotel Bristol in Warsaw, Peter Sr. worked at a German bakery in Rochester, N.Y., before moving his family to Detroit where he worked at two bakeries, one on each side of the CanadaU.S. border.
In 1917, Peter Sr. bought a property with a house and room for a business in Windsor. Today’s Blak’s Bakery building is still the original, though there have been additions, most significantly in 1925, when a new section was added to the front of the bakery. The brick-hearth oven is also original: a Petersen oven from Chicago, believed to have been built by the oven company’s founder Edward Petersen. It was first fuelled by coke, later converted to coal, and finally to natural gas in the late 1960s.
“Back in the 60s, we were still burning coal in that oven,” Tony says. “I can remember – it was the worst job in the bakery – once a week, we had to clean out the remnants from the burnt up coals, called ‘clinkers.’ You had to pull the clinkers out of the fire pit and get rid of them and start a new fire, using wood to
get the coals started again. Once the coals started, the stoker would automatically keep firing up the oven throughout the week.”
Delivery has changed considerably.
“My grandfather used to bake the bread and then load it into a handcart and go down the street,” Tony says, adding that a single loaf was one and a half pounds and a double loaf was three pounds. “He would fill his cart with an oven of bread and have it all sold by the time he went around the block.”
Eventually, a horse and wagon replaced the handcart, and by the early 1940s, they had a motorized truck.
A CENTURY OF MEMORIES
To commemorate 100 years in 2018, the Blak family is reaching out to the community for stories. Tony recently had
coffee with a 98-year-old woman who used to live across the street. Her father used to help out in the bakery – and also had a side business selling alcohol and beer.
“In a hundred years, a lot of things can happen,” Tony says. “My grandfather died in 1951, and I was born in 1955. One of my greatest disappointments is that I never got the chance to meet him.”
But the stories live on as family legends. Tony talks about when the stock market crashed in October 1929, and the price of flour dropped “like a waterfall.”
“My grandfather was contracting flour at the time from Robinhood Flour Mill, he had contracted the price, and it looked like the [bakery] business was going to be liquidated,” Tony says. “But he transferred
Opposite: Blak’s Bakery and its staff today; above, the bakery and its delivery truck in its early years.
BY ALEX LÉTOURNEAU
TRANS FATS’ DAYS ARE NUMBERED
The inevitable switch from hydrogenated to non-hydrogenated oils and fats
The end is nigh for hydrogenated oils in Canada. The writing is on the wall, the chickens are coming home to roost, the clock strikes midnight – you get the picture. Time is almost up.
As of Oct. 24, 2016, a 60-day consultation was launched by Canada’s Minister of Health, Jane Philpott, with the direct objective of seeking to eliminate partially hydrogenated oils, widely known as trans fats, in Canada. The consultation is part of Philpott’s Healthy Eating Strategy for Canada initiative.
Conclusions of the study have not yet been released.
Essentially, the goal is to remove any trans fats in foods at an industrial level that will hit the marketplace in Canada. While it may seem like a tall order, some Canadian provinces have already limited the amount of trans fats used in restaurants, schools, bakeries and health institutions. The United States went a step further last year.
}ings are being created by manufacturers to directly replace hydrogenated products.
Bakeries and pastry shops will likely have to charge customers more to eat a product that is proven to not be good for their health.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledged trans fats posing a health risk to consumers, thus banning their use on June 16, 2015. While petitions remain in the pipeline that oppose an outright ban, trans fats have no home in the land of the free. What all this means is that there is a very strong push toward the removal of hydrogenated oils in Canada. It’s no longer a movement, but more of a pending reality. This new reality has a very strong synergy with the healthy snacking trend that has been picking up steam.
This is where non-hydrogenated products come into play. Growing in popularity, healthier products such as coconut oil, palm oil and other shorten-
Adding to pending bans, or severe reductions in the amount allowed in foods sold to the public, hydrogenated products are going to start costing much more compared to non-hydrogenated products. Basically, bakeries and pastry shops will likely have to charge customers more to eat a product that is proven to not be good for their health. In this brave new age of information, the customer is informed enough to avoid that situation.
So, with non-hydrogenated products being readily available, better for the consumer’s health and cheaper, it’s a no-brainer for bakers to make the switch, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
It’s not a one-for-one trade-off between the two. Replacing a recipe quantity of hydrogenated oil with the same quantity of non-hydrogenated oil will not yield the same result. Non-hydrogenated products tend to be firm, making it harder to manipulate and more difficult for a baker to get the same result he or she would by using hydrogenated oils. Fully or partially hydrogenated products are easier to work with because
of their ability to remain solid at room temperature, but are still malleable enough to spread and maintain a desired consistency. The hydrogenated oils and fats chemical structure allows a stable melting point, between 30 and 40 C, making it ideal to work with in a variety of different applications.
Manufacturers and suppliers are working to produce a wider range of non-hydrogenated products where the firmness varies, making it a bit easier for a baker to adapt his or her recipe to the new product.
Suppliers have already begun to institute heavy price increases in primary ingredients used in hydrogenated products. The result is that artisanal bakers are finding these prices excessively high and in turn are looking for price-competitive, stable non-hydrogenated products.
Despite the difficulty that accompanies the switch, it remains a looming reality for the baking industry, a reality that may be best faced sooner rather than later.
As recent unimpressed Nobel Prize Winner in Literature Bob Dylan once said, “The times they are a changin’.” / BJ
Alex Létourneau is a communications specialist at Ventes Rudolph, an ingredients company that has offices in Montreal and Ottawa.
¦ concepts for success ¦
BY DIANE CHIASSON
BOOST YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
Check out these easy, quick steps for making the most of your online resources
Owners of independent bakeries surely have been told how important it is for them, as small businesses, to have an online and social media presence. Almost certainly you have a website and most likely you have a Facebook page, but how do you, as a small business, make the most out of the time and energy you have put into creating these business tools?
USE TECH TO TARGET YOUR LOCAL CUSTOMERS
You don’t have to be a tech wizard to go beyond simply having a website and a social media platform and promote your bakery in a targeted way by using mobile apps that target consumers in the vicinity of your business. Groupon, Living Social, FourSquare and ThinkNear, among others, let you post information about your latest offers and limited-time deals to consumers within a certain distance of your business. You can also schedule deals to get picked up during key hours, for example, if you’re looking to boost foot traffic during off-peak times.
}A PICTURE PAINTS A THOUSAND WORDS
PROVIDE A CONSISTENT ONLINE PRESENCE
Did you know that the latest research studies show active Internet users spend anywhere from 15 to nearly 25 per cent of their online time on social networks? This means that you should be consistent in putting out your online content, and you should consider hiring a specialist or delegate responsibility to your staff, or take time in your weekly schedule to provide excellent content to your patrons.
Consistency is the most important characteristic of quality products. Just as customers expect excellent products every time they enter a bakery, they expect a consistent flow of content from you online as well. You should consider posting content on social media regularly as well as consistently having wonderful bakery products and great customer service.
GET CUSTOMER REVIEWS
Contrary to popular belief, review sites like Yelp are not just for the vocal negative majority bent on destroying company reputations. In fact, most Yelp users leave four or five stars, meaning bakeries should focus less on quieting the haters and more
Show that you are tech savvy and encourage greater use of your social media platform with your own free Wi-Fi.
Your sites should also have many tantalizing photos of all the great baked goods you have to offer. As a bakery, you must take high quality images, even if it means hiring a professional photographer. It is incredibly cheap to do these days and it lets people see what you can deliver and gets them excited. Topnotch, high-resolution pictures, properly displayed on your online and social media sites, such as Instagram, can draw in potential customers. By the way, Instagram isn’t just for pretty pictures: you can upload videos, contest giveaways, and bakery menu and updates.
on pleasing customers. A Barista Magazine survey found that sites like Yelp and Google were the third most popular way customers discovered new coffee shops; after seeing the physical location and word of mouth.
The survey also found that coffee shops could increase the number of reviews they received by simply asking customers or leaving reminders around the shop. Those who asked for customer reviews had an average of 40 per cent more reviews on Yelp than those who did not ask. These extra reviews came at no cost to their star rating, meaning those who asked for reviews ended up ranking higher than those who didn’t ask.
OFFER OUT-OF-TOWNERS
THINGS
THEY NEED OR WANT
Offer potential out-of-area customers something that they might need, like Wi-Fi.
Most people travel with their smartphones and need to keep up to date with their emails, but many do not want to pay the exorbitant roaming charges that telecommunications companies like to charge.
Show that you are tech savvy and encourage greater use of your social media platform with your own free Wi-Fi. More than this, some Wi-Fi services direct users to a website page immediately after logging in. By using this type of service you can decide which website the customer sees, and this can be used as a chance to ask customers for an online review and so improve your online reviews.
OFFER A DEAL
An online or mobile presence doesn’t change the fundamentals of business. Your potential patrons are still out there looking for a deal and now with mobile apps, Yelp, YouTube and SnapChat, there are simply, more, easier and faster ways to find those deals than cutting out coupons – that is, if your prospective patrons can even conceive of the concept of using scissors to cut a piece of paper from a newspaper!
With Facebook or Twitter or any of the above mobile apps, you can generate a following by offering special social media deals. It would be best to offer weekend specials and send this out before the weekend to all existing customers, especially if there is any kind of event going on in your area that weekend. Offering a 10 per cent reward to followers who bring their friends in to your bakery could make you the destination of choice for someone going to an event in your area with their friends. / BJ
Diane Chiasson, FCSI, president of Chiasson Consultants Inc., has been helping foodservice, hospitality and retail operators increase sales for over 30 years. She is recognized as the industry leader in providing innovative and revenue-increasing foodservice and retail merchandising programs, interior design, branding, menu engineering, marketing and promotional campaigns, and much more. Contact her at 416-926-1338, toll-free at 1-888-926-6655 or chiasson@chiassonconsultants.com, or visit www.chiassonconsultants.com
BAC says “NO!” to Nutrition Warning Labels
BAC has turned a big “thumb down” on Health Canada’s proposal to impose nutrition warning labels on food packages. Disguised as Front of Pack Labelling (FOP), Health Canada’s proposed new labelling regulations would require mandatory warning signs on food packages for any products with servings that exceed 15 per cent of the daily value (DV) in sodium, sugar and saturated fats. BAC has made it clear to Health Canada that its FOP proposal is flawed in many ways. BAC pointed out that the 15 per cent DV criteria to trigger a warning label is not based on any known science and is by Health Canada’s own acknowledgment just a “rule of thumb.” It is worth noting that our major trading partners also don’t agree with Health Canada. In the United States, >20% of the DV in a food is the threshold to indicate that there is a lot of that nutrient. In the United Kingdom, which has had a multi-coloured “stop light” nutrient labelling system for some time, the threshold for red traffic light is based on greater than 25% of the Recommended Daily Intakes. Health Canada has yet to offer any explanation on why it has chosen a non-science based “rule of thumb” threshold.
Beyond its response to the FOP labelling proposal BAC has taken the further step of writing directly to Minister of Health Philpott challenging the use of a rule of thumb to trigger warning labels on foods. Specifically, in its
letter BAC stated that the proposal is:
• misleading because it only highlights the negative nutrients in a food and fails to recognize other nutrients that contribute to an overall healthy diet;
• strictly inaccurate because a rule of thumb is not science based nor universally accepted;
• creating an erroneous impression regarding the value and merit of the food because the symbols proposed in the consultation are either a stop sign or a triangle similar to hazard/poison warning labels on many household cleaning products. If an FOP symbol communicates a message of ‘stop’ ‘danger’ or ‘hazard’ if ingested, this could be confusing and concerning for consumers. Even more concerning to bakers should be that, with this new FOP proposal, Health Canada has wiped out years of industry effort in working toward the sodium reduction targets established by the Sodium Working Group and promoted by Health Canada. Bakers have worked hard to achieve 83 to 99 per cent success in meeting the maximum sodium level of 520mg/100 g in breads in 2015, a year before the 2016 deadline of the voluntary sodium reduction initiative. With this new proposal, the Minister of Health is unilaterally “moving the goal post” on food deemed high in sodium with the result that the baseline to avoid a sodium warning label in breads would be 345mg/2 slices.
BAC is not alone in its disapproval of Health Canada FOP proposal as it also has been widely criticized by food industry and health groups including Dietitians of Canada and the Canadian Nutrition Society, especially the intent of focusing only on negative nutrients. The Canadian initiative POWER UP (K Raine et al) conducted an extensive evidence review of FOP programs and hosted a consensus meeting in 2016 followed by the publication of a paper summarizing policy recommendations for FOP1. It concludes that FOP labelling system using warning symbols and highlighting negative nutrients without fully embracing the considerable importance of ingredients for protecting health can only shift consumers away from foods high in these “negative nutrients” (sodium, sugar, saturated fat), without guidance on which foods to eat for a healthy diet.
BAC has urged the government to consider a voluntary FOP system that enables a more holistic approach to food choices and that is based on solid evidence such as the most recent dietary intakes and food consumption patterns of Canadians (CCHS 2015), thereby indicating nutrients or food components that should be limited or encouraged within recent/current dietary patterns as well as thresholds that are science-based.
1 Raine KD, Ferdinands, AR , Atkey K Hobin E, et al. 2017 Policy Recommendations for Front-of Package, Shelf, and Menu Labelling in Canada: Moving Towards Consensus. Submitted for publication to Canadian Journal of Public Health in January 2017.
JUNE
13 Tuesday 2017
FORMAT - 4 PERSON SCRAMBLE
Put your foursome together or if you are only one or two players, we will arrange your playing partners for you. TOURNAMENT GIFT FOR ALL, DRAW PRIZES, PUTTING CONTEST PRIZES, CLOSEST SHOT TO THE HOLE CONTESTS & LOTS OF
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TUESDAY JUNE 13, 2017
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Carlisle Golf & Country Club (West of Guelph Line off Derry Rd.)
Registration & BBQ lunch starting at 10:00 a.m. until 11:15 a.m. Shotgun - SCRAMBLE – Start 11:30 a.m.
REGISTRATION
include email address as registration will be confirmed by email.)
the business over to my grandmother and became an employee, so when he got sued personally, he no longer owned the bakery, and he was able to dodge the bullet of the Depression.
“Pretty smart for an uneducated Polish guy,” Tony laughs.
Much more recently, Blak’s Bakery had a brush with fame when comedian Jerry Seinfeld was performing locally. Fans of his TV show may recall the episode “The Rye,” in which Seinfeld, after a failed attempt to negotiate with an elderly woman who had bought the last loaf of marble rye, steals it from her. When Seinfeld was in Windsor, Blak’s Bakery sent 20 loaves of marble rye to his dressing room. Seinfeld’s wife, philanthropist and cookbook author Jessica Seinfeld, posted a photo of the bread on Instagram. With over 250,000 followers, Jessica’s post drew much attention, including from MacLean’s magazine writer Aaron Wherry, who, while writing about the event, learned that Seinfeld said, “The Marble Rye was the best I ever had.”
“We were really proud of that,” Tony says.
CHANGING WITH THE TIMES
When Peter Sr. arrived in North America, he brought recipes with him from the Hotel Bristol. Some of those recipes are still being used today, including Paczki, Warsaw rye bread, poppy seed strudel, and Paska, a specialty Easter and Christmas bread.
“But being in a Canadian environment, we have to make more than just Polish products,” Tony says.
And they do keep up with trends.
“One of our most popular items that we have recently brought out are KrowKnots,” Tony says. “We have had people go pretty crazy over our KrowKnots, especially in the summer time. We have a popup market location that we use, and it is probably the most popular product that we sell at the market.”
The business itself has also changed with each generation. When Peter Sr. retired, the business was passed to two of his sons, Victor and Peter, Tony and Valarie’s father.
“Our father [Peter] grew the business for 50 years, retiring in 1990, but keeping a watchful eye until 2015,” Valarie says, adding that her mother
Blak’s Bakery in the days when horse-drawn vehicles were still common sights on roads.
Elsie decorated the cakes and still teaches Valarie decorating tricks.
Both Tony and Valarie started working in the bakery as kids, with Valarie continuing full time when she finished school in 1976. Valarie met her husband Douglas at the bakery; he had been in sales, and later started working at the bakery, where he has been “our main oven man” for more than 20 years. All of Peter and Elsie’s five children and 12 grandchildren have worked at the bakery at different times, and Peter and Valarie’s siblings come to work on Paczki Day.
“It has always been a very familyoriented business,” Valarie says.
Tony says that while he loved his father, they didn’t always see eye to eye. After university, Tony followed a different career path – banking and real estate – but was always drawn to the bakery and worked there periodically over the years. Meanwhile, Valarie ran the bakery from 1990 until 2009, when Tony joined her. They took over ownership from their parents in 2012. The bakery has seen double-digit increases in sales since 2009.
“There have been ups and down, but we are very innovative,” Tony says.
Future plans for Blak’s Bakery are in the works, with the fourth generation of Blak’s being headed up by Tony and his son Peter. And so Blak’s Bakery continues into its second century, as strong as ever, as a family business. / BJ
Baking Is All In The Family
Baking has been in the Manderfield family for four generations. Manderfield’s Home Bakery got its humble beginnings in 1934 when Frank and Marie Manderfield opened their doors in Fox Valley, Wisconsin. It continued successfully until Frank retired in 1964. Frank’s son Dennis opened a bakery in Menasha, Wisconsin, and ran it for 16 years before he sold it in 1972.
Dennis’ kids all had a passion for baking. So in 1979, they reintroduced Manderfield’s Home Bakery to Appleton, Wisconsin. Today, this third generation of bakers—Mike, Paul, Jerry, Doug and Matt—continues to run the full-line retail bakery. It offers doughnuts, muffins, Danish, iced and decorated cut-out cookies, cakes and Artisan breads. And in 2012, Travis Manderfield, great-grandson of Frank, proudly joined the family business.
“We all got started in the business because we grew up with parents who were bakers,” said Doug Manderfield. “We are all creative in our own ways, and have found our strengths that helped bring about our success.”
Though the business has grown over the past 35 years, they remember their roots, and maintain a home-town feel in the bakery. “We treat all of our customers as guests in our home,” said Manderfield. “We focus on consistent quality products with excellent customer service.” The bakery has gone from one location with 15 employees to three locations with 120 employees.
“Using flavors from International® Bakers Services (IBS) has helped our bakery produce consistent, unique and very flavorful products that our customers enjoy on a regular basis,” said Manderfield. “My father used these flavors for over 30 years, and we continue to use the same formulas and flavors. The flavors include True Butter, B&V®, Cinnabutter blend and V&R® for our tasty treats.”
If you want flavors that keep your customers coming back time after time, turn to International® Bakers Services. We have the flavors your customers deserve.
Contact us toll-free at 800-345-7175, by fax at 574-287-7161, or visit our website at: www.internationalbakers.com International Bakers Services, 1902 North Sheridan Ave., South Bend, Indiana 46628.
¦ bakers formula ¦
BY KRISTIN ATWOOD
HONEY AND TEA CAKES
This recipe comes to Bakers Journal from Kristin Atwood, a student in Durham College’s advanced baking and pastry arts program (see feature story in Bakers Journal , April 2017).
Atwood writes, “With spring here and sweet floral flavours at the
CAKE INGREDIENTS:
• 1 cup unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 cup 2% milk
• 4 quality English breakfast tea bags (preferably with whole leaves)
• 1 ¾ cups sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 4 large eggs
• 2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
HONEY BUTTERCREAM INGREDIENTS:
• 6 large egg yolks
• 2/3 cup of good quality honey
• 2 cups of butter, room temperature
CAKE PREPARATION:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line the bottom of an 18-inch by 13-inch sheet pan with parchment, spray the bottom and sides of the pan with nonstick cooking spray, lightly coat with flour and set aside.
2. Heat the cubed butter in a small pot over medium heat until just melted. Remove from the heat and let two tea bags infuse into the butter for 5 minutes then remove the tea bags and discard. The butter should smell of tea and be lightly tinted brown.
3. Heat another small pot with the milk over medium heat just until steam begins to rise from the top. Remove the milk from the heat and let two tea bags infuse for five minutes then remove the bags and discard. The milk should be caramel colour and smell of tea.
forefront of our minds, these light and fluffy mini cakes are a perfect teatime treat. Made with a black tea infused sponge and a silky French buttercream flavoured with golden honey, these bright little cakes are sure to lift anyone out of their winter blues.”
4. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, pour in your butter, sugar and vanilla and whip on high for 10 minutes. The bowl should feel cool to the touch and the mixture will appear light yellow in color and fluffy.
5. On low speed, add in your eggs one at a time until incorporated then turn your mixer up to high for 5 minutes until the batter is very light and fluffy and all sugar grains should be dissolved.
6. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt.
7. On low speed, add in the flour mixture gently, in one addition and mix until just combined.
8. Stream in the milk slowly ensuring that it is combined and does not split the mixture. Immediately stop mixing once combined.
9. Pour the batter into the prepared sheet pan and use a spatula to spread the mixture evenly.
10. Bake for 15-17 minutes, the sponge should be a very light brown and springy to the touch. Insert a tooth pick or cake tester and ensure that it comes out clean to be sure. Set the cake aside to cool.
HONEY BUTTERCREAM
PREPARATION:
1. In a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment to whip up the six egg yolks on medium speed.
2. While the yolks are whisking, place your honey in a small pot on the stove over medium-high heat until the honey begins to bubble up aggressively and has reached 240F.
3. Turn the mixer down to low and stream in the hot honey slowly ensuring it incorporates well into the yolks. Once all of the honey has been added turn your mixer up to high for 10 minutes or until the bowl is cool to the touch and the mix has become fluffy and light in colour.
4. Leave the mixer on high and slowly add in chunks of butter piece by piece allowing it to become incorporated. The goal is to create a fluffy emulsion. If the buttercream looks like it is separated or lumpy, don’t worry, keep mixing and it will come together. When finished, the buttercream will look light, creamy and pale yellow.
ASSEMBLY:
1. Using small or medium sized circular cookie cutters, cut out circles of cooled cake and place on a separate pan lined with parchment. Use the honey buttercream to ice as desired. Serve as is or garnish with fresh edible flowers or a slice of honey comb.
SWEET SUCCESS FOR STUDENTS
With their semester coming to an end, students in the Advanced Baking and Pastry graduate certificate program at Durham College (DC) were put to their final test – create a Pop-up Bake Shop in which to package, market and sell their creative concoctions.
On April 8, teams of
students took their work to market with a series of Pop-up Bake Shops featured at DC’s W. Galen Weston Centre for Food (CFF), where they competed for the honour of top shop. After months of preparation, the students were able to see their semester-long projects come to life as they sold an array of artisan breads, confections and preserves to members of the community
under their own unique brands.
“It’s awesome and really fun,” said Caitlin Lounsberry, an Advanced Baking and Pastry Arts student who had been looking forward to this day all semester. “Part of the goal is to break-even on the cost of creating our company, but it’s really not about the money – it’s about the food.”
Her team, Creative Café and Confectionary, based
their theme around treats traditionally found in a coffee shop, stocking their booth with coffee-flavoured pastries, candies and chocolate baked goods. The team came up with the idea during their entrepreneurship class where students had the opportunity to develop a company and market it.
Students drew on those entrepreneurial lessons and skills in their capstone
From left, Durham College advanced baking and pastry arts students Kasey Rogers, Kristin Atwood, Medora El-Haj and Rachel Correia show off their pop-up bakeshop.
BAKING & PASTRY: MASTERING THE ART & CRAFT
The leading learning tool for all levels of baking and pastry ability, newly illustrated and updated.
Praised by top pastry chefs and bakers as “an indispensable guide” and “the ultimate baking and pastry reference,” the latest edition of Baking and Pastry from The Culinary Institute of America improves upon the last with more than 300 new recipes, photographs, and illustrations, and completely revised and up-to-date information on creating spectacular breads and desserts.
Covering the full range of the baking and pastry arts and widely used by professionals and readers who want to bake like professionals, this book offers detailed, accessible instructions on the techniques for everything from yeast breads, pastry doughs, quick breads, breakfast pastries, and savory items to cookies, pies, cakes, frozen desserts, custards, soufflés, and chocolates
Some of the delicious baked goods prepared by Durham College advanced baking and pastry arts students for their pop-up bakeshops.
project class, where the Pop-up Bake Shop event originated, with each team responsible for their shops’ baking, marketing, budgeting, ordering, packaging and any business decisions related to the event day. Other teams included The Butterstick, Sensible Creations and Classy Bees.
“It’s exciting to see all of our creativity and hard work
¦ industry news ¦
come together,” said Kasey Rogers, student and co-creator of Classy Bees, which offered trendy treats like emoji-themed sweets, including lollipops.
“We just want to make things that people will think is post-worthy and to add to social media,” said Rogers’ teammate Medora El-Haj.
“We like to describe ourselves as the Saturday Night Live of
Dare Foodservice ramps up offerings for Canada
Dare is celebrating Canada’s 150th Birthday with its iconic Ultimate Maple Crème Cookie, recognizable in its shape as the Canadian maple leaf and made with real maple syrup.
Operators can optimize their Canada Day celebrations by leveraging Dare’s creative Ultimate Maple Crème Cookie recipe applications, including the Ultimate Maple Crème Crunch Cheesecake, the Ultimate Maple Leaf Cupcake, and the Ultimate Maple Leaf Crème Brule.
What better way to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday. Contact Dare Foodservice for these recipes and more great recipe ideas and menu applications. For more information, email foodservice@darefoods.com.
bakeries. Always keeping up with trends to keep people coming back.”
DC’s Pop-up Bake Shop event is an opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience as well as showcase what they have learned in their program – from the kitchen to the computer to the counter and beyond.
“The students get to run a business for a day, which is
an incredible learning experience before moving into the industry,” said Tanya Heck, pastry chef and professor at DC.
“It is not only about food creation, but incorporating the business aspect that will help students succeed after graduation, whether they want to open their own business or work for an established organization.” / BJ
Bravo for Boulart breads
TORONTO – Boulart, one of North America’s premier industrial artisanal bakeries, dominated the 2017 National Restaurant Association’s Food and Beverage (FABI) Awards, winning three awards – the most of any nominee this year. The FABI Awards offer restaurant operators and consumers an inside look at the year’s most delicious, unique and exciting food products.
The three winning breads are:
• Individually Wrapped Ciabatta Bites, in ovenable packaging that improves inventory and waste management, also has a barcode that can be scanned at retail if required.
• Original Flat Sandwich Bun, a thin ciabatta bun created to satisfy consumer demand to minimize calories.
• Olive Oil and Fine Herb Focaccia, made with simple and traditional ingredients, helps reduce kitchen waste and manage inventory, as it comes baked and frozen allowing for easy thawing or reheating as needed.
“We’re honoured to have three of our products recognized by the National Restaurant Association, especially as Boulart celebrates its 10th anniversary,” said Boulart president Michel Saillant.
BY JANE DUMMER, RD
GUARANTEEING GLUTEN-FREE OATS
A Canadian group is studying testing protocols for commercially ‘cleaned’ oats
According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, between 2008 and 2012, the glutenfree market had a compound annual growth rate of more than 26 per cent and the global market is expected to hit US$6.2 billion by 2018.
In fact, in Canada, gluten-free baked goods are expected to grow over five per cent in value and four per cent in volume by 2018. This means some people are choosing gluten-free products out of choice and not for a medical condition. Sales of gluten-free products continue to grow by double digits based on improving the quality and selection available in mainstream channels.
}Market analysis by Packaged Facts suggests sales in the category will grow nearly 1.5 times in the U.S. market through 2019.
field for consideration and certification as “gluten free.” In addition to the dedicated food value chain, there is another way that has emerged to offer gluten-free oats. That method is known as “cleaning” regular commodity oats, a process that removes the wheat, barley and/or rye contaminates from the mixture using mechanical and optical techniques.
With the cleaning method, it’s critical to have robust and thorough testing protocols to verify there is no gluten contamination at the end. It’s been discovered that after the cleaning method has been implemented, gluten contamination can fall into “hot spots” and it is not homogeneously distributed throughout. Therefore, if the sampling protocol is not vigilant, oats with gluten contaminants may sneak into the “gluten-free” products and end up on the store shelf. Quaker Oats,
There are specialty companies in North America and Europe that produce pure, uncontaminated oat products grown on dedicated fields and equipment and packaged in dedicated gluten-free facilities.
It has been two years since Health Canada has allowed “gluten-free” oats (packaged oat products that contain less than 20 parts per million of gluten) to be marketed as “gluten free” – in keeping with current labeling standards in the United States and Europe. Oats are naturally free of the offending gluten protein found in wheat, barley and rye. Unfortunately, though, most commercial oat products on the market have been cross-contaminated with wheat, barley and/or rye, the contamination occurring during harvesting, transportation, storage, milling, processing and packaging.
The good news is there are specialty companies in North America and Europe that produce pure, uncontaminated oat products grown on dedicated fields and equipment and packaged in dedicated gluten-free facilities. It’s important to note that it takes three years to fully transition a
which has third-party gluten-free certification in its facilities, is a leader in this area, conducting research to help identify the best sampling protocols.
Canadian Celiac Association (CCA) operations manager Sue Newell says the CCA is in the second year of a three-year project, funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, that is studying the issue.
“Activities of the project include program sampling grains and seeds from the fields to the mill, so we can get information on the amount, source, and methods of contamination,” Newell says. “This program includes oats and hull-less oats, lentils, hemp, and flax. The Canadian Grains Commission is involved in this part of the project. A second project outcome is a new guide indicating how to sample and test for gluten contamination along the production process, pulling together information from experts in the field. The goal is to look at general
The Canadian Celiac Association is studying products made with “cleaned” oats.
principles rather than specific information about specific tests.”
Terra Cotta Foods Ltd., located in Georgetown, Ont., has been on the forefront of producing gluten-free cookies. President and CEO Jason Brass describes why it was important for the business to achieve gluten-free certification in 2013, saying, “Thirdparty certification provides our customers with the confidence that our practices are transparent and rigorous to ensure gluten free products are reaching the store shelves. We have worked hard to guarantee our unique and dedicated gluten free production room is providing quality gluten-free products.
“For example, we not only review the certification of analysis for gluten free oats coming into our facility, we conduct an additional internal test to verify the oats contain less than 20 parts per million of gluten. It’s one more step we have implemented to gain the trust of our customers and to support our commitment and responsibility to the gluten-free community.” / BJ
Jane Dummer, RD (www.janedummer. com), known as the Pod to Plate Food Consultant, collaborates and partners with the food and nutrition industry across North America.
P E R F E C T B R O W N I E
A T R U E S T O R Y : A Reiser customer was using a Vemag Depositor to successfully portion gourmet cookies and scones She wanted to expand into brownie products and decided to purchase a piston filler to do the job. She quickly discovered the limitations of the piston filler – the batter had to be made less viscous to run through the machine and it required hand-spreading to fill the tray corners. Realizing how happy she was with her Vemag, she asked Reiser’s bakery specialists to engineer a solution. The result was a Reiser 18-inch Rotary Sheeter that attached to the Vemag This heavy-duty device allowed her to make the brownies as thick and chocolatey as she originally envisioned. The Sheeter’s full-width extrusion completely filled the pan, eliminating all hand lab or It was the perfect solution! Her vocal support resulted in sales at other plants as she spread the word of Vemag’s ability to sheet viscous batters and cookie doughs
