A delicious start to the day

by Mary Helen Goodloe-Murphy

At 5 a.m., two staffers at Muffins and Scones in Avon are preparing breakfast goodies.

They are in good spirits with great smiles.

A delicious smell is coming from the kitchen. Great big chocolate chip cookies were slipped out of one of four ovens at 5:05 a.m. Holding the tray is manager Sheryl O’Neal. She’s been in the kitchen since 4:15 a.m. to get ovens turned on.

The staffers work at a long counter. O’Neal and staffer Roberta Petkute work diligently to meet the 6:30 a.m. opening time for Muffins and Scones.

O’Neal mixes up a batch of orange-cranberry muffin batter using just-squeezed orange juice and finely grated orange peel. The muffin batter is scooped out with an eight-ounce scoop and put in a muffin cup lined with red paper. This morning she’s making six. In the summer, the number is 20.

She next concentrates on creating bagels, which are arranged 24 to a sheet. Water is boiling in the bagel kettle or hot tub for bagels. O’Neal slides the 24 bagels into the rapidly boiling water. The bagels are ready when they float. O’Neal uses a long-handled basket to pull the ready bagels, which are then arranged eight to a matted sheet. O’Neal paints each bagel with egg wash and then applies various seasonings, like poppy seed, asiago, salt and everything, which is a mixture of 17 different seasonings.

The bagels are popped into an oven heated to 450 degrees for about 10 minutes; they are flipped, then removed.

The fresh bagels will soon be displayed on handled cutting boards in a lighted display case.

Meanwhile, Roberta Petkute is working on puff pastry. She slipped croissants into the oven first. Then she made a cream cheese-Nutella pastry followed by one filled with a strawberry mixture.

She’ll also put together a muffin batter with chocolate chips, coconut and almonds and scoop the mixture into the red paper liner in muffin tins.

Julia Taft owns Muffins and Scones. The business was opened in 2017.

On this April Thursday, she was in the kitchen rolling out dough for cinnamon rolls. She mixed the cinnamon filling, applied it, rolled the dough into a tube shape and then sliced it. The cinnamon rolls were ready for baking.

The bakery has 50 pounds of flour delivered two times a week in the off-season and three times a week in the summer.

At 6:15 a.m., Karolayn Melina Gaibor Yambay arrived to prepare breakfast items like eggs, bacon and sausage.

Out front, Nicole Del Pino filled the display cabinet with trays from the kitchen.

The early morning crew made the 6:30 a.m. opening time with an amazing calm.

Taft made orange-flavored water for customers. The bakery provides many specially flavored drinks, using a selection from 25 different flavors of syrup.

Dishwasher David O’Neal comes in a

7:30 a.m. to start cleaning mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons, scrapers and beaters and everything else that’s ready for washing.

Once breakfast is secured, the kitchen switches to preparing lunch items such as sandwiches, quiche, pasta salad and prepping for the next day.

Out at the customer counter is a small four-tiered display case. Inside are a cut three-layer chocolate cake, a whole chocolate cake and a pecan-encrusted carrot cake. A shelf is vacant. It’s for a key lime pie. Those desserts are made and sold in the Muffins and Scones kitchen and sent to the Froggy Dog Restaurant just up the road. The restaurant is another of Taft’s businesses. The cakes are receiving rave reviews.