December 23, 2024 • 49 mins
In this episode of Bread for the People, host Jim Serpico interviews Maria Baradell, founder of Leaf and Loaf, a Blog and sourdough bakery in Dallas, Texas. Maria shares her journey from starting as a cottage baker to teaching sourdough bakers how to launch and grow their home bakery. They delve into Maria's innovative two-pan baking method, her Venezuelan roots in bread making, and her approach to scaling up production. Maria also discusses her consulting work, digital products, and how she balances baking with being a mother of five. The conversation covers diverse topics from marketing strategies, managing orders through platforms like Hotplate.com, to engaging content creation within the sourdough community.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:11 Maria's Baking Journey
02:15 The Two Pan Method
04:00 Baking Techniques and Tools
16:31 Order Management and Hotplate
23:22 Exploring a New Tool for Bakers
24:28 Marketing Strategies for Home Bakers
25:30 Personal Touches and Unique Offerings
26:22 Navigating Social Media and Community Groups
28:30 Creative Promotions and Giveaways
29:44 Insights from Ebooks and Courses
31:48 Scaling and Managing a Home Bakery
32:19 Challenges and Solutions in Hiring
37:35 Innovative Bread-Based Dishes
40:58 The Sourdough Awards and Community Engagement
48:05 Upcoming Courses and Final Thoughts
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:11 Maria's Baking Journey
02:15 The Two Pan Method
04:00 Baking Techniques and Tools
16:31 Order Management and Hotplate
23:22 Exploring a New Tool for Bakers
24:28 Marketing Strategies for Home Bakers
25:30 Personal Touches and Unique Offerings
26:22 Navigating Social Media and Community Groups
28:30 Creative Promotions and Giveaways
29:44 Insights from Ebooks and Courses
31:48 Scaling and Managing a Home Bakery
32:19 Challenges and Solutions in Hiring
37:35 Innovative Bread-Based Dishes
40:58 The Sourdough Awards and Community Engagement
48:05 Upcoming Courses and Final Thoughts
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Bread for the People. I'm Jim Surperco. I
hope you all getting ready for the holidays. Everyone, I
certainly am. And today I have a special guest, the
founder of Leaf and Low for sour Dough Bakery out
of Dallas, Texas, remem Maria Barredell is here today and
she is a great resource for all you bakers out there,
(00:25):
you sourdough bakers, your cottage bakers. As you know, i
started as a cottage baker's baking out of my garage
for quite some time, and I'm curious to compare it
to what Maria has been through and her experiences, and
also get some advice for all of us.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
So welcome Maria.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's my pleasure. I'm very excited to share our experiences.
I know that you have a blog and you write
a lot of ebooks. Do you bake consistently yourself?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
So now that I was baking around like one hundred
loaves a week at some point, but then the side
of the business that I do some consulting and that
I write resources and digital products started growing. So now
I'm only making once per month for my community so
that I can do the other things because I'm also
(01:20):
a busy mom of five.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Oh wow, that takes a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
What's more stressful being the mom of five of baking
one hundred loves a.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Week doing it together?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, that's the recipe for stress, all right? Yes, for real,
one hundred loves a week is something I'm pretty familiar with.
Did you do it at a regular home oven?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I did, wow, And that is kind of what set
me apart, I think from others in the community. I
think that a lot of people, when they start a
home bakery, they see these other online accounts and they
see that nice bread oven and that big commercial mixer,
and they are like, I want that for myself, but
(02:05):
they are expensive and I just couldn't justify it. So
I had to figure out how to bake in bulk
out of my home oven. And that's how I came
up with the two pound method of baking sour the.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Bread in bulk, and I.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Started just talking about it and people really wanted to
learn more about it.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, I certainly want to learn about the two pan
method before we do. You are from Venezuela, correct, Yes
I am, and you grew up eating naturally leven bread. Yes, absolutely,
yeah so and why so?
Speaker 4 (02:45):
There is really a panalea on every corner of like
the town I was.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
On Againandana Panada.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Yes, yeah, like a bakery, yeah, and there was one
on every corner, but nearby my house there was one
that had I'm sure that a lot of them usages,
but the one that we tend to go to the
most was naturally living.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So I don't know if you knew at the time,
if you were interested in anything but eating it, Yeah, exactly.
I wonder if they did an overnight fermentation, you know what.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
I'm not sure, and they are not around anymore for
me to ask them. But that's all I know that
from what my mom has told me, and she she
was ao a biology teacher, so she found that really
interesting and she was always like, whenever we will try
to make it at home, she will talk to me
(03:48):
about that.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But I you know, there were a lot of issues
in Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Saw a lot of businesses had to close and and
they were one of them.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's too bad.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, So let's get into this two pen method. I'm
curious to know what it means, what's the purpose of it.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
So actually it's a method that I came to find
out that other bakers had tried before, but they just
weren't talking about. And so what happened is that I
wanted to increase my production and I saw on TikTok
a baker was doing open baking, but in loaf pans
(04:30):
rather than you know, the bowl shape. I found that
really interesting. So I bought on loaf pans and I
bought four, but I had only for my experiment. I
had only made the doll for two, so I had
the other two loaf pans, and I'm like, wait. I
was nervous about open baking because I know that you
(04:51):
have to like get it right and all that, and
I had not done it just yet. And so I
was like, let me try just putting this other love
pan on top to trap this and so it acts
like a little Dutch oven. And so I did it
like that and the bread came out wonderful. So I
posted about this on a Facebook group of microbakers, and
(05:14):
like a hundred comments were like, oh my gosh, life changing,
this is amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Tell me more. And there were like two or three
comments that were like, oh, yeah, I've.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Done that before, and I'm like, wait, what, you've done
this before.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And you haven't told everybody.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And so after that, I just started sharing about it
and like, I'm able to feed twelve loaf pants in
my oven that way. And I have a double wall oven,
so I can't bake twenty four in one hour.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yes, that makes so much sense.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Yeah, and you know, if I'm baking a hundred, I
just have to spend three four hours in the kitchen
rather than there were these people that were spending like
all day just baking two at a time.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
That was me, Yeah, that's everybody. In the beginning, that
was me too.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Then I bought a commercial convection which cooks very differently
than the home oven.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
When I switched over, I had to get used to
the new texture. There was some things in the home
oven I did prefer. Yeah, but that's a really good idea.
It's not necessarily open baking, right, It's not.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
It's the opposite. You are really trapping the steam with
a lid. Yeah, So people ask me like, can't.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
You open bake because you know, they don't want to
spend the extra money buying the extra lobpans to cover it, right,
but it's not the same, Like I could not bake
that many at once if I was open baking. Number
one because you will need a really big amount of
steam and it's hard to generate that large amount of
(06:48):
steam for that many lows at once in a conventional
home oven.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
And number two.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Because I am baking like really close to the bottom
and really close to the top because I have so
many so some they were born they will just burn.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
So this way I'm.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Able to protect the bread from the intense heat during
that very crucial for thirty minutes.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yes, I've seen, actually saw a product today that's like
a Dutch oven with a lid like a dome lid.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, but it's different.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
That's a bigger bull probably takes a ton more space
in the in the home oven.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
The shape is part of the key to what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yes, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Was it like a clutch, like a bread clotch?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, yeah, So some of.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Them are like Dutch ovens can be like a as
long as it's like a heavy cast iron pad, then
I think you could call it a Dutch sam And
I'm not sure, but yeah, some are like a shallow
bottom and then like a dome lead what this was
and summer just like a path. But yeah, so a
(08:04):
lot of people were like, well, my customers are used
to the bowl shape to the round shape, Like how
do you transition your customers from the bowl shape to
the loaf punch shape?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
And I'm like, my customers.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Love it, Like if I love it, then I can
tell them they are going to love it because I'm
the bread expert.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
They trust me, like they don't know about bread. They
trust you. You are the baker, right, so you have
to tell them that they are going to love it.
And it's easier to slice, it's easier to store, it's
easier to use for like in the toaster and to
make sandwiches with. So this shape is really good.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And do you ever take that way with inclusions too?
Why not? Yeah? Right, absolutely, you do anything.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah. One of my.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Most popular breads has no tela in it. I make
no tell us the bread, Yes I do.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
That is so good.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
But I'm going to try this and maybe I'll post
it on Instagram and thank you for coming up with it.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I think it's really cool.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Of course, I don't want to say I came up
with it, because I mean I did in the moment,
I was like, wow, I'm a genius.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
But then other people were like you people have.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Done this before, and I'm like, okay, why aren't they
talking about this?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Everybody needs to know.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
It's so cool and do you So, how about what's
your process before that?
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Do you do cold fermentations?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
So I have a prep day which usually is on Wednesdays.
Wednesday night, I start with, you know, measuring all my
ingredients and feeding my starter. And then the next day
is my doady and so I will mix all of
my bread and then I do the lamination and at
my inclusions if I have any, and then I.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Shape it and put it in the fridge.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
And I put it in the fridge in the love pump,
which is something too that people are like, w you
don't use Vanetton. So I save a lot of money
and a lot of like that extra step when you're
trying to make sur of bread in bulk. I don't
use Vanettons. I just use I either grease the load
pan really well or use a partient paper.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And I put the.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Doll with the sin down rather than in the Banetton
you will put it with the sin up. And I
put it in the fridge, and ninety nine percent of
the time I cover it.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Sometimes I forget.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
It's fine if you don't cover it, really and then
I bring it out in the morning of Thursday and
I bring them out, put them in the counter, I
score the bread, and then I cover them.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
With another love pan and load them in the open.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
That's my process and where you're getting the steam from.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
So the sting is the same moisture that is contained.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Within the bread itself.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So it's basically like baking in a Dutch choving. In
a Dutch schoven, you don't add any extra steam unless
some people like to add ice cubes.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
But you don't need the ice cubes.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
You can bake up perfectly perfect the bread without the
ice cubes in a Dutch schoven.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
So the concept is.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
That is trapping the steam that is escaping from the
dough itself.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, you know, one trick I have for baking in
bulk is doing a bulk cold fermentation and never appreciaping ever.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Okay, literally put it in the fridge, the whole container.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I'll mix it, and a port from the mixing bowl
into a bus pen with a lid. So the bus
pan is probably eight inches high by maybe fourteen inches
or something like that, and it's pretty long, two feet long.
And I'll put that whole buspan in the fridge for
forty eight hours. I'll pour it on my baking table.
At the end of the forty eight hours, I'll shape
(12:00):
it into a bowl and I open bake and I'll
just put it right on parchment for pen and I
put four to five loaves, and I could fit fifteen
loaves in my convention of it at a time, and
I have a double of that, so I could do
thirty at a time and it comes out great.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, I do think that sourdo can be really easy,
Like I do believe truly that it doesn't have to
be that complicated with that many steps. I do think
that the extra steps might make a difference. But honestly,
like I'm.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
With you, like I do think that the idea is
to make great bread.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
And I heard from somebody else that only up to
now because of Instagram and all that, the whole concept
of the open chrome and like everybody wanting to a
ship that incredibly like super open lazy crume came about.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
But before like to have great bread, it does as long.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
As it's well fermented and well cooked, baked, and it's
airy rice.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Not dance, and then you have good bread.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
So you don't need those extra steps are if you
want to achieve a certain kind of product, but you
don't really need them to get good bread.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And we all know the customers don't always love the
open crumb. It's great for Instagram.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, horrible for butter.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Horrible for butter.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So I think that people's tastes have changed over the years.
They used to certain breads in the store. Sour though,
really increased in popularity over the pandemic. It was a
big craze and actually that's where I started. I was
just baking regularly East breads before that. It took me
(13:53):
a couple of minutes to get the hang of sour though,
and now it's second nature to me. Yeah, But how
do you think people's palets have changed? And during this
time of year, you know, how their preferences change.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yeah, And I think that in terms of the pallets,
I would say that maybe because we go out so
often and a lot of restaurants serve sour though bread
as like, oh this is the fancy bread, you know,
and like people like that. And so if you're a
homemaker and you know how to market your bakery, well
then if you can you know, express that that this
(14:30):
is like the good bread, but this is the fancy bread,
this is the one that's good for you, then people
really like it in terms of for example, for me
that I my bread is not that sour because of
the way I feed my startter and I only long
ferment for like it's less than twenty four hours.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
It's like twenty hours.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
That was the same for me for many years.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
I think that that helps with you know, that transition
from the very mild grocery store bread to sour though.
But I think that the popularity of a sour though
lately especially is like you said, after the pandemic, everybody
was underphone, right, So it's thanks to platforms like Instagram
(15:21):
and TikTok. People have gotten to see all these content
creators making sour dough bread and they want a piece
of that. They want to feel what they're feeling because
we make it look really, really nice. And also I
think it's thanks to platforms like all of these online
platforms that allow bakers to get stuff for like really
(15:46):
affordable prices, Like I said, like I tried to keep
things affordable. I wasn't going to spend on a very
expensive oven, or like I have a commercial mixer, and
I actually.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Is one of the purchases. Regret. I wish I had
not bought that big mixer.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
And now I'm more using a bush kind of a
machine that only does six at a time that I
think that's a good.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Kind of machine to use.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
But also using online platforms like for example, Tmo that
helps you buy things affordably, like your banettons, your packaging
for your breads, et cetera. So that's making it more
accessible for everybody to become a baker if they want.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Right now, you basically are a mentor to a lot
of people. Yes, do you get into how to take
the orders and manage the orders, because that's always been
Like I've gone through many different evolutions of how I
collect orders from customers. Yes, now I'm embarking on a
(16:54):
formal POS system and tablets and all that, but I'm
actually on my last order for this holiday using Google sheets. Oh,
which there is a plug in that takes credit card payments.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I just found out and I've been using that. It's
pretty great.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Because I like to collect the money and events because
if you're dealing with fifty to seventy five orders and
there were people who don't show up.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Yeah, absolutely, that's one of the biggest things for bakers
dealing with that kind of problems.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
How do you recommend taking the orders in?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah? So I love the drop system. Are you familiar
with that?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
No drop? Drop?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yes? Drop? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
So the first time I'm a mom, like you said,
like I said earlier, and I have a teenager, and
the first time I heard of a drop being a
thing was when last Christmas he asked me for some
fans and he was like, Mom, you have to buy
them this day at this time, and that's it. And
I'm like, well, you know, I'm busy, I'm.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Like doing other things.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Right, I didn't get on the drop at the right
time and it was sold out.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I guess I do know what that is, right, I
do know what that is from sneakers clothes, right, Okay, So.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
That's what the first time I heard of it, like.
It makes it very exclusive and like fomo, right, fear
of missing out, like urgency, create that urgency for your
customers too. So I do love the idea of the
drop system, and so there is this a website. There
are several platforms, but the one I use and I
recommend is hot Play.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Have you heard of Hot Play?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Never heard of Hot Play?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
No? Okay, I love them. So basically they do drops.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
And so what I do is that I will post
my menu ahead of time, and it opens on Saturday
at ten am, and my customers will know ahead of time,
or sometimes I surprise them because I forgot to like
set it up, and so it's like it's a now.
So it opens and the customers get a text message,
(19:04):
which I love. It comes with the text messaging already
built in, so they get a text message saying it's
going to open in the next few minutes. So they
get in the website and they order, and they see
my menu, so they can order, and I can modify
it to say I only have twelve of the no
(19:24):
Tella ones, I only have twelve of the well not Cranberry,
and I have twenty four of the plastic plain flavor.
And you can say like only two per customers. For example,
when I was doing the pumpkin Shake ones, I wanted
to limit how many because then there is a customer
that will take six and it's like no two per customers.
(19:48):
You can do all those variations and then people can
pay within the same app and so I don't have
to be chasing people for payment. And then also you
can put let your bakery poll and so one of
my policies is that you know, if you don't pick
it up within they already paid. But if you don't
pick it up within the first twelve, twelve to twenty
(20:10):
four hours, then you are forfeiting your order. Because my
bread is supposed to be fresh and supposed to you know,
for it to be good and for customers to give
me their best review and feedback. So I need to
make sure that they are picking it up in town.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, where do they pick this bread up?
Speaker 4 (20:29):
They pick it up from my house. And I love
that because I did so. I live in a community
that I'm unlucky that right across the street from our
house there is like a little billage shops and they
do a market once per month. So I was doing that,
but my business was growing enough that I really didn't
(20:49):
even need the market. So people can just come to
my house, they get them notification, and thankfully I sell
out within ten minutes and so they buy it and
then on Thursday afternoon they pick it up from my house.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So hot plate, could you modify that if you have
a different what if I was a pizza truck.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yes, there are picks. There are like a cake.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Ice, seem right, So all kinds of bakers or hospitality
people could use something like hot plate, yes, to kind
of create the urgency and pop up. And you could
change the time window you use twelve to twenty four hours.
I could say I'm only going to be in this
location for one hour, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Or you could say, also you can have a pickup
windows at different locations too, so you can be here
during this time to this time. I'm here during this
time to this time. Yeah, And people can select, well,
I want to pick up from you. I've done this,
like do you want to pick up from my house
or from the market, So people can pick I'm going
(21:54):
to be in the market from nine to twelve, and
then you can pick.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Up from my house from like one to four.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Is there a charge to use hot Plate?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
So there is, but it's there is not a charge,
but there is a fee with every purchase.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
So you can choose as a baker to pay for
that fee or the customer campaign.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
And so what I do is that I have the
customer pay because it's sense. It is sense.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
If you think it's like five percent of you know,
five percent of twelve dollars, I don't know, like you
do them.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
It's really just sense.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And people don't think about it, like nobody has ever
told me anything about it, Like.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
They don't want to pay it.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
People are used to paying online fees and processing fees
and web fees.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So wow, all right, Marie, we're going to take a
break into a live commercial.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Read.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yes, all right.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
This episode of Bread for the People is brought to
you by hot Plate, an online orring system that I
was told about from Maria Barredell. Go to hot plate
dot com.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
I'm only Kaddy, we need to reach on the show.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I was gonna they'll they'll do it.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
They'll do it because we're going to tag them because
we just gave them a really good plug. But honestly,
I think it sounds so cool. As soon as we're done,
I'm going on to check it out.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Yes, please do, because they are amazing to work with.
I'm sure that they would love to work with you
because they and like so if I share my link,
I get a baker joints, then I make money that way,
but I'm not associated with like I'm They're not paying
for to say this. I really do love them and
(23:49):
they have.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
The best customer service, Like I can text them.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
People all bakers can literally just text them and you
get an answer right away. And they are always atting
new features that people have been asking for. So they
really listen to the bakers and the you know, the
courage bakers and communities.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
So they are really great to work with.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So it's a tool though that you're you're using. You're
still relying on the audience you built personally, and you're
loading your text numbers in there. It's not like the
average person has a subscription to hot Plate. They only
know about it because you're putting it out to your
fan base.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
So what I've done to grow my I've done several things,
and I think that I rely on that marketing background
that I do have and it has helped me grow
my bakery.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
What I do is that I will.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Announce it to my friends and family and first and
then I took it to say Facebook groups and another
like next door et cetera. And I will post about
my business, and the way I will get people to
sign up is that I will tell them, hey, I
have a limited drop of the pumpkin shaped bread and.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
That's something that people really like.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
They thought it was cute and they want to they
want some, so they will get some. And or whenever
it was Easter, I had like the bunny shape bread
and they like, people really want to get one, so
they will sign up.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
So right now I have over five hundred people sign
up to my list.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Right I just did the turkey shape chat was for Thanksgiving.
Yeah that I made a ton of them. Yeah, I've
heard you talk about personal touches to products and is
that what you mean or are you talking about something
a little different.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Well, that that can be some of that. But also
some people even add like their own stencils under bread,
and they can they created that way or just their
their flavors. So for example, I know that I was
the first one like in Dallas basically that was offering
(26:00):
that nutella sourdough bread, like I know some do my
fine bread that's noutella bread, but it wasn't like sourdough, right,
And so I know that that was something that really
helped me stand out. Whenever you add like your this
is my signature bread that you cannot find any anywhere else,
I think that.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Really helps got it?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Just jumping back, you mentioned next door, which is something
I've heard of. One of the issues I have with
Facebook is most of the sourdough groups. A lot of
these groups don't let you promote. So how do you
find those groups? And it's next to one of them?
Tell us what that is?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, next door is like another app for neighborhoods to
connect and to be honest, I haven't really found a
lot of success and apps like that, but I know
of other pakers that have.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
For me, it was mostly a Facebook really. So the
way I will.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Do it is I'm a mom of five, so I
am part of a lot of groups, right, So I'm like,
there is my kids do activities, so I'm in the
soccer chat and in the baseball chat and in the
basketball chat and all of that. So using those groups
to try to promote it, and people are really willing
(27:19):
to support you that way.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
But people have like church groups or.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Like you know, in your workplace, you can also promote it.
But for Facebook so there is a group that is
like the neighborhood official group. You cannot promote your software,
but you can have a friend promote you. Like if
someone said someone and I didn't even ask them, they said,
(27:43):
I just found the hidden gem of Castle Hills, which
is our neighborhood, and they were talking about my bread
and it was great.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I got a lot of people to sign up for that.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
And the other thing is that there is a I
mean Louisville Tech which is a suburb in Dallas. There
is a Louisville, Texas group and they have went on
Wednesdays you can promote yourself, So I will do that
on Wednesdays.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Now that's a good idea to track the days you're
allowed to promote in there. I had a lot of
that organic chatter and talking about my business at the beginning,
but that has since died down. Yeah, you know, because
we're not the new thing anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Right, you have to.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Keep it interesting, I think, and I think that those
like a special shape breads help and like for example,
what I did last and I got me like sixty
people to sign up. It was a giveaway basket. I
put a basket together and I bought all these things
from Timu and I put like a bread knife and
(28:49):
a really nice jar, and I put my dehydrated starter
there with the instructions, and I put a bread bag,
not like I put like a linen bread that that
was really nice. I put a butter so I put
it in like a cute container with like a chiphone
(29:10):
boat and like a wooden knife. And then I put
a load of bread there and some cookies package really
quick cute. So I met a gift giveaway basket and
then I told them like, hey, if you sign up
to my list, of my text notification list, then you
(29:30):
are going to be entering the giveaway. And yeah, I
got a lot of people to sign up for that.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
That was meat.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
So you can do things.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Like that once a month every two months, get creative,
and you can get people talking.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
About you again.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Do you talk about this stuff in some of your ebooks? Yes?
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I do. Yeah, I have an ebook for beginners, but
I also have one that is how to launch, run
and market your home bakery, and I talk all about
like what the messaging should be to get people really
excited when you are launching, and like before launching, during
the lunch after the lunch. And also a messaging that
(30:10):
sells without being selsy, so things like, you know, touching
the emotional core of people, making the customer the hero.
So for example, instead of being like, buy my bread
is twelve dollars, it's really good, everybody's talking about it,
you can be like, be the hero tonight and bring
(30:31):
a lot of hour of bread at home for everybody's dinner.
You know, something like that, Like you can make them
the hero, or like be everybody's favorite at work whenever
you bring somebody a lot of bread.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
So touching emotional core.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Also what else, I have a whole list of things
that messaging that really helps, and I create that urgency
and formal focus on the benefits rather than the features,
make it personal and relatable. All of those things are
things that I talk about and I give examples, and
I give you like what the messaging should be, and
(31:08):
lots of ideas on how to market your bakery for growth.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It sounds like it's not just for bread bakers, right
because you know a big part of my pizza My
business is chocoutery and pizza, and I could use the
same things.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Yes, absolutely this works for break piza and really for
like cookies or cake or.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Like just anyone who's a home baker.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
This applies to and I tell them all about like
the cottage law, and like how to if you have
to form a company, how to go about doing that,
if you have to create a bank account. You know,
all of those things are covered there. And I also
talk a lot about like scaling, going from just making
two for you and your family to baking six, to
(31:56):
bake in twolve to making sixty per week. Right, So
that's another question. I get a lot like how do
you do all that big prep and a big doday?
How do you manage the fermentation? How do you stagger
it so that it works out so that one being
is not over fermenting while you're shaping the other being.
So all of those things I talk about?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Do you ever use other employees?
Speaker 4 (32:20):
So I thought about it because if I wanted to
grow my bakery, then I probably had to go in
that direction. There is enough demand in my neighborhood for
me to be selling like two hundred lows per week,
but I really, mentally, physically, emotionally, I don't have the capacity.
So I quickly decided that I wanted to do just
(32:42):
sixty per week was going to be my mask. And
then once my online coaching and consulting started to take off,
I'm not now just making ones per month.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
So my customers are like, they really want the bread.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
But I thought about how somebody, but it just it's
not the it's not the direction I want to go.
It's hard finding people, don't you do you struggle with that?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, I usually hire somebody that we know personally already.
I very rarely use outsiders, although that's going to change
because I'm about to embark on like a full time
it's a very large truck and I'm trying to get
study employees.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Okay, so that's going to be different.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Up until now, I do have operated like a cottage bakery,
and I'll use a teenager from a family we know
or something, and I train them and before they go
to college they work for me and they kind of
like it. You could tell the ones who like it
and the ones who don't.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
You know, do you use them for the doll.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Preparation sometimes, although lately I've backed off of that and
I do most of it. I over time. I'm doing
this five years now, so it's it's evolved from the beginning.
I used to have no cold fermentation and just use
five gallon buckets and ferment overnight, and like you, my
bread wasn't very sour. Then I ended up purchasing a
(34:11):
lot of refrigeration so that I could have flexibility in
when the bread and refrigerator is baked. I use people
for packaging because we're doing at least three hundred a weekend.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah wow, you know, and we have to do the labeling.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
We you know, the packaging, the sorting which one's going
to this market, and then we use vendors at the markets.
I don't do the markets as much, right, Okay, So yeah,
we help have and then sometimes we do special events,
like four times a year, we'll do one event where
we'll sell eight hundred to one thousand loaves in a
day and we have like a forty eight hour operation
(34:51):
for that.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah. So I struggle finding somebody that will.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Help with the doll part, which I find is the
hardest part, because like I said, I have my capacity
and baking sixty to one hundred a week. It will
only be four hours in the kitchen on Bakeday.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
But the big day is the dull day.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
So I have all my bread, every recipe I have
is right, is in excel and scalable. So and I know,
like if I'm doing a bucket, a five gallon bucket
of jeder hile opinio, I know I can only fit
six units before it overflows in the bucket when proofing, right,
(35:38):
So I'll mix in six units of six. And I
have trained a ton of people to read those tickets,
and they know how to weigh and put the water
in and put the sour dough starter in. I definitely
have used people for that.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Yeah, you gotta pict us about that, because yeah, that's
one thing that I struggle with, is like trusting somebody
with the process of sour though, which is like so delicate.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
It is delicate, but if you go by weight, there's
really very little that could be messed up. Y right, Well,
I don't do that's different. I do the shaping, right, Okay,
because I don't have it's so hard to train. It
takes so much time to train them. Unless they're staying,
we do the shape all the time. I don't want
to spend the time training them, right, I'll use them
(36:25):
for the mixing.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Okay, Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
And it was very important for me to switch, Like,
as a home baker who really knew nothing, I'm reading
recipes online and I'm they're coming to me in cups, right,
And it was very important for me two years in
to take the time and go through every recipe and
go by weight and I've you know, I've changed everything,
and I'll you know, that's how I do everything now,
(36:50):
which how you have to when you're a professional baker.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
A wait, how were you doing it before? Doing it
by wait?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Before I was doing it by waight, it was doing
it by volume and cups. Oh no, but that's how
I started. I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Okay, okay, yeah, we don't do that.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Yeah then then yeah, you figure it out quickly that
sometimes it doesn't like it quay to the.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Same thing, right.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
So now it's pretty consistent. And but I'm backing off
a little bit of the bread. I'm going more into
the uh cooking on demand and pizza and I'll have
bread with me, but I don't think I'll be doing
as much bread.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
But but the fact that I have that background, the
anchor and the hook to my company is everything we
serve is served on a bread product of ours. So
I was just developing a pasta plate out of bread
this weekend. I used instead of pizza dough bread recipe
that I have and double folded the crust because you know,
when you're eating pasta at home, you sometimes you put
(37:56):
it in a bowl, but a lot of times you
put it in a plate, right, it heaps, So that's
how I'm going to do it. And it's also eye catching.
So when you're at a fair or a private party,
you're handing a wax paper with your brand on it
with the plate and a fork and a napkin and
everyone's walking around eating this plate that they could eat.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Wait, so it's bread, yeah, and then pastime sign. Yeah
that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah, I did it all weekend just and yeah, I'm
freezing them so yeah I could.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
I could just take them out of the freezer or
keep them on the freezer in the truck, take them out,
put in the ovens, and do this whole thing. That
is so cool because again, like what separates me from
another pizza truck or another bread vendor, you know, I
think it's the fact that I could cook other food
(38:50):
that goes with my bread and everything you're eating that
there's a hook. It's freshly baked bread, baked by us.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah, I took a lot about that on my book
and on social media. People should really start with why
they are doing this, to find that way to separate
yourself and differentiate yourself. So for me, like I was
saying the same things that everybody says, like my bread
is great, it's long fermented, it's twelve dollars, look at
(39:22):
the reviews.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Buy it.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
But then I have a friend who is a business consultant,
and she we were just chatting about business, and she's like,
why are you doing this? And my answer kept being like, well,
because I need the extra income because like very feature oriented, right,
And she's like, no, about why, And so it came
(39:46):
I boil it down to I'm trying to bring bread
back to the community, and I'm on a mission to
bring bread back, and so people want to join that.
People want to or in a mission, and they want
to like help you get your goal. Like one of
my goals is to have a bread baker in every neighborhood.
(40:08):
So you know, I'm trying to like recruit people not
just like other bakers, but also customers, right, like join
this mission of bringing real bread back. So I think
that that's something that really differentiated me from the other
bakers that were saying my bread is great. Mine is like,
(40:28):
I'm on a mission to bring good bread back, you know,
so people want to buy from you.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah, the only thing I've heard like it. I've never
heard an individual bakery do it.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
I do.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
And you probably know the Real Bread campaign.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Oh yes, it's from UK.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yes it's pretty cool. But I love that mission. That's
a great mission.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I know. I really love what they are doing.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
And when I first came across them, I was like,
oh darn, Like I really like I would love.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
To do something like that here and I don't hear familiar.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
But I just hosted the first annual Sourdo Awards and
that was really cool.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Wait, tell me about this because I want to do
so I want to get involved in this stuff I do,
but I want to do it, of course.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
So I just hosted them. They just passed and so
the idea of these awards were.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Able to honor and thank the content creators in the
space of Sourdough.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Content creators, yes.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
Because they are the ones that are bringing these awarnments
to the community. To the they are the ones that
are increasing the demand for the and they're really growing
the industry because they are putting out all of these
really good content and they're growing the demand. They are
getting customers to buy from them, right. So, and also
(41:53):
it was to tell the people that you know, make
bread just because they love it. They don't necessarily have
to sell it, so they might just be showing their
creations and how they score it and what their chrome
looks like and teaching others about it. So I had
seven categories. One of them was most Educational.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
I had who who won the sour the journey that's
my friend, Yes, of course, Tom Tom ye, I love it.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
And then the the person who won the silver medal
for that hour was the sour Dough Gal and she
really just started recently, but she's been growing a lot
and she shares a lot of like information and she
runs a lot of experiments. So I thought that that
was really cool that she's grown so much and she's
(42:50):
she's been so helpful to the community. And then the
third one was the bronze medal was for a sour dog.
Explain have you heard of her?
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Mm hm is really great.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Yeah, it's really great too.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
So then I had other categories like most fun account
with the most fun content, one for the most beautiful feed,
so content that really gets you like, oh wow, this
is beautiful.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
I want to do that.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I had one for best recipes, I had one for
best micro bakery content. I had one for best under
five K followers, and I had a category for brand's
best friends. So the person the content creator that gets
you to buy whatever they say because you really trust
(43:40):
them and that you know they always partner with brands,
and brands should partner with them because they're so great
at what they're doing. So that was really fun.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
How did you do it?
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Was it just was there an in person thing? Did
you do this online? Did you release the winners on
your blog?
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (43:57):
So I I just posted online like an Instagram post,
like hey, I'm doing this and these are the categories
and these are the rules how to do it, and
I'm going to be announcing the prices soon. And so
go to my bio and fill out the form to
(44:20):
nominate people. And so I got a lot of nominations.
And meanwhile, that was like two weeks for people to
nominate I had. I was working so hard finding sponsors
to give me money to have some like really nice awards,
and so once the good thing is that it spread
(44:44):
the world, like people were like posting about it, like hey,
you can nominate me, or like nominate your favorite creators.
Then when those two weeks ended, I went through the
list and picked like the top three.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
For each c degory and we did like another round
of voting.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
I posted on Instagram again for this and so people
could pick who the gold, silver bronze winners were, and
by then I already had the sponsors, so I announced
it and people were really excited because the goal winners
were going to win six hundred dollars each and the
(45:23):
silver winners had access to a course to help people
monetize their online presence and which is like five hundred
dollars worth. And then well the gold price was like
that plus the six hundred dollars in cash plus other prices,
so it was like almost like a thousand dollars or
(45:44):
more worth price. And then the silver, the brownze price
was like aprons and tablecloth from a brand and a
bread basket worming basket from another brand. So people were
really excited about winning this award, so they started posting
(46:05):
more about it, and we ended up having one thousand,
eight hundred class people voting for.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
The final awards.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
And so yeah, then we selected the winners and announced
that we had a press release, and I put it
on my blog and.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
On Instagram as well. I had an Instagram life.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Now I know Tom pretty well, and I have a
feeling he's the kind of guy that might have slipped
you a thousand bucks to win this.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
I don't think so, you don't think that happened.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
No, he just posted honestly, like I don't even know
if he knew about it, like before he was actually nominated.
And I attacked him on the on the okay, now
the second round of voting because he had not shared
shared it on his page or anything. But a lot
of people were voting for him because he really is
(46:57):
the most educational.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
He's amazing, is the best.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
A lot of people were for him already.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Yeah, and then he posted on his stories and yeah,
I mean there was nothing close in terms of like
who voted for who.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
He moves a lot of people. And then there is
this other mom that's hour the mom. I was like shocked.
She she was like top five in all the categories.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
She won top three in three categories, but like, she
really has a lot of power moving people. And then
there were some small accounts, some big accounts that did
not do any promotion of it, so they didn't get
a lot of votes. And then some small accounts that
were posting about it all the time.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
And they got a lot of votes. So it was
really impressing that.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Actually, if you see the winners, some are small accounts
because they did got the job move mobilizing the vote,
the voting.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Well, listen, we're gonna we're gonna end this thing. Is
there anything else you would like to share with the audience,
anything coming up? Anything going on on the blog?
Speaker 4 (48:05):
Oh yeah, So in January, I'm going to be releasing
a course. So it's going to be building on the
success of my ebook on how to launch, run, and
Grow your Home Bakery. So now I'm going to turn
it into a course and I'm going to be including
a lot of my recipes so that people can really
(48:25):
start from scratch. And then I'm also going to teach
them like the next step, which is like how to
monetize their online presence. Because we are all online, we
spend a lot of time creating all these reels, all
this content, right to promote our bread, But then like,
how do you also monetize that so that if you're
(48:46):
not baking a week because you're sick or you're burnout
or whatever, Like, how can you continue making money just
like I'm doing, like selling my ebooks.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
And other things.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
That's great, and I'll leave you with this. How about
a category for best brought bread podcast next year?
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Oh my gosh, you wish you'll have one?
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yes, you got me, you got a lain body, you
got uh, there's quite a few of them out there.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yes, I know Caroline from a bread Winner. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, I'll have Tom slip you an extra five hundred
for me. All right.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
It's great to meet you. I love what you're doing
and I learned a lot on this episode. I really did,
so thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to Bread for the People. I'm Jim Surperco. I
hope you all getting ready for the holidays. Everyone, I
certainly am. And today I have a special guest, the
founder of Leaf and Low for sour Dough Bakery out
of Dallas, Texas, remem Maria Barredell is here today and
she is a great resource for all you bakers out there,
(00:25):
you sourdough bakers, your cottage bakers. As you know, i
started as a cottage baker's baking out of my garage
for quite some time, and I'm curious to compare it
to what Maria has been through and her experiences, and
also get some advice for all of us.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
So welcome Maria.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's my pleasure. I'm very excited to share our experiences.
I know that you have a blog and you write
a lot of ebooks. Do you bake consistently yourself?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
So now that I was baking around like one hundred
loaves a week at some point, but then the side
of the business that I do some consulting and that
I write resources and digital products started growing. So now
I'm only making once per month for my community so
that I can do the other things because I'm also
(01:20):
a busy mom of five.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Oh wow, that takes a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
What's more stressful being the mom of five of baking
one hundred loves a.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Week doing it together?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, that's the recipe for stress, all right? Yes, for real,
one hundred loves a week is something I'm pretty familiar with.
Did you do it at a regular home oven?
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I did, wow, And that is kind of what set
me apart, I think from others in the community. I
think that a lot of people, when they start a
home bakery, they see these other online accounts and they
see that nice bread oven and that big commercial mixer,
and they are like, I want that for myself, but
(02:05):
they are expensive and I just couldn't justify it. So
I had to figure out how to bake in bulk
out of my home oven. And that's how I came
up with the two pound method of baking sour the.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Bread in bulk, and I.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Started just talking about it and people really wanted to
learn more about it.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, I certainly want to learn about the two pan
method before we do. You are from Venezuela, correct, Yes
I am, and you grew up eating naturally leven bread. Yes, absolutely,
yeah so and why so?
Speaker 4 (02:45):
There is really a panalea on every corner of like
the town I was.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
On Againandana Panada.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
Yes, yeah, like a bakery, yeah, and there was one
on every corner, but nearby my house there was one
that had I'm sure that a lot of them usages,
but the one that we tend to go to the
most was naturally living.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So I don't know if you knew at the time,
if you were interested in anything but eating it, Yeah, exactly.
I wonder if they did an overnight fermentation, you know what.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
I'm not sure, and they are not around anymore for
me to ask them. But that's all I know that
from what my mom has told me, and she she
was ao a biology teacher, so she found that really
interesting and she was always like, whenever we will try
to make it at home, she will talk to me
(03:48):
about that.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But I you know, there were a lot of issues
in Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Saw a lot of businesses had to close and and
they were one of them.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's too bad.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, So let's get into this two pen method. I'm
curious to know what it means, what's the purpose of it.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
So actually it's a method that I came to find
out that other bakers had tried before, but they just
weren't talking about. And so what happened is that I
wanted to increase my production and I saw on TikTok
a baker was doing open baking, but in loaf pans
(04:30):
rather than you know, the bowl shape. I found that
really interesting. So I bought on loaf pans and I
bought four, but I had only for my experiment. I
had only made the doll for two, so I had
the other two loaf pans, and I'm like, wait. I
was nervous about open baking because I know that you
(04:51):
have to like get it right and all that, and
I had not done it just yet. And so I
was like, let me try just putting this other love
pan on top to trap this and so it acts
like a little Dutch oven. And so I did it
like that and the bread came out wonderful. So I
posted about this on a Facebook group of microbakers, and
(05:14):
like a hundred comments were like, oh my gosh, life changing,
this is amazing.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Tell me more. And there were like two or three
comments that were like, oh, yeah, I've.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Done that before, and I'm like, wait, what, you've done
this before.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And you haven't told everybody.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And so after that, I just started sharing about it
and like, I'm able to feed twelve loaf pants in
my oven that way. And I have a double wall oven,
so I can't bake twenty four in one hour.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yes, that makes so much sense.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Yeah, and you know, if I'm baking a hundred, I
just have to spend three four hours in the kitchen
rather than there were these people that were spending like
all day just baking two at a time.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
That was me, Yeah, that's everybody. In the beginning, that
was me too.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Then I bought a commercial convection which cooks very differently
than the home oven.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
When I switched over, I had to get used to
the new texture. There was some things in the home
oven I did prefer. Yeah, but that's a really good idea.
It's not necessarily open baking, right, It's not.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
It's the opposite. You are really trapping the steam with
a lid. Yeah, So people ask me like, can't.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
You open bake because you know, they don't want to
spend the extra money buying the extra lobpans to cover it, right,
but it's not the same, Like I could not bake
that many at once if I was open baking. Number
one because you will need a really big amount of
steam and it's hard to generate that large amount of
(06:48):
steam for that many lows at once in a conventional
home oven.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
And number two.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Because I am baking like really close to the bottom
and really close to the top because I have so
many so some they were born they will just burn.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
So this way I'm.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Able to protect the bread from the intense heat during
that very crucial for thirty minutes.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yes, I've seen, actually saw a product today that's like
a Dutch oven with a lid like a dome lid.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, but it's different.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
That's a bigger bull probably takes a ton more space
in the in the home oven.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
The shape is part of the key to what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Yes, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Was it like a clutch, like a bread clotch?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, yeah, So some of.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
Them are like Dutch ovens can be like a as
long as it's like a heavy cast iron pad, then
I think you could call it a Dutch sam And
I'm not sure, but yeah, some are like a shallow
bottom and then like a dome lead what this was
and summer just like a path. But yeah, so a
(08:04):
lot of people were like, well, my customers are used
to the bowl shape to the round shape, Like how
do you transition your customers from the bowl shape to
the loaf punch shape?
Speaker 3 (08:16):
And I'm like, my customers.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
Love it, Like if I love it, then I can
tell them they are going to love it because I'm
the bread expert.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
They trust me, like they don't know about bread. They
trust you. You are the baker, right, so you have
to tell them that they are going to love it.
And it's easier to slice, it's easier to store, it's
easier to use for like in the toaster and to
make sandwiches with. So this shape is really good.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And do you ever take that way with inclusions too?
Why not? Yeah? Right, absolutely, you do anything.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah. One of my.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Most popular breads has no tela in it. I make
no tell us the bread, Yes I do.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
That is so good.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
But I'm going to try this and maybe I'll post
it on Instagram and thank you for coming up with it.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
I think it's really cool.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Of course, I don't want to say I came up
with it, because I mean I did in the moment,
I was like, wow, I'm a genius.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
But then other people were like you people have.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Done this before, and I'm like, okay, why aren't they
talking about this?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Everybody needs to know.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
It's so cool and do you So, how about what's
your process before that?
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Do you do cold fermentations?
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
So I have a prep day which usually is on Wednesdays.
Wednesday night, I start with, you know, measuring all my
ingredients and feeding my starter. And then the next day
is my doady and so I will mix all of
my bread and then I do the lamination and at
my inclusions if I have any, and then I.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Shape it and put it in the fridge.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
And I put it in the fridge in the love pump,
which is something too that people are like, w you
don't use Vanetton. So I save a lot of money
and a lot of like that extra step when you're
trying to make sur of bread in bulk. I don't
use Vanettons. I just use I either grease the load
pan really well or use a partient paper.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And I put the.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
Doll with the sin down rather than in the Banetton
you will put it with the sin up. And I
put it in the fridge, and ninety nine percent of
the time I cover it.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Sometimes I forget.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
It's fine if you don't cover it, really and then
I bring it out in the morning of Thursday and
I bring them out, put them in the counter, I
score the bread, and then I cover them.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
With another love pan and load them in the open.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
That's my process and where you're getting the steam from.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
So the sting is the same moisture that is contained.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Within the bread itself.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So it's basically like baking in a Dutch choving. In
a Dutch schoven, you don't add any extra steam unless
some people like to add ice cubes.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
But you don't need the ice cubes.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
You can bake up perfectly perfect the bread without the
ice cubes in a Dutch schoven.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
So the concept is.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
That is trapping the steam that is escaping from the
dough itself.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah, you know, one trick I have for baking in
bulk is doing a bulk cold fermentation and never appreciaping ever.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Okay, literally put it in the fridge, the whole container.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I'll mix it, and a port from the mixing bowl
into a bus pen with a lid. So the bus
pan is probably eight inches high by maybe fourteen inches
or something like that, and it's pretty long, two feet long.
And I'll put that whole buspan in the fridge for
forty eight hours. I'll pour it on my baking table.
At the end of the forty eight hours, I'll shape
(12:00):
it into a bowl and I open bake and I'll
just put it right on parchment for pen and I
put four to five loaves, and I could fit fifteen
loaves in my convention of it at a time, and
I have a double of that, so I could do
thirty at a time and it comes out great.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, I do think that sourdo can be really easy,
Like I do believe truly that it doesn't have to
be that complicated with that many steps. I do think
that the extra steps might make a difference. But honestly,
like I'm.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
With you, like I do think that the idea is
to make great bread.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
And I heard from somebody else that only up to
now because of Instagram and all that, the whole concept
of the open chrome and like everybody wanting to a
ship that incredibly like super open lazy crume came about.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
But before like to have great bread, it does as long.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
As it's well fermented and well cooked, baked, and it's
airy rice.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Not dance, and then you have good bread.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
So you don't need those extra steps are if you
want to achieve a certain kind of product, but you
don't really need them to get good bread.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And we all know the customers don't always love the
open crumb. It's great for Instagram.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, horrible for butter.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Horrible for butter.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So I think that people's tastes have changed over the years.
They used to certain breads in the store. Sour though,
really increased in popularity over the pandemic. It was a
big craze and actually that's where I started. I was
just baking regularly East breads before that. It took me
(13:53):
a couple of minutes to get the hang of sour though,
and now it's second nature to me. Yeah, But how
do you think people's palets have changed? And during this
time of year, you know, how their preferences change.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yeah, And I think that in terms of the pallets,
I would say that maybe because we go out so
often and a lot of restaurants serve sour though bread
as like, oh this is the fancy bread, you know,
and like people like that. And so if you're a
homemaker and you know how to market your bakery, well
then if you can you know, express that that this
(14:30):
is like the good bread, but this is the fancy bread,
this is the one that's good for you, then people
really like it in terms of for example, for me
that I my bread is not that sour because of
the way I feed my startter and I only long
ferment for like it's less than twenty four hours.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
It's like twenty hours.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
That was the same for me for many years.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
I think that that helps with you know, that transition
from the very mild grocery store bread to sour though.
But I think that the popularity of a sour though
lately especially is like you said, after the pandemic, everybody
was underphone, right, So it's thanks to platforms like Instagram
(15:21):
and TikTok. People have gotten to see all these content
creators making sour dough bread and they want a piece
of that. They want to feel what they're feeling because
we make it look really, really nice. And also I
think it's thanks to platforms like all of these online
platforms that allow bakers to get stuff for like really
(15:46):
affordable prices, Like I said, like I tried to keep
things affordable. I wasn't going to spend on a very
expensive oven, or like I have a commercial mixer, and
I actually.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Is one of the purchases. Regret. I wish I had
not bought that big mixer.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
And now I'm more using a bush kind of a
machine that only does six at a time that I
think that's a good.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Kind of machine to use.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
But also using online platforms like for example, Tmo that
helps you buy things affordably, like your banettons, your packaging
for your breads, et cetera. So that's making it more
accessible for everybody to become a baker if they want.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Right now, you basically are a mentor to a lot
of people. Yes, do you get into how to take
the orders and manage the orders, because that's always been
Like I've gone through many different evolutions of how I
collect orders from customers. Yes, now I'm embarking on a
(16:54):
formal POS system and tablets and all that, but I'm
actually on my last order for this holiday using Google sheets. Oh,
which there is a plug in that takes credit card payments.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
I just found out and I've been using that. It's
pretty great.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Because I like to collect the money and events because
if you're dealing with fifty to seventy five orders and
there were people who don't show up.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Yeah, absolutely, that's one of the biggest things for bakers
dealing with that kind of problems.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
How do you recommend taking the orders in?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah? So I love the drop system. Are you familiar
with that?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
No drop? Drop?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yes? Drop? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
So the first time I'm a mom, like you said,
like I said earlier, and I have a teenager, and
the first time I heard of a drop being a
thing was when last Christmas he asked me for some
fans and he was like, Mom, you have to buy
them this day at this time, and that's it. And
I'm like, well, you know, I'm busy, I'm.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Like doing other things.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Right, I didn't get on the drop at the right
time and it was sold out.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I guess I do know what that is, right, I
do know what that is from sneakers clothes, right, Okay, So.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
That's what the first time I heard of it, like.
It makes it very exclusive and like fomo, right, fear
of missing out, like urgency, create that urgency for your
customers too. So I do love the idea of the
drop system, and so there is this a website. There
are several platforms, but the one I use and I
recommend is hot Play.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Have you heard of Hot Play?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Never heard of Hot Play?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
No? Okay, I love them. So basically they do drops.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
And so what I do is that I will post
my menu ahead of time, and it opens on Saturday
at ten am, and my customers will know ahead of time,
or sometimes I surprise them because I forgot to like
set it up, and so it's like it's a now.
So it opens and the customers get a text message,
(19:04):
which I love. It comes with the text messaging already
built in, so they get a text message saying it's
going to open in the next few minutes. So they
get in the website and they order, and they see
my menu, so they can order, and I can modify
it to say I only have twelve of the no
(19:24):
Tella ones, I only have twelve of the well not Cranberry,
and I have twenty four of the plastic plain flavor.
And you can say like only two per customers. For example,
when I was doing the pumpkin Shake ones, I wanted
to limit how many because then there is a customer
that will take six and it's like no two per customers.
(19:48):
You can do all those variations and then people can
pay within the same app and so I don't have
to be chasing people for payment. And then also you
can put let your bakery poll and so one of
my policies is that you know, if you don't pick
it up within they already paid. But if you don't
pick it up within the first twelve, twelve to twenty
(20:10):
four hours, then you are forfeiting your order. Because my
bread is supposed to be fresh and supposed to you know,
for it to be good and for customers to give
me their best review and feedback. So I need to
make sure that they are picking it up in town.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, where do they pick this bread up?
Speaker 4 (20:29):
They pick it up from my house. And I love
that because I did so. I live in a community
that I'm unlucky that right across the street from our
house there is like a little billage shops and they
do a market once per month. So I was doing that,
but my business was growing enough that I really didn't
(20:49):
even need the market. So people can just come to
my house, they get them notification, and thankfully I sell
out within ten minutes and so they buy it and
then on Thursday afternoon they pick it up from my house.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So hot plate, could you modify that if you have
a different what if I was a pizza truck.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yes, there are picks. There are like a cake.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Ice, seem right, So all kinds of bakers or hospitality
people could use something like hot plate, yes, to kind
of create the urgency and pop up. And you could
change the time window you use twelve to twenty four hours.
I could say I'm only going to be in this
location for one hour, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Or you could say, also you can have a pickup
windows at different locations too, so you can be here
during this time to this time. I'm here during this
time to this time. Yeah, And people can select, well,
I want to pick up from you. I've done this,
like do you want to pick up from my house
or from the market, So people can pick I'm going
(21:54):
to be in the market from nine to twelve, and
then you can pick.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Up from my house from like one to four.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Is there a charge to use hot Plate?
Speaker 3 (22:04):
So there is, but it's there is not a charge,
but there is a fee with every purchase.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
So you can choose as a baker to pay for
that fee or the customer campaign.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
And so what I do is that I have the
customer pay because it's sense. It is sense.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
If you think it's like five percent of you know,
five percent of twelve dollars, I don't know, like you
do them.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
It's really just sense.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
And people don't think about it, like nobody has ever
told me anything about it, Like.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
They don't want to pay it.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
People are used to paying online fees and processing fees
and web fees.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So wow, all right, Marie, we're going to take a
break into a live commercial.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Read.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yes, all right.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
This episode of Bread for the People is brought to
you by hot Plate, an online orring system that I
was told about from Maria Barredell. Go to hot plate
dot com.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
I'm only Kaddy, we need to reach on the show.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I was gonna they'll they'll do it.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
They'll do it because we're going to tag them because
we just gave them a really good plug. But honestly,
I think it sounds so cool. As soon as we're done,
I'm going on to check it out.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Yes, please do, because they are amazing to work with.
I'm sure that they would love to work with you
because they and like so if I share my link,
I get a baker joints, then I make money that way,
but I'm not associated with like I'm They're not paying
for to say this. I really do love them and
(23:49):
they have.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
The best customer service, Like I can text them.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
People all bakers can literally just text them and you
get an answer right away. And they are always atting
new features that people have been asking for. So they
really listen to the bakers and the you know, the
courage bakers and communities.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
So they are really great to work with.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So it's a tool though that you're you're using. You're
still relying on the audience you built personally, and you're
loading your text numbers in there. It's not like the
average person has a subscription to hot Plate. They only
know about it because you're putting it out to your
fan base.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (24:28):
So what I've done to grow my I've done several things,
and I think that I rely on that marketing background
that I do have and it has helped me grow
my bakery.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
What I do is that I will.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Announce it to my friends and family and first and
then I took it to say Facebook groups and another
like next door et cetera. And I will post about
my business, and the way I will get people to
sign up is that I will tell them, hey, I
have a limited drop of the pumpkin shaped bread and.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
That's something that people really like.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
They thought it was cute and they want to they
want some, so they will get some. And or whenever
it was Easter, I had like the bunny shape bread
and they like, people really want to get one, so
they will sign up.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
So right now I have over five hundred people sign
up to my list.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Right I just did the turkey shape chat was for Thanksgiving.
Yeah that I made a ton of them. Yeah, I've
heard you talk about personal touches to products and is
that what you mean or are you talking about something
a little different.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Well, that that can be some of that. But also
some people even add like their own stencils under bread,
and they can they created that way or just their
their flavors. So for example, I know that I was
the first one like in Dallas basically that was offering
(26:00):
that nutella sourdough bread, like I know some do my
fine bread that's noutella bread, but it wasn't like sourdough, right,
And so I know that that was something that really
helped me stand out. Whenever you add like your this
is my signature bread that you cannot find any anywhere else,
I think that.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Really helps got it?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Just jumping back, you mentioned next door, which is something
I've heard of. One of the issues I have with
Facebook is most of the sourdough groups. A lot of
these groups don't let you promote. So how do you
find those groups? And it's next to one of them?
Tell us what that is?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, next door is like another app for neighborhoods to
connect and to be honest, I haven't really found a
lot of success and apps like that, but I know
of other pakers that have.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
For me, it was mostly a Facebook really. So the
way I will.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Do it is I'm a mom of five, so I
am part of a lot of groups, right, So I'm like,
there is my kids do activities, so I'm in the
soccer chat and in the baseball chat and in the
basketball chat and all of that. So using those groups
to try to promote it, and people are really willing
(27:19):
to support you that way.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
But people have like church groups or.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Like you know, in your workplace, you can also promote it.
But for Facebook so there is a group that is
like the neighborhood official group. You cannot promote your software,
but you can have a friend promote you. Like if
someone said someone and I didn't even ask them, they said,
(27:43):
I just found the hidden gem of Castle Hills, which
is our neighborhood, and they were talking about my bread
and it was great.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I got a lot of people to sign up for that.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
And the other thing is that there is a I
mean Louisville Tech which is a suburb in Dallas. There
is a Louisville, Texas group and they have went on
Wednesdays you can promote yourself, So I will do that
on Wednesdays.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Now that's a good idea to track the days you're
allowed to promote in there. I had a lot of
that organic chatter and talking about my business at the beginning,
but that has since died down. Yeah, you know, because
we're not the new thing anymore.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Right, you have to.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Keep it interesting, I think, and I think that those
like a special shape breads help and like for example,
what I did last and I got me like sixty
people to sign up. It was a giveaway basket. I
put a basket together and I bought all these things
from Timu and I put like a bread knife and
(28:49):
a really nice jar, and I put my dehydrated starter
there with the instructions, and I put a bread bag,
not like I put like a linen bread that that
was really nice. I put a butter so I put
it in like a cute container with like a chiphone
(29:10):
boat and like a wooden knife. And then I put
a load of bread there and some cookies package really
quick cute. So I met a gift giveaway basket and
then I told them like, hey, if you sign up
to my list, of my text notification list, then you
(29:30):
are going to be entering the giveaway. And yeah, I
got a lot of people to sign up for that.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
That was meat.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
So you can do things.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Like that once a month every two months, get creative,
and you can get people talking.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
About you again.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Do you talk about this stuff in some of your ebooks? Yes?
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I do. Yeah, I have an ebook for beginners, but
I also have one that is how to launch, run
and market your home bakery, and I talk all about
like what the messaging should be to get people really
excited when you are launching, and like before launching, during
the lunch after the lunch. And also a messaging that
(30:10):
sells without being selsy, so things like, you know, touching
the emotional core of people, making the customer the hero.
So for example, instead of being like, buy my bread
is twelve dollars, it's really good, everybody's talking about it,
you can be like, be the hero tonight and bring
(30:31):
a lot of hour of bread at home for everybody's dinner.
You know, something like that, Like you can make them
the hero, or like be everybody's favorite at work whenever
you bring somebody a lot of bread.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
So touching emotional core.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Also what else, I have a whole list of things
that messaging that really helps, and I create that urgency
and formal focus on the benefits rather than the features,
make it personal and relatable. All of those things are
things that I talk about and I give examples, and
I give you like what the messaging should be, and
(31:08):
lots of ideas on how to market your bakery for growth.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
It sounds like it's not just for bread bakers, right
because you know a big part of my pizza My
business is chocoutery and pizza, and I could use the
same things.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Yes, absolutely this works for break piza and really for
like cookies or cake or.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Like just anyone who's a home baker.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
This applies to and I tell them all about like
the cottage law, and like how to if you have
to form a company, how to go about doing that,
if you have to create a bank account. You know,
all of those things are covered there. And I also
talk a lot about like scaling, going from just making
two for you and your family to baking six, to
(31:56):
bake in twolve to making sixty per week. Right, So
that's another question. I get a lot like how do
you do all that big prep and a big doday?
How do you manage the fermentation? How do you stagger
it so that it works out so that one being
is not over fermenting while you're shaping the other being.
So all of those things I talk about?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Do you ever use other employees?
Speaker 4 (32:20):
So I thought about it because if I wanted to
grow my bakery, then I probably had to go in
that direction. There is enough demand in my neighborhood for
me to be selling like two hundred lows per week,
but I really, mentally, physically, emotionally, I don't have the capacity.
So I quickly decided that I wanted to do just
(32:42):
sixty per week was going to be my mask. And
then once my online coaching and consulting started to take off,
I'm not now just making ones per month.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
So my customers are like, they really want the bread.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
But I thought about how somebody, but it just it's
not the it's not the direction I want to go.
It's hard finding people, don't you do you struggle with that?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, I usually hire somebody that we know personally already.
I very rarely use outsiders, although that's going to change
because I'm about to embark on like a full time
it's a very large truck and I'm trying to get
study employees.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Okay, so that's going to be different.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Up until now, I do have operated like a cottage bakery,
and I'll use a teenager from a family we know
or something, and I train them and before they go
to college they work for me and they kind of
like it. You could tell the ones who like it
and the ones who don't.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
You know, do you use them for the doll.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Preparation sometimes, although lately I've backed off of that and
I do most of it. I over time. I'm doing
this five years now, so it's it's evolved from the beginning.
I used to have no cold fermentation and just use
five gallon buckets and ferment overnight, and like you, my
bread wasn't very sour. Then I ended up purchasing a
(34:11):
lot of refrigeration so that I could have flexibility in
when the bread and refrigerator is baked. I use people
for packaging because we're doing at least three hundred a weekend.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Yeah wow, you know, and we have to do the labeling.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
We you know, the packaging, the sorting which one's going
to this market, and then we use vendors at the markets.
I don't do the markets as much, right, Okay, So yeah,
we help have and then sometimes we do special events,
like four times a year, we'll do one event where
we'll sell eight hundred to one thousand loaves in a
day and we have like a forty eight hour operation
(34:51):
for that.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah. So I struggle finding somebody that will.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Help with the doll part, which I find is the
hardest part, because like I said, I have my capacity
and baking sixty to one hundred a week. It will
only be four hours in the kitchen on Bakeday.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
But the big day is the dull day.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
So I have all my bread, every recipe I have
is right, is in excel and scalable. So and I know,
like if I'm doing a bucket, a five gallon bucket
of jeder hile opinio, I know I can only fit
six units before it overflows in the bucket when proofing, right,
(35:38):
So I'll mix in six units of six. And I
have trained a ton of people to read those tickets,
and they know how to weigh and put the water
in and put the sour dough starter in. I definitely
have used people for that.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Yeah, you gotta pict us about that, because yeah, that's
one thing that I struggle with, is like trusting somebody
with the process of sour though, which is like so delicate.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
It is delicate, but if you go by weight, there's
really very little that could be messed up. Y right, Well,
I don't do that's different. I do the shaping, right, Okay,
because I don't have it's so hard to train. It
takes so much time to train them. Unless they're staying,
we do the shape all the time. I don't want
to spend the time training them, right, I'll use them
(36:25):
for the mixing.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Okay, Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
And it was very important for me to switch, Like,
as a home baker who really knew nothing, I'm reading
recipes online and I'm they're coming to me in cups, right,
And it was very important for me two years in
to take the time and go through every recipe and
go by weight and I've you know, I've changed everything,
and I'll you know, that's how I do everything now,
(36:50):
which how you have to when you're a professional baker.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
A wait, how were you doing it before? Doing it
by wait?
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Before I was doing it by waight, it was doing
it by volume and cups. Oh no, but that's how
I started. I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Okay, okay, yeah, we don't do that.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Yeah then then yeah, you figure it out quickly that
sometimes it doesn't like it quay to the.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Same thing, right.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
So now it's pretty consistent. And but I'm backing off
a little bit of the bread. I'm going more into
the uh cooking on demand and pizza and I'll have
bread with me, but I don't think I'll be doing
as much bread.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
But but the fact that I have that background, the
anchor and the hook to my company is everything we
serve is served on a bread product of ours. So
I was just developing a pasta plate out of bread
this weekend. I used instead of pizza dough bread recipe
that I have and double folded the crust because you know,
when you're eating pasta at home, you sometimes you put
(37:56):
it in a bowl, but a lot of times you
put it in a plate, right, it heaps, So that's
how I'm going to do it. And it's also eye catching.
So when you're at a fair or a private party,
you're handing a wax paper with your brand on it
with the plate and a fork and a napkin and
everyone's walking around eating this plate that they could eat.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Wait, so it's bread, yeah, and then pastime sign. Yeah
that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Yeah, I did it all weekend just and yeah, I'm
freezing them so yeah I could.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
I could just take them out of the freezer or
keep them on the freezer in the truck, take them out,
put in the ovens, and do this whole thing. That
is so cool because again, like what separates me from
another pizza truck or another bread vendor, you know, I
think it's the fact that I could cook other food
(38:50):
that goes with my bread and everything you're eating that
there's a hook. It's freshly baked bread, baked by us.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Yeah, I took a lot about that on my book
and on social media. People should really start with why
they are doing this, to find that way to separate
yourself and differentiate yourself. So for me, like I was
saying the same things that everybody says, like my bread
is great, it's long fermented, it's twelve dollars, look at
(39:22):
the reviews.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Buy it.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
But then I have a friend who is a business consultant,
and she we were just chatting about business, and she's like,
why are you doing this? And my answer kept being like, well,
because I need the extra income because like very feature oriented, right,
And she's like, no, about why, And so it came
(39:46):
I boil it down to I'm trying to bring bread
back to the community, and I'm on a mission to
bring bread back, and so people want to join that.
People want to or in a mission, and they want
to like help you get your goal. Like one of
my goals is to have a bread baker in every neighborhood.
(40:08):
So you know, I'm trying to like recruit people not
just like other bakers, but also customers, right, like join
this mission of bringing real bread back. So I think
that that's something that really differentiated me from the other
bakers that were saying my bread is great. Mine is like,
(40:28):
I'm on a mission to bring good bread back, you know,
so people want to buy from you.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah, the only thing I've heard like it. I've never
heard an individual bakery do it.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
I do.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
And you probably know the Real Bread campaign.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Oh yes, it's from UK.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yes it's pretty cool. But I love that mission. That's
a great mission.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
I know. I really love what they are doing.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
And when I first came across them, I was like,
oh darn, Like I really like I would love.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
To do something like that here and I don't hear familiar.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
But I just hosted the first annual Sourdo Awards and
that was really cool.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Wait, tell me about this because I want to do
so I want to get involved in this stuff I do,
but I want to do it, of course.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
So I just hosted them. They just passed and so
the idea of these awards were.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Able to honor and thank the content creators in the
space of Sourdough.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Content creators, yes.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
Because they are the ones that are bringing these awarnments
to the community. To the they are the ones that
are increasing the demand for the and they're really growing
the industry because they are putting out all of these
really good content and they're growing the demand. They are
getting customers to buy from them, right. So, and also
(41:53):
it was to tell the people that you know, make
bread just because they love it. They don't necessarily have
to sell it, so they might just be showing their
creations and how they score it and what their chrome
looks like and teaching others about it. So I had
seven categories. One of them was most Educational.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
I had who who won the sour the journey that's
my friend, Yes, of course, Tom Tom ye, I love it.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
And then the the person who won the silver medal
for that hour was the sour Dough Gal and she
really just started recently, but she's been growing a lot
and she shares a lot of like information and she
runs a lot of experiments. So I thought that that
was really cool that she's grown so much and she's
(42:50):
she's been so helpful to the community. And then the
third one was the bronze medal was for a sour dog.
Explain have you heard of her?
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Mm hm is really great.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Yeah, it's really great too.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
So then I had other categories like most fun account
with the most fun content, one for the most beautiful feed,
so content that really gets you like, oh wow, this
is beautiful.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
I want to do that.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I had one for best recipes, I had one for
best micro bakery content. I had one for best under
five K followers, and I had a category for brand's
best friends. So the person the content creator that gets
you to buy whatever they say because you really trust
(43:40):
them and that you know they always partner with brands,
and brands should partner with them because they're so great
at what they're doing. So that was really fun.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
How did you do it?
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Was it just was there an in person thing? Did
you do this online? Did you release the winners on
your blog?
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (43:57):
So I I just posted online like an Instagram post,
like hey, I'm doing this and these are the categories
and these are the rules how to do it, and
I'm going to be announcing the prices soon. And so
go to my bio and fill out the form to
(44:20):
nominate people. And so I got a lot of nominations.
And meanwhile, that was like two weeks for people to
nominate I had. I was working so hard finding sponsors
to give me money to have some like really nice awards,
and so once the good thing is that it spread
(44:44):
the world, like people were like posting about it, like hey,
you can nominate me, or like nominate your favorite creators.
Then when those two weeks ended, I went through the
list and picked like the top three.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
For each c degory and we did like another round
of voting.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
I posted on Instagram again for this and so people
could pick who the gold, silver bronze winners were, and
by then I already had the sponsors, so I announced
it and people were really excited because the goal winners
were going to win six hundred dollars each and the
(45:23):
silver winners had access to a course to help people
monetize their online presence and which is like five hundred
dollars worth. And then well the gold price was like
that plus the six hundred dollars in cash plus other prices,
so it was like almost like a thousand dollars or
(45:44):
more worth price. And then the silver, the brownze price
was like aprons and tablecloth from a brand and a
bread basket worming basket from another brand. So people were
really excited about winning this award, so they started posting
(46:05):
more about it, and we ended up having one thousand,
eight hundred class people voting for.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
The final awards.
Speaker 4 (46:13):
And so yeah, then we selected the winners and announced
that we had a press release, and I put it
on my blog and.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
On Instagram as well. I had an Instagram life.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Now I know Tom pretty well, and I have a
feeling he's the kind of guy that might have slipped
you a thousand bucks to win this.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
I don't think so, you don't think that happened.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
No, he just posted honestly, like I don't even know
if he knew about it, like before he was actually nominated.
And I attacked him on the on the okay, now
the second round of voting because he had not shared
shared it on his page or anything. But a lot
of people were voting for him because he really is
(46:57):
the most educational.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
He's amazing, is the best.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
A lot of people were for him already.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Yeah, and then he posted on his stories and yeah,
I mean there was nothing close in terms of like
who voted for who.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
He moves a lot of people. And then there is
this other mom that's hour the mom. I was like shocked.
She she was like top five in all the categories.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
She won top three in three categories, but like, she
really has a lot of power moving people. And then
there were some small accounts, some big accounts that did
not do any promotion of it, so they didn't get
a lot of votes. And then some small accounts that
were posting about it all the time.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
And they got a lot of votes. So it was
really impressing that.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Actually, if you see the winners, some are small accounts
because they did got the job move mobilizing the vote,
the voting.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Well, listen, we're gonna we're gonna end this thing. Is
there anything else you would like to share with the audience,
anything coming up? Anything going on on the blog?
Speaker 4 (48:05):
Oh yeah, So in January, I'm going to be releasing
a course. So it's going to be building on the
success of my ebook on how to launch, run, and
Grow your Home Bakery. So now I'm going to turn
it into a course and I'm going to be including
a lot of my recipes so that people can really
(48:25):
start from scratch. And then I'm also going to teach
them like the next step, which is like how to
monetize their online presence. Because we are all online, we
spend a lot of time creating all these reels, all
this content, right to promote our bread, But then like,
how do you also monetize that so that if you're
(48:46):
not baking a week because you're sick or you're burnout
or whatever, Like, how can you continue making money just
like I'm doing, like selling my ebooks.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
And other things.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
That's great, and I'll leave you with this. How about
a category for best brought bread podcast next year?
Speaker 3 (49:02):
Oh my gosh, you wish you'll have one?
Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yes, you got me, you got a lain body, you
got uh, there's quite a few of them out there.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Yes, I know Caroline from a bread Winner. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, I'll have Tom slip you an extra five hundred
for me. All right.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
It's great to meet you. I love what you're doing
and I learned a lot on this episode. I really did,
so thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
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