Whilst some people went to the Carribbean for a week of fun, some others were left to languish, cut off from a steady stream of conveniently crippled goodies¹. I found myself with a refrigerator full of a lack of interest, everything healthy and gamboling about their refrigerated savanna. Forced to ration my meager stocks of Haika-y goodness, I was forced to stretch my supplies as much as possible. The discovery of several additional uses for muhamarra² resulted, detailed after the jump.

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It’s my sixth month here at Haika’s, and I’m rolling in the dough…literally. After some patient…make that VERY patient teaching from the Queen of Tarts herself (that would be our very own Haika) I have finally achieved a level of proficiency with laminated doughs. In case I’m speaking Greek here, a laminated dough is one that has a layer of butter rolled in between the layers of dough. The resulting product is then folded and rolled and folded and rolled again several times which produces a dough that has many, many buttery layers. Our croissant, danish, and the newest star in our laminated series, puff pastry, are all made this way.

Of course, I have a habit of talking to the dough while I make it. Whether I’m first mixing the dough and I need it to “poof” correctly, or while I am “turning” the dough in the process of creating the multi-fold layers, I can usually be found coaxing the dough along with a pep talk, or chastising it for bad behavior. This is what gave me the appellation “The Dough Whisperer.”

Although I admit, sometime it’s difficult to discern whether I’m talking to the dough or muttering to myself (which I’ve been known to do on occasion) or I’m on a phone call, since I constantly wearing my bluetooth. Most of the time the rest of the staff just assume I’m talking to myself and ignore me.

Getting back to the doughs…all of them are produced with organic ingredients and are made from scratch. We produce all of these doughs weekly…sometimes several times a week if need be. That means I get a LOT of practice, which is why I’m fast becoming an expert at making this stuff.

We make lots of scrumptious goodies from these doughs…danish, croissants, chocolate croissants, doggies in the window, buttercups, blossoms, turnovers and bear claws in several flavors just to name a few. We have many of these yummies available on a daily basis at the counter; we also take special orders. If you’re ambitious and want to try making something for yourself at home, we also sell the finished doughs by the pound. Just give a call to ask about pricing, we’d love to hear from you!

Or, drop by for a visit, we’d love to see you…or email us…or fax us…something…anything…just throw us a bone, would you?(is this starting to sound a little desperate?) ( Sorry.) We just love our customers…lots. (okay, now it’s starting to sound creepy…I’d better quit while I’m ahead.)

Until next time… may all your treats taste as good as they look!

The Dough Whisperer

Lots of middle-eastern food this week, savory and sweet both. It all started with the muhamarra, a spicy roasted pepper and walnut dip with yummy spices and organic extra virgin olive oil. You, our customers, are reaping the rewards of our recent entry into the Gallo Family Vineyards Gold Medal Wards ⁽¹⁾ food competition. Reap it with pita chips. Trust me. Also on the savory side is tzatziki, a cooling blend of yogurt and cucumber, available on its own or as a side with zucchini fritters. We’ve got Armenian red lentil and apricot soup too.

Sweets after the jump.

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We are going to use this blog to tell you the latest news from Haika’s and give you the reader a better sense of what life is like in the bakery business or more correctly the bakery business when you use local and organic ingredients.

On a lovely May day in 2006 we opened the doors for business and for weeks we didn’t even know how to work our cash register (some of us still don’t). After almost 22 months in business with countless days of 14-18 hour stretches, eating loads of samples (we do have to try the stuff we sell), dealing with employees (I have one who has a standing order from management for an aardvark – We’ll explain later), having to deal with a few clueless customers (no we don’t use Splenda – what part of all natural, organic and local don’t they get?), our local municipality that makes us collect a special tax on our pudding (I’m not kidding, we collect pudding tax– email me and I’ll post an explanation ) and the long list of awesome people we have met and do business with on a regular business, we have created a business that is growing and by many definitions thriving.

Keep checking back with this blog. Each and every person who works at Haika’s will post blogs (because I ordered them to) about their experiences working here. We welcome your comments via our email and invite you to checkout our Facebook page or our Facebook fan page. You may also sign-up for our email newsletter or respond to the things you read here by emailing us at info@haikas.com. –Jed (AKA the pastry pimp)