Vendor Highlight: Brazen Baking
Behind-the-scenes at Brazen Baking. Photo credit: Eileen Murray
Kneading to Love: The Story of Brazen Baking
Written by Eileen Murray
If one ever wondered what comes after “The End” of a RomCom, the answer is hard work. Brazen Baking’s owners Lisa and Jeff Dec’s story is that of an unwritten romcom. They individually found baking to be a fulfilling part of their lives. The romcom began in the passing in the dark phase; literally. Jeff worked the night baking shift at the Pearl Bakery in Portland, Oregon. Lisa, who lived in Portland on and off over some of the same years, would come in during the day to buy baked goods.
Did they literally pass each other? We’ll never know. We do know that Cupid had a back-up plan: the 2014 Kneading Conference in Skowhegan Maine. They met. They fell in love. In 2015 they started Brazen Baking. That’s when the work began. Ten years later they have two children and a thriving wholesale bakery business.
It is a pleasure to watch them work in the bakery kitchen shaping boules or baguettes. The rhythmic movement of one plopping portioned dough onto the shaping table. The other quickly and efficiently shaping the dough into a boule shape. These are moved to cloth- lined baskets for the next rising. Truly meditative; being fully present with the dough as it transforms from one shape to another. This is not a slow process, but two steps in the ongoing process of creating and baking sourdough bread.
It is said time and tide wait for no (wo)man. I say add fermentation to that list. Our recent mini-heat wave led to necessary micromanagement of Brazen Baking’s sourdough starters. Their whole wheat starter ferments twice as fast as a traditional white flour starter. Jeff believes that is due to the higher nutrition value of the Maine grown grains they use. The starter requires feeding twice a day. The recent heat wave required ongoing movement of the starter between the preferred kitchen area and the refrigerator to maintain its temperature and control the fermentation process. That’s just the starter.
Baking wholesale sourdough products, and raising children, is a 24/7 job. Their new kitchen in Rockport, along with their 4-deck Italian steam-injection oven and a convection oven with rotating shelves, has brought some ease to their work. The 4-deck oven with its handy loading and unloading attachment can bake 70-80 loaves at a time. That is a blessing, given they sell about 4 times more baked goods in the summer than in the winter.
Brazen Baking is a local small business that supports other local small businesses and individuals in Maine. This year they have an additional full-time staff person in the kitchen. They employ several part-time workers for their booths at three local farmers markets. 100% of the whole grains used come from Maine farmers. They use 1 ton of Maine grains per month in the summer, 10 tons over the course of the year. The limited amount of white flour used comes from neighboring farmers in Quebec.
Brazen Baking delivers to Good Tern Co-op on a weekly basis. To find their breads and baked goods please visit: https://www.brazenbaking.com/. Be sure to follow Brazen Baking on Facebook and Instagram!