Michelle Powell of Companion Bakers (Photo by Chip Scheuer)
This is part of an in-depth, multi-part look at Santa Cruz's artisan food movement: Intro .html| Pizza.html | Ice Cream.html | Bakeries.html | Meat.html | Jam, Snacks and More.html
“I guess ‘artisan’ would mean something different to everyone. People tend to know it when they taste it,” says Heidi Hochstrasser, a baker and the co-manager of the pastry department at Companion Bakery.html on Mission Street. “For us, it means that our bakers approach their craft with the same level of care and attention an artist would to a work of art.”
Companion’s breads, baguettes, scones and other baked goods are hand-crafted at every step of the process, using organic and local ingredients. It takes anywhere from 20-30 hours from the very beginning of the process until the baker pulls the loaf out of the brick oven. They work with as many root ingredients as they can, for instance using fresh, local pumpkins in their pumpkin bread.
Though the definition of “artisan” is a moving target, at Companion it means using wild yeast and sourdough starters whenever possible, as opposed to commercial yeast products.
“The flavors of the fermentation of the wild yeast are more alive, and more unique,” Hochstrasser explains. One of the harder-to-find items that Companion bakes is its handmade croissants, which are made with a sourdough starter. It gives it a more subtly complex flavor.
The definition of “artisan” also intrigues Carren Dixon, owner of Buttercup Cupcakes.html. Despite the degree to which Buttercup makes everything from scratch, in small batches, Dixon says she never really thought about it.
“Each cake is hand-decorated, with an emphasis on balancing beauty with flavor. I suppose these practices could qualify us as an artisan bakery,” says Dixon. “Yay!”
Dixon also puts great importance on using organic and local ingredients, which she feels is a major part of what gives her cupcakes a softer, more complete taste.
“People have grown so accustomed to the taste of food that has been tampered with (artificial flavors, preservatives, hormones, agricultural chemicals) that a product without this seems a culinary trick,” says Dixon.
Even though buttercup uses simple, natural ingredients, part of the appeal is the complex flavor combinations her cakes utilize, like Carrot Ginger, the Hibiscus Flower (hibiscus, cream and chocolate) and the Triple Orange (which is Earl Grey and blood orange).
There are many local staples in Santa Cruz—like Beckmann’s, Kelly’s French Bakery, Rebecca’s Mighty Muffins (now at the Tannery), Hoffman’s and Emily’s. Of the artisan bakeries in town, one of the oldest is the Buttery.html, on Soquel. They serve a little of everything: cakes, pastries, loaves of bread, sandwiches, breakfast and even soup. In the 29 years of doing business, things have changed in regards to how “artisan” has been defined. When they started the standard for bakeries was to use mixes and shortening.
“At the time [when we opened] in the ’80s, artisan baking meant everything was made at the shop, using good ingredients just like you would at home. Things taste better when you use real ingredients. There’s just no way around that,” says owner Janet Platin.
While Platin uses wild yeast when possible, and makes everything from scratch, where Platin differs from some of the newer artisan bakeries is that they don’t necessarily use organic or local ingredients, which, as she points out, is a newer definition of the term. What really brings out the complex flavors, she says, is using high-quality ingredients from scratch. Right from the beginning, while everyone was using shortening, she was using butter, which makes a big difference.
Handmade, high-quality baked goods, in her experience, fill people up quicker since they are eating food with more sustenance.
“People are satisfied with a little bit less. It’s a well-rounded flavor. You don’t feel like something is missing,” Platin says. —Aaron Carnes
