Recently in Bakeries Category

They're at it again. LTHForum, the chat site for food lovers, doled out its awards for Great Neighborhood Restaurants last night to 18 Chicago area eateries and bakeries (see the full list here). For the first time this year, the group also recognized Great Neighborhood Resources, giving the nod to five food-related shops, including Northwestern Cutlery and the Spice House.

Picking up their awards at the dinner at Marie's, 4127 W. Lawrence:

Hoosier Mama Pie Co. owner Paula Haney, with her husband and 21-month-old twins in tow, offal-loving hubby/wife team Rob and Allison Levitt of Mado; Spice House owners Patty and Tom Erd, and Pastoral's Greg O'Neill and Ken Miller.

Dobra Bielinski of Delightful Pastries, another winner, delighted us with the news that she's opening a second bakery at 1710 N. Wells on Nov. 1. She and the Pastoral team also will have a presence at the Chicago French Market inside the Ogilvie Metra station.

This is the fifth year of the GNR awards, which began, as LTH-er David Dickson said, "with the question of, 'Where should I go eat?' " Forum members nominate and vote on places that have that certain culinary je ne sais quoi.

It was the first year I had the pleasure of chowing with LTH members at their awards dinner. Marie's is a pizza joint attached to a liquor store. It has red booths and paneled and mirrored walls. Its pizza is the stuff of dreams.

One might be inclined to judge a book by its cover and pass up Marie's, were it not for the enthusiastic eaters who make it a point to seek out these neighborhood gems. Chicago needs places like Marie's -- but it needs a forum like LTH just as much.

Another cupcake shop? Really?

Indeed. This one, the tiny, three-week-old Cupcake Counter at 229 W. Madison, is a mother-daughter duo operation. Mother is the baker here; the daughter works the front of house.

As the mom, Holly Sjo, 56, tells it, the "stars aligned" for them in late 2008. Sjo and her husband had just moved back to Chicago (their hometown) from Florida to be closer to Sjo's ailing mother; their daughter, Samantha Wood, 32, did the same, giving up her gig working for the UN.

But aside from being there for Grandma, Sjo, who attended culinary school and has had some catering experience, said she and her daughter both wanted -- needed -- something more to do. When the 340-square-foot space became available, "I just popped up and said, 'I betcha we could do cupcakes,' " Sjo says.

They signed the lease in February and did their homework, checking out some of their competition around town. So how do they differ? "We are by scratch, small batches," Sjo says. "There are some people who say that's what they do, but they really don't. But if you came to my house, this is what you'd get. I bake every day."

It sounds so familiar, that tune, doesn't it?

Here's what's refreshing: They offer only four cupcake flavors daily -- carrot, butter, chocolate and red velvet -- with specials that come and go (the one pictured above is not one of theirs, but you get the idea). No basil-tomato, no bacon-lavender.

They also do cookies, brownies, macaroons and the utterly-unnecessary-but-who-cares ice cream cupcake sandwich. Intelligentsia coffee is on tap.

It's a work-in-progress, Sjo admits. Initially, they'd offered a fifth flavor, coconut, but "nobody wanted it" (people, what is wrong with you?). The butter cupcake recipe, which Sjo has to quadruple, is still "the bane of her existence," flawless one batch, flat the next.

And they hold no illusions. "In reality, in some places cupcakes are already over. Chicago was a little late to come to it. But that day will come," Sjo says.

For now, they're just hoping for more days like today. A trader (the shop is just a hop skip from the financial district) called about 3:30 p.m. to say he was buying up whatever cupcakes they had left. It was the third consecutive day he'd done so.

Butter cookies aren't the first cookies we'd usually go for. Heck, they're not even the fourth. They all tend to have that forgettable Maurice Lenell-esque quality to them. Give us a chunky chocolate chip, a chewy macaroon, an almond thumbprint any day.

But that was before we tried these. These are butter cookies and then some. These are BUTTER cookies. These are the mother of all butter cookies -- or perhaps we should say, the grandaddy.

The recipe is from Roeser's, a father-son operation going on four generations in Humboldt Park (more in Dave Hoekstra's story today).

It's an old school bakery, if there ever was one. As you can see, it's an old school recipe as well, one that we're pretty sure anyone can tackle -- flour, sugar, egg, vanilla and, of course, butter.

In a complicated world, it's the only cookie one really needs.

We hereby declare this the summer of pie.

Hugh Amano, he of the unemployed chef/blogger beat, is organizing a pie-off, fresh on the heels of his first successful potluck with strangers. Exact date and location TBA, but Amano is aiming for a late June lakefront shindig.

In September, we can look forward to the now famous, fifth annual Bucktown Apple Pie Contest, which draws hundreds of spectators.

But perhaps the most visible champion of pies is Hoosier Mama Pie maven Paula Haney. Foodies citywide rejoiced when she finally opened her stand-alone shop at 1618 1/2 W. Chicago in March.

Churning out sweet and savory pies is apparently only part of what Haney does. She gamely participated in our story on having pie for your wedding. And she's going to be a judge at a June 6 pie contest, part of a fundraiser for Blue Sky Inn, a job training program for homeless youths.

We first wrote about Blue Sky Inn's Lisa Thompson in 2007. Back then, she and a few youths worked out of a rented kitchen. They sold their baked goods at a few farmers markets. Some kids worked hard. Some stopped showing up.

The program has since grown -- not by leaps and bounds, mind you, but in the nonprofit world, a little is a lot. A year ago, Thompson opened the Blue Sky Bakery & Café at 4749 N. Albany. She still only works with two to three youths at a time. The disappointments outnumber the success stories. Both of the youths interviewed in our story are still living in shelters; one of them was shot in the leg while leaving a GED class.

Thompson met Haney when both were working out of the rented kitchen. Haney had the overnight shift; Thompson and her crew would come in after her, around 6 a.m.

The two stayed in touch, and now Haney will help out at this fundraiser at Lush, 1257 S. Halsted. In addition to the pie contest, there will be picnic lunches up for auction, made by Charlie Trotter, Rick Bayless, Ina Pinkney and Randy Zweiban; and lots of wine. Admission is $12 the day of -- so even if you've never heard of Blue Sky Inn, well, it's only 12 bucks. And again, we're talking pie.

The backstory is pretty sweet, though, wouldn't you say?

After picking up some asparagus and shiitake mushrooms at the Daley Plaza farmers market earlier today, I couldn't resist a stop at the Bleeding Heart Bakery booth. It's an automatic reflex -- baked goods for sale, me like a bee to honey. Damn you, baked goods. Three bucks later, a s'mores brownie was mine. Lunch was still on the horizon. Still, I broke off a nugget right then and there.

"Eat it," one of the young women working the booth urged. "If you die, at least you know you had the best part."

Who among us overachieving home bakers hasn't dreamed of chucking their day job (provided it isn't, uh, baking) to open a bakery?

Lisa Spinner wasn't one of those dreamers. Nine years ago, she was an undercover investigator for the Office of the Cook County State's Attorney who, while on maternity leave, happened to bake some banana bread (using, as always, her grandmother's recipe) for a party for her daughter, Hannah. And a friend happened to really dig the bread and told Spinner she should make a business out of it. And that's what Spinner did.

True story. As told to us Sunday by Spinner's husband and PR guy, Pete, at the National Restaurant Assocation Show at McCormick Place. We almost passed up the Spinners' booth (it's easy to do when the Coca-Colas of the show floor take over five times the square footage). We're glad we didn't.

Hannah Banana Bread is based in Glencoe, but the breads are baked at a North Side facility near Irving Park and Rockwell. The Spinners offer four flavors of banana bread, as well as coffee cake, pumpkin bread and soon, gluten-free banana bread.

When Lisa Spinner first started out, she hawked the bread at small coffee shops in the 'burbs. Today, Hannah Banana products are in Whole Foods and Costcos nationwide. It'll be on QVC this fall. And, the golden ticket -- it made O Magazine's The O List in October.

But watching the Spinners hand out samples Sunday, carefully choosing the prettiest pieces while talking enthusiastically about the bread, it was clear that being in the specialty foods business is all-consuming and no cakewalk, no matter what Oprah says.

The bread's inspiration, by the way, is 8 and is "very conscious of the fact that something is named after her," Lisa Spinner said.

Hannah should be proud. Cakey and fragrant, it's just the sort of thing dreams are built on.

We were all feel-good with yesterday's Food cover story on having pie at your wedding. Three delectable recipes, the sweet Paula Haney, a genius cover shot of a cake topper couple, mouths smeared with frosting, a real couple cutting lovingly into their wedding pie...

But there's always a flip side, isn't there? In this case, it's something called the divorce cake. The Seattle Times reports on a Florida bakery that makes cakes to celebrate a couple's demise. Like, say, a broken, heart-shaped cake with the bride cake topper on one half and the groom topper on the other.

The story even quotes a guy who has ordered a divorce cake to share with his other divorced friends. We can think of worse things in which to drown our sorrows, but still.

I once interviewed the supervisor of a lamb slaughterhouse. Asked the guy if, at the end of most days, he just hankered for a salad. (Not really, he said. "What did I eat when I got home yesterday? I ate sausage," he said.)

But say you worked at a pie shop. Would you tire of pie? Would you just want to go home and gnaw on a T-bone?

I ask because I'm back from a visit to Paula Haney's Hoosier Mama Pie Company, a slice (pardon the pun) of a storefront on Chicago Avenue in West Town. (Haney is helping us out on a story; look for it next week).

I ask because the aroma inside the shop intoxicates - that magical marriage of butter, sugar and flour, with hints of cinnamon, cloves, sweet cream, apples and general pastry goodness. You want to bathe in it. You want to bottle it up.

I ask, but you already know my answer, don't you?

MenuPages Chicago alerted us to the new venture by punked out pastry chef Michelle Garcia: Smash Cake, a "party place" for kids.

It's taken over what used to be Garcia's Chaos Theory Cakes, 2961 N. Lincoln, which opened just last summer as the whole funky-flavored, savory cupcake craze was heating up (or overheating, depending on how you see it).

Garcia tells MenuPages, "the entire purpose is different." The name of the space, of course, is a reference to a 1-year-old's gleeful destruction of his or her very first birthday cake (not that I'd know. My 4-year-old didn't want anything to do with the chocolate-on-chocolate cupcakes I lovingly baked for her Big One. Pushed it aside with her fingertips. There is photographic evidence. Of course, she now has my incurable sweet tooth.)

Time will tell whether the shift to kid-friendly Smash Cake was a smart move. The times I visited Chaos Theory last year, the place was empty; I felt a little sad as I picked at my fancy caprese cupcake. But Garcia -- whose Bleeding Heart Bakery is as popular as can be with schoolkids and kids-at-heart alike -- has the stroller set going for her in Smash Cake's neighborhood. And I can think at least one 4-year-old who'd be in heaven.

Oh, cupcake. We love you, even if you are, at this point, overexposed. You are our Facebook profile photo, for crying out loud.

But forgive us for stifling a yawn when first we heard about Phoebe's Cupcakes, opening tomorrow at 3327 N. Broadway.

Pastry chef and founder Phoebe Walters, 29, tells us this'll be different from other cupcake shops around. (And from those that are no longer around. Walters and partner Kate McNamara provided the recipes for Cupcakes, 613 W. Briar, which opened in 2005 and closed in December.)

"We're going for more indulgence," she says. "Higher quality. Instead of extracts, full vanilla beans. Highest quality chocolate. No shortening, preservatives, stabilizers." (Which kinda makes it sound like this place, and this place.)

Still, we like Walters' story. Small-town girl (from Plano) and her best friend from childhood, McNamara (also small-town, from Sandwich), go to culinary school, help open one cupcake shop, strike up a friendship with an investor who walks his dog in the Lakeview neighborhood and, boom -- investor agrees to fund the cupcake shop of their dreams.

Walters says they have 200 flavors up their sleeves; the shop will carry eight flavors weekly. And while their competitors charge upwards of $3.50 a cupcake, Walters' price is a sweet $2.50.