A half dozen craft bakery businesses across the nation have opened up new sites, including brand new ventures or estate expansions.
Tapping into the growing demand for artisanal baked goods, the outlets are serving up all manner of fresh pastries, cookies, doughnuts, brownies, buns, loaves and more to brand new customers and communities.
Following on from the previous Opening Doors, here’s the twelfth edition in the series:
Say Doughnuts, Hitchin
The sweet treat specialist has added to its retail estate with its biggest site to date, featuring seating for up to 30 customers. The new Hitchin shop joins existing locations in Bedford and Berkhamstead shops, which are all supplied by a central bakery.
Customers can select from Say’s array of luxury doughnuts including classic varieties such as key lime pie and ‘Homer’ as well as vegan flavours that rotate bi-monthly. There are also cinnamon buns, ‘Sayvoury buns’ like apricot & mascarpone cream, and other homemade bakes.
Founders Aaron Shade and Sarah Ball, who set up the brand following the UK’s first lockdown in 2020, confirmed they will be aiming at add a fourth shop in the first quarter of next year.
Proto Artisan Bakery, St Albans
Husband-and-wife team James and Jo-Anne Proto have branched out across Hertfordshire from their original shop in Ware to open a new site in St Albans.
Another bakery company born out of lockdown, Proto produces the likes of sourdough breads, pastries, and Detroit pizzas, while daily specials feature seasonal ingredients and “what we feel like to make”. Among the signature pastries are croissants rolls, cruffins, Danishes, crownies, and cube croissant.
Proto bakes throughout the day rather than just the morning, affording the sale of fresh, warm loaves in the afternoon, which is said to have been a big hit with customers. The firm is looking to recruit half a dozen more staff to join its existing team of 24.
Babyfaced Baker, Edinburgh
Following on from its croissant striking gold in the Viennoiserie category at the Scottish Baker of the Year Awards 2024, Edinburgh-based Babyfaced Baker has just opened a small takeaway outlet along Portobello High Street, supplied fresh daily from its original shop and bakery across town on Leith Walk.
Best known for its vegan pastries, stuffed cookies, cinnamon buns and brownies, the business is said to be constantly experimenting with new flavours (both sweet and savoury) so that there’s always something for customers that takes their fancy.
Founder Rhian Gordon, who will be speaking at the British Society of Baking conference next month, said she started baking brownies in her flat in early 2021 after losing her hospitality job due to Covid. Her sales quickly took off, allowing her to move into a kitchen on Leith Walk just a few months later, and with wholesale orders growing she hired a team to open up an onsite retail shop in September the same year.
The new Portobello site has similar interior design and cool blue aesthetic to the first shop, with Gordon saying she “wanted to create a space that felt warm and welcoming but also a little bit fun”.
Buns & Crumbs + Trick or Treat, Beith
Over in north Ayrshire, two sweet bakery brands have moved out of their respective home kitchens and into a shared space on Beith’s Main Street, which has baking roots dating back to 1840.
Buns & Crumbs founder Erika Sionis, a former chef, will look to expand her range for online customers and monthly markets from celebration cakes and pastries to offer the likes of sourdough and yeasted breads, focaccia, brioche buns, viennoiserie, biscuits, and tarts. She will also look to introduce some pastries from her homeland of Italy, such as cannolis and tiramisu.
Trick or Treat founder Toni Hume, meanwhile, will continue producing spooky cookies for markets and horror conventions, as well as online orders. In the run up to Halloween, a selection of ghoulish treats will be available for purchase at the onsite takeaway counter, which is initially to open on Fridays and Saturdays only.
A split production schedule will see Sionis bake in the morning and Hume take afternoons.
Buzzy Bee Bakery, Manchester
This brookie specialist is another firm to be doubling up shops, with the new site in Manchester’s Northern Quarter tagging on to the existing Buzzy Bee Bakery in Wilmslow, Cheshire.
Sweet-toothed customers can indulge in signature bakes such as the Raspberry White Chocolate Brookie, which comprises a blondie base with fresh raspberries and white chocolate spread wrapped in cookie dough and freeze-dried raspberries. Other bakery treats available include cookies, brownies, banana bread, cake slices, tiramisu, and cheesecakes, with gluten-free and vegan options.
The company was founded in 2018 by Millie Walter, who brought aboard her sister Lydia after the first year. The shop has seating for up to 20, the same number of staff that Buzzy Bee has grown to employ across its shops and bakery, which Millie said “feels crazy”.
Moi et Toi, Notting Hill
A collaboration between fellow restauranteurs Harneet Baweja and Edward Delling Williams sees a new bakery taking over the Empire Empire space on All Saints Road each morning.
Moi et Toi aims to blend classic French patisserie with British flavours. The bakery menu, available for dine-in and takeaway, features sweet treats such as coconut & stewed pineapple buns, peanut butter pain au chocolat, earl grey custard tart, roasted peach & cardamom custard bun, and olive oil, sea salt & custard bun. Savoury options include a Croque Monsieur croissant to pastries filled with charred leeks, cacio e pepe, aged parmesan or camembert, and rosemary & fig, as well as a daily selection of freshly made focaccia sandwiches filled with the likes of ham & roquette pesto, and mushroom & truffle.
Williams, who founded Le Grand Bain restaurant in Paris, had previously collaborated with Baweja on Gunpowder Tower Bridge in 2019. The new Moi et Toi bakery will allow customers to witness live lamination work in a room at the back from 7am. In the afternoon, it’ll transform back into the Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded Indian restaurant, Empire Empire.
With Williams serving as executive chef, day-to-day operations at Moi et Toi will be overseen by head baker Yazdin Pardiwala, who has been with Gunpowder for the past year. “The bakery will draw upon Edward’s extensive experience in Paris, and we’re both excited to bring something truly unique to Notting Hill,” commented Baweja.
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