Local Baker Perfects Product with Area's Ingredients

Erin Lampel gets up early. The owner of Companion Bakers, she usually starts her day around 4:30 a.m.—a testament to the fact that getting out of bed while it’s still dark isn’t as hard to do if you’re doing it to feed a passion.

You may have already seen the little round loaves poking out of their paper bags under the hand-stenciled Companion Bakers sign at the Live Oak or Downtown Market. They have the indentations of a basket baked into them, because the dough rises in baskets, and they are what started everything.

“There were a few of us that got really interested in baking," said Lampel, who met her companions while apprenticing at the UCSC Farm. "We learned how to make our own sour starter, and we just kept doing it. So it started from the love of doing it, and then it spiraled from there."

Spiraled is a good word when describing a business that didn’t find success by stepping on other businesses to get there. Companion Bakers, named for its Latin meaning, "one who breaks bread with others," is a business that supports itself by supporting other small local businesses.

Most of the ingredients used come from other farms. The strawberries in the galettes (little tarts) and strawberry pies are from Windmill Farms, the organic flour from Pie Ranch, and all of its herbs (like the rosemary in that delicious rosemary loaf at the market) are from Route 1 Farms, just to name a few.

The first bread loaves were baked in an outdoor, wood-fire oven. Baking bread in a wood-fire oven is an ancient practice, an “old-world technique,” and it is a technique that you can taste. Almost a different food entirely from what you buy for your sandwiches at the supermarket, these loaves taste like bread: a shell of chewy crust, soft and pliant on the inside, with that sourdough moistness and a hint of sea salt. It's amazing how much flavor can come out of something that is basically organic flour, salt, water and sourdough starter.

“It’s really about using a technique that’s been around for a long time and perfecting it, rather than cutting corners—and there are a lot of ways to cut corners these days,” said Lampel, offering me a sourdough cracker I can only describe as flaky, buttery and, yes, tangy, with a hint of rosemary. (Now available at the markets.)

Lampel baked these first loaves for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Boxes. CSA defines itself as a nationwide movement of unifying local consumers and farmers in their communities. The boxes are usually made up of of vegetables, fruit, meats and dairy from a few farms working together. The consumers can pick these boxes up weekly at various locations around town. (Look on a participating farm’s website or talk to the farmer at the market to get information on this location.) 

Demand grew, and six years ago, Lampel rented time at an industrial kitchen so she could sell at the markets. The kitchen, located at the Old Sashmill, is rented out by Feel Good Foods.

Today, Lampel stands (in a fine dust of flour) in the new space of her bake shop, complete with a kitchen of her own and a front counter space in the making. Owned with her husband, Jeremy, the new coffee and pastry hub on the West side is due to open sometime in June. Wedged comfortably between Another Bikeshop and Mission Liquors on Mission Street in Santa Cruz, the location on the edge of town is convenient, as it’s a straight shot up the coast to many of the farms with which they work.

The new kitchen also comes with a new 5-foot by 6-foot brick oven, which will turn out about 40 loaves of bread with each bake.

"The brick oven is serious heat. The idea is that it creates a perfect environment for baking off artisan breads," Lampel said. "It's a huge baking chamber that retains heat evenly, and the loaves can be placed directly on the hearth and rotated as they bake."

After six years of kneading dough by hand, Lampel's new kitchen also comes with an old Hobart mixer, "an old beast," as she calls it, but one that will help boost production. Lampel likes keeping the mixer on a low speed, though, so it doesn't stray too far from a hand-kneaded effect.

Besides the rosemary, sesame, walnut, olive, three-seed, flax and weekly specialty bread (this week's was fig and anis), Companion Bakers also bakes scones, pumpkin breads, cookies, granola and many more delicious treats soon to be available at the new store.

Companion Bakers also still participates in a CSA program, partnering with four local farms: Fogline Farms, Freewheelin' Farm, Blue House Farm, Live Earth Farm and Santa Cruz Local Foods.