T-Shirt Design Contest

Are you artistic and witty? We are holding a contest to choose the next Wild Oats Bakery t-shirt design! Submit either a slogan or a drawing (or both!) in-store or send via email to valerie@wildoatsbakery.com. The winner will receive a $100 gift card to Wild Oats Bakery as well as the opportunity to see their design on our retail t-shirts! The deadline for submission is April 30, 2011.

For inspiration, we've included some of our previous designs below.

Good luck!

P.S. Sign up for our weekly email to receive a coupon for a FREE t-shirt!*

*With purchase of $25 or more.

In Honor of Hot Cross Bun Season - The Legend of the Hot Cross Bun

Tomorrow (Ash Wednesday) marks the start of the Hot Cross Bun season at Wild Oats Bakery. Our original recipe uses unique ingredients such as cardamom, lemon and orange zest, ground clove, nutmeg and more. Due to the limited season of the Hot Cross Buns - we only offer them from Ash Wednesday through Easter - they are truly a much-anticipated treat!

In honor of the start of the season, we are reprinting The Legend of the Hot Cross Bun from the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook.

English folklore traces this bun, with its cross on the top, all the way back to pagan Britain, before the arrival of Christianity, to the celebration of the vernal equinox and the return of the sun's dominance in the sky. The bun represented the earth and the four sections, delineated by the cross on top, represented the seasons of the year. In addition to its seasonal implications, for the baker the cross also was a sign to ward off evil and to encourage the dough to rise.


During the reign of Elizabeth I, sweetened and spiced breads were allowed by law to be made and sold only on special occasions, Good Friday being one. While these laws were relaxed in the next century, hot cross buns continued, even as they are today, to be associated with Good Friday. It is said that if the buns are made on Good Friday itself they will protect the baker, and those sharing them, from misfortune in the coming year.

Click HERE to see the original Wild Oats Bakery Hot Cross Bun recipe and to watch owner Rebecca Shepherd making them on WCSH's 207 program.

It's another Small Business Saturday!

Come in Saturday, treat yourself, get stamped and
be entered to win...

We are pleased to announce that we will be participating in another Small Business Saturday this Saturday, March 5th. We are excited about this grassroots effort to increase exposure to local businesses while also helping the local economy...

Come out on Saturday and pick up an entry form at any of the participating businesses. Explore downtown shops and restaurants and collect stamps to be entered to win the grand prize of over $600 in gift certificates to local businesses!

Participating businesses include:

Wild Oats Bakery & Cafe
Morning Glory Natural Foods
Summer Island Studio
Indrani's
Wilburs of Maine Chocolate
The Music Center
Brunswick Inn
The Gelato Fiasco
Frontier
Wild Flours
Blessings
Estilo
Maine Street Events
Brunswick Movers and Used Furniture
Nest
Captain Daniel Stone Inn
The Great Impasta
The Little Dog Coffee Shop
The Big Top Deli
Flipside Pizza
Bombay Mahal
Maine Running Company
Provisions
Communication Network
Little Tokyo
Bart and Greg's DVD Explosion

We hope to see you this Saturday!

Tips for creating your own personalized cookbook...

One of our old recipes...

How does Wild Oats Bakery create the recipes used for all of our products? While many of our recipes are simply the product of creative cooking inspiration and trial and error, many are also established by adding our little spin to standard recipes. In this post, we will give you the tips you need to come up with your own cookbook filled with personalized recipes...

The first tip is to scan or copy all recipes onto an 8.5 x 11" piece of paper rather than index cards. "Using a large piece of paper allows me to make notes as I am cooking and experimenting," says Rebecca Shepherd, owner of Wild Oats Bakery. "I then slip each recipe into a clear plastic sleeve (sheet protector) and save them in a binder for future use. We are forever editing recipes and fine-tuning ingredients. To this day, the bakery kitchen is still filled with binders and binders of recipes for everything from our homemade soups to our blueberry muffins."

Behind the scenes at Wild Oats Bakery...

Another thing to keep in mind is that ingredients will be different from different suppliers. To keep your recipe spot on each time, you should invest in a small kitchen scale and weigh your ingredients as opposed to focusing solely on volume measurements. You should try a recipe the first time - measuring and then weighing all the ingredients as you go. Jot down the weights on your recipe paper and if you love the final product, use the weights in future recipes. This will help to ensure a perfect product each time!

And finally, don't be afraid to experiment! Don't save your experimentation for the day of your dinner party, but instead take a day and try a few recipes. Add ingredients that you think will compliment a recipe to give it your own special spin (like adding a raspberry sauce to a chocolate dessert).

With just a few tries and a little bit of organization, you will soon have a personalized cookbook of delicious and unique recipes!

In the Kitchen with Louisa Edgerton...

The first of our "In the Kitchen with..." interview series is with Louisa Edgerton, Operations Manager. Louisa has been with the bakery since 1997, and brought to the job 20 years of previous food service experience. She grew up in Gorham and East Boothbay, studied in Spain for two years, and graduated from the University of New Hampshire. Louisa spent several years working in Utah and three years in the Peace Corps in Poland, teaching English, before moving back to Maine. She loves sailing, gardening, knitting, entertaining and being outdoors.

Wild Oats Bakery: If you were stuck on a desert island and could have only one Wild Oats Bakery product, what would it be?

Louisa Edgerton: I think I could survive a good long time on Wild Oats Turkey Salad, on a bed of lettuce with a Buttermilk Biscuit on the side. I guess that's two items, but that's what I want. I love the delicate maple flavor of the turkey salad, and the biscuits are rich and buttery!


WOB: Tell us about your role at the Bakery...

LE: That would probably take me a week - but to sum it up, I'm sort of the oil that keeps the wheels turning. I do everything from covering the counter or helping in the kitchen; to graphic design and marketing; to printing off stickers and labels; and I pretty much embody the HR department. I never know what each day is going to demand of me, and I think that's what I love most about my job.

WOB: What's the best cooking tip that you've learned since starting here?

LE: I've always hated cooking rice, because I always burnt it or left it too watery. When I first started at Wild Oats I was a cook, and learned to put my rice and COLD water together in the pan, bring it to a boil and then turn it off. Twenty minutes later you have perfect rice!

WOB: If there was one thing that you would want people to know about the bakery, what would it be?

LE:  We're really grateful to our community for keeping us in business, and I love that the owners recognize this. We give a lot back to the community in the form of donations to a ton of different organizations, and I'm proud to be a part of that.

Stay tuned for more staff interviews and please feel free to send your suggestions for future interview questions to wildoatsbakery@wildoatsbakery.com.

Our new blog!

Welcome!

Through the years we have been asked many questions about our products, the staff, the downstairs bakery operations, serving suggestions and much, much more. In response, we thought that a blog would allow both our new and longtime customers a chance to get to know us better...

Our blog posts will include recipes, cooking tips, interviews with the staff, information about new and existing products, serving suggestions, general food information, promotions, updates, photos and more.

We encourage you to post comments and suggestions for things that you would like to know about us. And please feel free to email us at wildoatsbakery@wildoatsbakery.com if you have questions that you would like us to answer via the blog...

We look forward to giving you a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes excitement at Wild Oats Bakery!