Good purple sponge cakes, artisan German breads and pastries and mouth-watering charcuterie boards are just some of the goodies these new Bangor-spot food enterprises are advertising.
Baked By Joy and Bread With Character, which each promote their goodies at the Bangor European Current market on Saturday mornings, and Downtown Charcuterie, which sells out of a downtown Bangor storefront, all opened within the earlier year.
Hermon resident Joy Dudley commenced Baked By Joy in May 2021, as she grew increasingly homesick for her native state of the Philippines soon after shifting to Maine a couple years back. A single of the biggest matters she skipped was ube cake, an legendary Filipino dessert consisting of frosted sponge cake designed with ube, a purple yam, which presents the dessert its one of a kind taste, texture and good purple shade.
“I really like anything ube,” Dudley stated. “When I could not get Filipino food items or Filipino desserts, I started to generate recipes to incorporate ube in the hopes of getting a business enterprise exactly where I could share my tradition with everybody.”
In addition to traditional ube cake and cupcakes, Dudley now can make ube every little thing — ube cake pops, ube cookies, ube ice product, ube waffles, and even ube whoopie pies, in a nod to equally her Filipino roots and new residence in Maine. She also helps make other cakes flavored with mango, coconut or pandan, a fresh new, aromatic leaf utilized in lots of Filipino recipes.
Dudley sells her goodies from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. each individual Saturday morning at the Bangor European Sector on Buck Avenue, normally takes unique orders, and also regularly has ube cookies and whoopie pies at West Industry Square Artisan Coffeehouse in Bangor.
Also at the European Current market, Joachim Woitun and Anna Maria Baeza, who run Bangor-primarily based Bread With Character, both of those experienced a comparable purpose to Dudley to get started baking — Woitun deeply missed the refreshing sourdough bread he made use of to get in his indigenous Bavaria, Germany.
While baking was often a interest for him, about a yr in the past, he and Baeza began offering their breads and pastries at the market. In addition to fragrant loaves of German sourdough, Woitun also will make other sorts of German and French breads, pretzels, cookies and cakes.
Baking is a lot more than a hobby for them now, but both Woitun and Baeza are completed skilled musicians — Woitun is a cellist and Baeza is a clarinetist — who have performed internationally, and who most not too long ago have served on the faculty at SummerKeys in Lubec.
Credit history: Courtesy of Downtown Charcuterie
What’s bread with no cheese? Ashley Cunningham knows that when you are placing out goodies for company at a bash, range issues, and at her new company, Downtown Charcuterie in Bangor, she aims to choose the headache out of making a platter of meat, cheese and other treats.
Cunningham worked as a preschool instructor for a long time right before the pandemic, prior to transitioning into an office environment career. She uncovered herself seeking for some thing enjoyable and creative to do with her spare time, and obtained into producing wonderful shows of treats for individuals.
“I started out making themed charcuterie boards for parties, close friends and family in October, and so a lot of men and women ended up intrigued I determined to make it official in January,” Cunningham stated.
Consumers can select the measurement of the board and the distinctive objects they want on it, along with crudites, bread, crackers, fruits and greens, cookies, candy and just about anything else Cunningham has offered. She schedules pickups on Friday afternoons at 76 Major St., in downtown Bangor, in the similar spot wherever vegan doughnut bakery The Donut GroVe also delivers pickup.
To purchase a charcuterie board, stop by the Downtown Charcuterie Facebook website page.
