The Main Library at Goodwood held its Baker Faire to celebrate small businesses, inviting bakers and customers to indulge in everything sugary.
East Baton Rouge Parish’s Main Library at Goodwood held the fair on Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. The library hosted 27 vendors amidst its shelves of books and DVDs, and Baton Rouge residents had the opportunity to taste any and all kinds of sweet treats.
This carefully curated village of bakers and businesses reached every corner of the library. The event was nothing short of a dessert version of Candy Land due to the amount of booths one could hit, starting from just outside the main entrance to nearly all of the second floor.
Some vendors outside of the library included Louisiana’s first cookie truck and a face painting table. Inside, there was a Cookie Contest presented by The Advocate, a couple of speakers discussing both the edible and business sides of baking and a demonstration for kids looking to learn even more about the culinary world.
While healthy competition was the cherry on top of an already fun day, the bakers and their sweets were what captured the hearts of all in attendance.
With a long line of individuals with a sweet tooth, EM’s Bakery sold out of almost all of its menu items before the function concluded.
Cottage bakers Michelle Huynh and Evan Foster are the owners of the home bakery. The couple’s menu items for the Baker Faire were a small but tastefully abundant selection, with various flavors of Japanese cheesecake, one flavor of chiffon cake and even Hawaiian butter mochi.
The pair sells their baked goods from Baton Rouge event pop-ups, restaurants and bubble tea shops. Huynh mentioned selling products to locations in New Orleans and Lafayette. She detailed how she and Foster bake all the time to keep up with order demands, which are handled through Instagram from their business account.
Huynh’s baking venture began in 2017 as more of a personal inclination.
“I started getting a lot into baking because I wanted to make stuff that you couldn’t really find in Baton Rouge,” Huynh said. “I was making Hokkaido milk breads and Asian bakery bread, items that you could find in Houston or Texas, and they didn’t have that here in Baton Rouge.”
Huynh said that her friends would talk about buying these treats from her, and that was the birth of her business. Baking became not just a way for her to create within her niche, but also her livelihood in everyday business operations.
Baking is Huynh’s full-time job, and her and Foster’s experience working in restaurants pushed them further in their venture. Huynh also stressed the close-knit community presence intertwined with cottage bakeries at the Baker Faire.
“It’s always going to be fresh. You get anything custom made for you that maybe you can’t get anywhere else,” Huynh said. “It’s always more intimate when you order from a home business because you’re talking one-on-one with people. It’s going to be made with love.”
Another cottage bakery that made its stake at the faire was respiratory therapist Jessica Pourcia’s business, Cake Pour Tous. Pourcia said she is an allergy-friendly baker. She saw a need for that in her community, and everything she makes is gluten-free. Many of her products are also dairy-free and soy-free.
For her menu at the fair, she sold cake cups, cookie cake slices and French macarons. Pourcia has had her side business for three years now, and she described some of the best parts of owning her cottage bakery.
“I do a lot of custom cakes, and that’s very rewarding artistically, but coming to a pop-up and getting to meet people in the community and see them face to face is probably my favorite part,” Pourcia said.
Many of the bakers who were present have started their businesses fairly recently with more modernized baking styles, but the same cannot be said for all. William and Theresa Blount are the manager and executive of Cooking From Bayou Courtableau Bakery.
“We focus on the past. Our motto is to create the taste that takes you back. All of our pastries are made from scratch, and we have a variety of pastries,” William Blount said. “We also produce preserves, just like back in the day. Back in the ‘60s, back in the ‘50s and the ‘40s.”
The company focuses mainly on sweet dough pies. Some of the flavors at the fair included blueberry, peach and fig.
The couple’s business began with Theresa Blount, and her passion for baking began when she was just eight years old. She would compete in many events in her hometown of Opelousas, and she even wrote her own cookbook, “Cooking Bayou Courtableau,” in 1984.
They also do demonstrations at the Sugar Festival and prepare items to sell at farmers markets. However, after retirement, they registered their businesses as a complete commercial kitchen rather than simply a cottage bakery.
Theresa explained what interacting with people during demonstrations and baking as a whole has done for her in her life.
“It taught me to look at people and appreciate people for what they do,” Theresa said. “Somebody may not like something, and you may like it, but you have to look at the individual, the culture and what they have actually grown up with.”
Fair attendees Eileen Hebert and Missy Lynch heard about the event from the library’s monthly magazine. Lynch described Hebert as a good baker, and both friends decided to go.
“I like to support the library. I remember my mother taking me to a library when I was four or five years old, and I enjoyed the library,” Lynch said. “There’s a lot to do here.”
Lynch and Hebert said they bought everything they came for and more, from a small chocolate croissant to a four-pack of huge cinnamon rolls they managed to split between the two of them.
Hebert stated what she appreciates about community-adjacent events that the library holds on days like Sunday.
“I just think it’s good to get the people out in the community, and it’s good for the bakers that are out here as the vendors today,” Hebert said. “They’re all working from home, primarily, and you don’t know about them unless you come to an event like this or by word-of-mouth.”
