Running for the Love of Doughnuts

Rachel Wyman, Founder and Head Baker of the Montclair Bread Company, explains how her love for baking and donuts helped her become a staple within the Montclair community. Wyman also explains how her two donut a day habit inspired her create a running club called Fueled by Doughnuts.

5/3/18 #2137

Excerpt:

"Welcome back. My next guest is keeping the Montclair area fueled by donuts and many other delicious pastries. She's Rachel Wyman, Owner and Head Baker at Montclair Bread Company. Welcome to the program. Thank you. Montclair Bread Company, for anyone who lives in the area, is a staple, really. It's a place where you go and you indulge however many days a week you want to, right? That's how I define it. How do you define it? Probably the same. I mean, it's definitely a place for treats, but then you can also get your daily bread there, too. So... balance. How did you get your start in this company? And in bread, really, and baking? My grandmother was a wedding cake baker, and so when I was little, I would decorate paper plates while she was decorating a fancy wedding cake, and that was, you know, before I could write my name with a pencil, I could write my name with a bag of buttercream. Important skills to have. Exactly, exactly. So I was always around it. And then I went to college and I baked cookies and brownies and sold them to local coffee shops to pay my rent. Very entrepreneurial of you. Yeah, and I was... in traditional college, I was hoping to be a teacher, but then when I got out, I realized that I really wanted to pursue the baking a little bit more, and the first class that I took at the Culinary Institute of America was a bread baking class, and I kind of fell in love with it. What is it about bread for you? What is it about the process? So I kind of thought I would go into the wedding cake thing too, but with the breads, I discovered quickly that when you're baking, you can be a part of the community every day. So you're baking the bread for people's families for breakfast, for the lunchbox, for, you know, accompaniment for dinner, so you can really be a part of the community through this rather than just one special occasion. What does being a part of the community mean to you? Because you have really integrated yourself into this Montclair community. Yeah, I think... just having a welcoming place for people to stop by, you know, it's great if they buy something, but just to know that the door is always open and there's always a friendly face, I think, is really important, and I have three kids, and so it's... How old are they? They are six, eight, and nine. So having a place for them..."