Batches Bakery celebrated its grand opening last week on Nov. 9, setting up shop at 321 Dundurn St. S.
Since then, owner Kate Batchelor said the bakery has received nothing but love from the local community.
“The response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive,” Batchelor said. “Everyone has been so welcoming and we’re so happy to be here.”
Batchelor said she always had a passion for baking and frequently baked with her grandfather when she was younger. Before starting her own bakery, she was pursuing a degree in psychology.
“While I was in my second year of university, not really enjoying my program, my dad passed away,” Batchelor said. “It was then that I decided that life was too short to spend it doing something you don’t love.”
So she attended Mohawk College for the Small Business and Entrepreneurship program and the Pastry Arts program at George Brown College.
Batches Bakery sells a variety of baked goods, both sweet and savoury, such as meat pies, cookies, muffins and loaves. The bakery also makes soups from scratch every day.
Kate Batchelor’s mother Corrine Batchelor, also known as Mama Batch, said a lot of the food sold in the bakery is based on generational recipes.
“Kate’s grandfather had a bakery, Gerry’s Pure Food Bakery, in Milton,” Corrine Batchelor said. “Many of the recipes are adapted from the original recipes.”
But she added that a lot of the recipes have been changed to fit more modern tastes, which has more of a focus on being health conscious.
Some of the baked goods that are recommended most by the bakery staff include the orange cranberry loaf and the chocolate chip cookies.
“My favourite recipe at the bakery is hands down the chocolate chip cookie,” Kate Batchelor said. “I spent quite a lot of time working on that recipe. It seems like it should be simple, but it was a process.”
Another of their recommended desserts is the butter tart square, which is a dessert bar version of the popular Canadian dessert with a shortbread crust. Batches customer Darya Zabihi said the square is a great take on a classic treat.
“It bites like a blondie and tastes like a butter tart,” Zabihi said. “The filling is deliciously buttery and caramelized. It’s a very nostalgic Canadian taste.”
Along with their own goods, Batches Bakery also features products from local businesses in its storefront as well. This includes hypoallergenic dog treats, hand-poured candles and decorate-your-own sugar cookie kits. The bakery further tries to “keep it local” by sourcing some of the ingredients in its recipes from local farms.
Going forward, Kate Batchelor said that she hopes to keep the bakery at 321 Dundurn St. S as long as possible, since the building is still for sale. However, Batches Bakery will stay at its current location into the holiday season, for at least the next two months.
Batches Bakery is open for online and in-store orders on Wednesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
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