Sisters revive bakery with special diets in mind

Sisters Karen Hefke and Patty Campanelli say old habits die hard.

Back in the 1980s, they sold a successful Cape Region bakery to raise children and join the corporate world.

Campanelli said the old bakery was so busy people would line up in the morning to wait for their baked goods. Eventually, the long hours caught up with them.

"It was too hard to get up at 3 a.m. and work 16-hour days," she said. "We had such a successful business that the line would go all the way down the shopping center. Our sticky buns were that popular."

This time around, the kids are grown and the sisters are baking on their own terms. They've opened Creative Crumbs, not as a retail establishment, but as a by-order-only bakery they operate from a converted storage barn.

Hefke redesigned the space into a commercial bakery, a tidy sort-of woman-cave at her home off Oak Orchard Road. The sisters now fill orders for everything from wedding cakes to gluten-free breads.

Hefke said she was forced to eliminate gluten from her diet several years ago, and with her new knowledge, on request, she has mad gluten-free wedding cakes. No one at the wedding suspected a thing, but everyone was able to celebrate with cake, she said.

"I had to go gluten-free several years ago and I had to learn to bake again," she said. "It took two years to figure it out."

Just because the gluten is gone, the baked goods don't lack in taste or style. Cupcakes range from Boston cream to chocolate salted caramel and mojito-flavored.

Campanelli said the sisters make their own flours without gluten by using brown rice, potato starch, tapioca starch or sorghum depending on what they plan to bake.

"It's not like going to the grocery store and buying flour to make cookies," she said.

Nevertheless, the sisters make their own mixes to bake cakes, cookies, cupcakes, cheesecakes, muffins, scones and other goodies for small and large orders.

The bakery is mainly run out of Hefke's home, but the sisters said they also  have a booth at the farmers market in Milton on Fridays where they bring a selection of baked goods while they launch the new incarnation of their bakery.

"Now we are trying to get our name out there," Hefke said. "We can do traditional baking, too, but we also try to do anything people need as far as special diet requests."

For more information call 302-542-5445 or 302-542-7377 or search Creative Crumbs Bake Shoppe on Facebook.