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Show Baking from scratch Tried and true methods lead to bakery success By MARK EDDINGTON m Staff Writer CENTERVUXE After 17 years as manager of the bakery department at Dick's Market and Home Center, Ray Van Uitert still believes in doing things the old-fashioned way. Many departmental chains have gone to using bakeoffs. Pastries are baked and frozen by a central bakery before hey are sent to each bakery outlet. But at Dick's, each item is made entirely from scratch. It is a philosophy which Van Uitert said has made Dick's one of the largest volume bakeries in the state, with regular customers coming from all over the county and from as far away as Sandy and West Jordan. Jor-dan. Dick's Bakery employs 10 full-time bakers including in-cluding Van Uitert, who said the store does a thriving business in decorator cakes, eclairs and other delectable delec-table goodies for open houses and parties. The bakery produces from 30 to 60 decorator cakes on weekdays. The numb . wr? i r &y cator cakes doubles on weekends, and Vuii l- t he has to employ 10 decorators just to cover the ot .li Covering the orders and giving each cake a j :r-sonal :r-sonal touch isn't easy, he said. Each baker starts wurf at 2 a.m. and works until early afternoon. "I don't know if you ever get used to the hours, but it gives you a proud feeling to make something tha! people enjoy' Van Uitert added. The store specialty is a banana nut cake with custard filling. There isn't another bakery around that makes it, the manager said. Whatever is ordered, Van Uitert believes in giving everything a personal touch to keep customers coming back. The manager keeps daily and yearly records to determine how many pastries the bakery will sell on any given day, which he said enables him to keep everything fresh by not overproducing. "We try not to produce anything that we wouldn't buy ourselves," Ray said. "People notice the dir ence between us and other bakeries and tha! 5 v ' v they keep coming back. ' ' |
