Community Corner

Raisin' Dough Provides Local Baked Goods

Subscription baking program at Elijah's Promise provides eight weeks of bakery fresh treats.

Perhaps one of the difficult things about visiting a bakery is picking out exactly what to bring home. At Raisin' Dough, a team of bakers are crafting parcels of homemade baked goods for their customers, taking steps to ensure that all are satisfied with their choices.

One of the newest endeavors of the New Brunswick nonprofit anti-hunger organization, Raisin' Dough is a community supported bakery that provides weekly orders of baked goods through a subscription cost.

For $150, participants will receive freshly baked goods once a week for eight weeks, prepared the same day by students of the Promise Culinary School.

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On Jan. 6, the students were making braided ciabatta bread, whole wheat sandwich loaves and chiffon cakes, topped with little handmade fondant mice.

Every week the bakery offerings are different, but Chef Chrissy Banks said the thing they have in common is their fresh and whole ingredients.

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Nothing artificial or super processed is used in the recipes, Banks said. Real butter and real eggs go into the batters.

"It's real food," she said.

Banks said the $150 price works out to about $18.75 per week, a price she said was affordable for baked goods, especially when organic bread in a commercial bakery may start at $6 or $7 per loaf, she said.

The real benefit of the program for the students is experience, Banks said.

In addition to the Raisin' Dough products, the students of Promise Culinary School also make the desserts offered daily at Elijah's Promise's Better World Cafe in Highland Park.

As a result, the students can put on their resume that they have worked in a kitchen, producing products for daily consumption, Banks said.

Banks said that in order to keep demand for baked goods from overtaking the Promise Culinary School, subscriptions for the program will be limited to 25 per eight week session. Currently, the program has about 22 subscribers, she said.

The feedback has been "Overwhelmingly positive," thus far, Banks said.

Anissa Hopkins, of Union, a student in the program, said that they have offered up all sorts of different baked goods for Raisin' Dough since the program's inception - brownies, breads, cakes, cupcakes and chocolate eclairs, to name a few.

Hopkins, who found the program through unemployment while making a career change, said she hopes to eventually open her own bakery.

"I want to be where I can make...everything," she said.

For more information on Raisin' Dough, contact Chef Chrissy Banks at CBanks@elijahspromise.net or call 732-545-9002, ext. 114.


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