There’s something about Karl’s Bread that keeps customers lining up outside his booth at area farmers markets. It might be the chocolate croissants which, I can attest, are divine. Or the biscotti, or the focaccia, or the Asiago bagels, or maybe it’s the more than 14 flavors, from sun-dried tomato and thyme to wild rice craisin to cardamom bread that brings folks back.
Sally (Karl’s mom) and Karl and a crew of family and friends bake daily during the farmers market season. Karl starts at 2 a.m. mixing dough; others come to form it into loaves and refrigerate it. It comes out in the afternoon while the ovens heat up and has to “jiggle” just perfectly before it’s put in to bake.
It’s been a round-theclock, all family members on board effort every summer for 11 years now. When Karl’s father moved his woodshop out of a large pole building on their rural Mt. Iron property, Karl moved in and started acquiring baking equipment. Sally shows me antique mixers that came from abandoned bakeries and a huge croissant dough roller that explains the flakiness of Karl’s croissants.
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