Baking in Hollis Mill since 2014
About Crumb & Co.
Three bakers, one deck oven, a sourdough starter called Maude and flour from a stone mill forty miles up the road.
How it started
A bread habit that got out of hand
Nell Okafor started baking sourdough in her apartment above the hardware store in 2014. By that summer she was selling twelve loaves a week from a card table at the Hollis Mill farmers market, and by autumn it was sixty, baked in two home ovens in shifts that started at 2 a.m.
In 2016 the old Linden Street print shop came up for rent. It had a concrete floor, a loading door and enough wiring for a proper deck oven. Nell signed the lease, Tomás came over from a hotel pastry kitchen in Burlington, and Crumb & Co. opened on a Saturday in March with bread, croissants and not quite enough chairs.
The print shop’s old type cases are still on the back wall. We keep the price list on them.
The bakers
Nell Okafor, head baker and co-owner
Nell runs the bread. She’s in at 3:30, lights the oven, shapes the last of the overnight loaves and has the first bake out at 7:00. She feeds Maude, orders the flour and will talk about hydration percentages for as long as you let her. Her favourite loaf is the Linden Street rye, sliced thin, with too much butter.
Tomás Brandt, pastry lead
Tomás makes everything laminated: croissants, pain au chocolat, danishes and the morning buns. That’s what the trade calls viennoiserie, which really just means breakfast pastries made from yeasted, buttery dough. Croissant dough takes him two days, with three folds, and he does it by hand because the bakery is too small for a sheeter. He also makes the cookies, mostly so he can eat the broken ones.
Priya Raman, cakes and custom orders
Priya runs the cake case and every custom cake order, from a Tuesday birthday cake for a six-year-old to a three-tier wedding cake for 120. She trained as an architect, which explains the sketches. She answers cake emails Wednesday to Saturday and holds wedding tastings on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons.
Behind the counter you’ll usually find Dot, who knows everyone’s regular order and will tell you honestly whether the rye is sour enough today.
The starter
Meet Maude
Every loaf we sell is raised with Maude, the sourdough starter Nell mixed from whole rye flour and well water in March 2014. A starter (bakers also call it a levain, or mother dough) is a paste of flour and water full of wild yeast and bacteria. It’s what makes the bread rise, and what makes it sour.
Maude gets fed twice a day, at 6:00 in the morning and 6:00 in the evening: one part starter to five parts flour and five parts water. The flour is half stone-milled bread flour, half whole rye. When the bakery is closed on Monday and Tuesday, somebody still comes in to feed her.
We give away small jars of Maude on Sundays. Bring a clean jar with a lid and ask at the counter. How we feed a 12-year-old starter has the full routine.
Where our flour and butter come from
We buy from people close enough that we know their dogs’ names. The distances are from the shop door.
| Supplier | What we buy | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Ridgeline Mill, Barre Hollow | Stone-milled bread flour, whole wheat, whole rye | 40 miles |
| Hollis Creamery | Cultured butter (82% fat), buttermilk, cream | 3 miles |
| Two Oxen Farm | Eggs, and rhubarb in May | 11 miles |
| Kettle Pond Orchard | Apples, pears and plums for the danishes | 18 miles |
| Brick Street Brewing | Stout for the chocolate stout cake | Next door |
The chocolate is from a single importer in Boston, the spices from a family business in Montreal, and the sugar is ordinary cane sugar. We would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Values
What we won't do
- No dough improvers, no par-baked bread. Our loaves are flour, water, salt and Maude, and nothing is shipped in frozen to be finished here.
- No day-old bread sold as fresh. Anything left at close goes on the half-price “yesterday shelf” the next morning. At noon, what’s left goes to the Hollis Mill Food Shelf.
- No vague allergen answers. Every item on the menu lists what’s in it. If we don’t know, we’ll check the recipe card, not guess.
- No overpromising on cakes. If we’re full for your date, we’ll say so and suggest something that works.
Come and say hello
Wednesday to Sunday from 7:00 am at 418 Linden Street. Ask for a tour of the oven if it isn't a Saturday.
Hours & directions