Meanwhile, Gigi Burton, owner of the Sugar + Sunshine bakery, located at 6 Market Street, which opened in April, 2008, similarly says she has also been drawing customers from all over. “I wanted to create an environment where people can feel at home and enjoy fresh baked goods made by hand in small batches from the finest ingredients,” says Burton, who adds that everything the bakery makes is “something you would serve to your mother or grandmother.”
Every item sold at the bakery is made from scratch with local ingredients — milk, eggs, and even the coffee, which is brewed for the bakery from Small World Coffee in Princeton. It is rare you find an ingredient that travels far and winds up in her shop (the chocolate supplier is Guittard, based in San Francisco), and everything is baked the day it is sold. Recycling leftovers? Out of the question.
“We don’t believe in expiration dates on cakes,” she said. In other stores, “you see a cake in the refrigerator and it has a sell-by date, and that date could be six weeks from now. Is that how you really want to celebrate something — with a cake that’s six weeks old? Or, do you want something with ingredients you can print out that’s made specifically for you on the day of your celebration?” Not to mention, people are starting to look for healthier options with natural ingredients, which can also be found at her bakery, she says. And instead of disposing of the leftovers at the end of the night, Burton keeps a list of groups and organizations like the police and fire departments and senior housing complexes where she drops off the day’s unsold products.
For Burton, baking has always been a passion. She left a successful 12-year career as a financial services marketing executive at JP Morgan Chase in New York City, and enrolled in the pastry and baking program at the Institute of Culinary Education. After graduating she worked for cake decorator Colette Peters at her shop in the West Village, helping to create some of the best and most distinctive cakes and assisting Peters with her latest book, “Cakes to Dream On.”
She and her husband, Ray, moved to Plainsboro 10 years ago. Burton grew up in Altoona, PA, where her father was a doctor and her mother worked for a bank. She attended Penn State University and met her husband when they both worked for Chase. When they were looking for a place to move, they searched along the train line and chose Plainsboro for its similar rural feel to Burton’s hometown.
Since opening the bakery, Burton has been involved in the fundraising efforts for the library and in Founder’s Day. “It’s really going to be huge exciting time to have that amazing library at the anchor of the Village Center,” says Burton. “I think it will really bring more people through the area.”
The business has had no problems, however, bringing in customers on its own. Some even come as far as 30 miles away to try selections like the Red Velvet or Cheesecake cupcakes. “Remember being excited about a great cupcake?” says Burton. “When your mom could magically turn flour, eggs, butter, and sugar into your favorite birthday cake and your grandmother greeted you at the door with a plate of warm homemade cookies?”
Burton says people are also turning to natural products and all-natural ingredients — something found in her creations. Burton’s recipe for Triple Chocolate Truffle cake recently won the grand prize in a national dessert contest sponsored by Ghirardelli Chocolate, beating out thousands of other entries and appearing in Ladies’ Home Journal magazine and other food-related publications.
Other than expanding the product line, Burton says she would be open to the idea of opening more locations, but it has to be the right decision at the right time and place. “The last thing we would like to do is expand and have the quality suffer,” she said. “It would definitely have to be a controlled growth.”
Burton has done virtually no advertising. But she does have other marketing techniques, including some Internet-based promotion. The bakery’s mascot, Wilson Sugar, and his best friend, Ray O. Sunshine, featured in the bakery’s signage, have their own Facebook pages.
“Really, the bottom line is to do whatever we do as well as we can, and never put out a product that you would never give to a loved one yourself,” she says.
Sugar & Sunshine Bakery, 6 Market Street. 609-936-3777.
