Joanne Canady-Brown may be the owner of a successful bakery — The Gingered Peach in Lawrence — but she comes from humble beginnings.
Canady-Brown never went to culinary school. Instead, she learned the foundation of baking from spending time in the kitchen with her grandmother.
“When we used to bake, if we didn’t have everything we needed, she’d just say ‘oh, ginger it up,’” Canady-Brown said. “It was her polite way of saying just work with what you have to make something awesome, and that’s the principle of our bakery here.”
Years later, when Canady-Brown was planning to open her own bakery she reflected on the time she spent learning from her grandmother. Between her notable method of baking, and her grandmother being called a “peach” because she was from Georgia, the name The Gingered Peach was born.
Despite being inspired from her grandmother, Canady-Brown didn’t jump right into the baking business. She went to college, earned a degree in economics and then went to work in a traditional corporate career.
“I realized very quickly it just wasn’t the right fit for me,” she said. “I found that in order to get over the stress of work, I was coming home and trying to bake something. My husband said to me one day ‘you know, it really feels like the only time you’re happy is when you’re baking.’”
It was that conversation that catapulted her into opening up her bakery. Before opening The Gingered Peach, she ran the Ewing-based bakery Let Them Eat Cake. However, Canady-Brown quickly outgrew the location, and without enough freezers or refrigerators to hold the product, they couldn’t expand their selection of goods and therefore couldn’t expand their profits.
On Dec. 6, 2014 Canady-Brown opened The Gingered Peach in Lawrenceville. With a new larger location and a fresh name, she was ready to add a cutting-edge twist to the bakery world.
When she was choosing a location, she didn’t just want a space that would allow her to grow. She wanted to be in a central location that featured a strong sense of community, which she found in her Gordon Avenue location.
“The community here is amazing,” Canady-Brown said. “Their involvement has been ‘We want this small business here and we’re going show it by supporting it,’ I’ve seen people stand on line outside our door waiting for us to open.”
Canady-Brown understands that customers in this area have many shopping options. Between large supermarkets and Whole Foods stores that can keep a larger supply in stock, seeing customers chose her “mom-and-pop” style store was a reflection that the quality of her food and the friendliness of her employees was resonating with local shoppers.
“The community outpour of support is beyond anything I could have imagined,” she said.
The community support is the direct tie between her being able to expand the business. She now has 15 employees working for The Gingered Peach, which has grown significantly from the two staff members she employed at her bakery in Ewing.
“The community has created jobs for these people,” Canady-Brown said. “They’re helping people who just like to bake learn a skill set.”
Canady-Brown said she likes to hire people who have a passion for baking rather than only hiring classically trained bakers, or those who went to culinary school.
“I hire people who love to bake,” she said. “I’m not a trained baker. Everything I know I taught myself in the kitchen.”
All of the employees at The Gingered Peach have a clear love for baking, including one unpaid intern who worked her way up to become a lead baker.
While Althea Marr was in culinary school, she needed to find an internship for her degree.
“She was looking for an internship, but her school did paid internships only,” Canady-Brown said. “I said I can barely afford to staff two people.”
Despite being turned away, Marr was persistent. She came back every two weeks to drop off her resume, and finally got her school to allow her to take an unpaid internship to join Canady-Brown’s small staff.
“Definitely what drew my attention first was I loved that Joanne bakes everything from scratch,” Marr said.
Rather than use corn syrups or pre-made mixes, all of the items baked in Canady-Brown’s kitchens are made from raw, natural ingredients. When used right, sugar, flour and eggs are better than any synthetic ingredient, Canady-Brown said.
“How do you meet this farm-to-table kind of mentality that exists in this part of the state and merge it with these sweet things?” Canady-Brown said, noting that local savory chefs — such as Elements in Princeton — are doing it very well, but the bakers are playing catch up.
Canady-Brown places a big emphasis on the quality of each ingredient, saying that customers can taste the difference between something made with fresh, locally grown blueberries or a blueberry syrup.
“The one thing I heard the most is people who say ‘I’ve never eaten a chocolate chip cookie like that,’” she said. “You can buy them everywhere, but the difference is [the ingredients used].”
Another thing that made Marr initially want to intern at Canady-Brown’s bakery was the opportunity to bake more than just simple cookies and cupcakes.
“She had such a large variety of products so I knew that if was able to get a job with her I’d get a lot of experience doing a lot of different things,” Marr said.
The two made a perfect pair, with Marr’s enthusiasm for baking blending well with Canady-Brown’s in-kitchen knowledge.
“We were different because she had the traditional knowledge that you learn going to school, and I had the I’m a home baker trail and error knowledge,” Canady-Brown said.
The internship was a positive experience for Marr, who eventually moved to Vermont to work as a pastry chef for a country club. However, after The Gingered Peach opened Marr called Canady-Brown and asked if there were any positions available. Marr was welcomed back with open arms.
“A person that I could not afford to pay for an internship four years ago is now leading the back of house program here,” Canady-Brown said.
Canady-Brown has been able to grow her staff and her bakery thanks to an innovative selection of baked treats.
While they offer traditional baked goods, such as croissants and buns, they also keep an eye on the latest trends within the food industry. From seasonal treats — pumpkin in the fall and fresh fruit in the summer — to a new unique way to use bacon, Canady-Brown and her staff are always looking ahead to find the next big food item.
Once they look at the latest food trends, they find a way to incorporate them into how they bake as a way to adopt the new styles to the sweet side of the food world.
Canady-Brown said donuts are set to be the next big food trend to blow up. While they haven’t launched them yet, her team of bakers is looking into how they can take donuts and bring them back to how they were intended to be made.
“It’s real donuts with body, light but still filled with substance — but also something with a little bit of a twist,” she said.
While the staff monitors trends within the food industry, they also listen to their biggest food critics — the customers.
“One of the reasons we decided to develop that blackout cookie recipe — that’s basically like a rocky road cookie — was because so many people were asking ‘why don’t you have a double chocolate cookie,’” Marr said. “So we were like okay, let’s work with that and see what we can do.”
One of the highest selling items, their famous the Caramel Crack, got it’s name after a customer loved it so much she said it was “like crack, you can’t just eat one.”
“I was like, that’s it, we’re going to change the name,” Canady-Brown said. “It opened up a line of conversation with the customer.”
Rather than just looking at the dessert — which is a small ball of brioche rolled in butter and sugar and then baked in soft, house-made toffee — the name draws more people in to ask what it is and why it is called Caramel Crack.
The support and feedback from the customers keeps pushing the staff of The Gingered Peach to stay on the top of their game.
“It makes me as own owner want to work that much harder to bring them what they want,” Canady-Brown said.
For more information about The Gingered Peach, as well as hours of operation, visit thegingeredpeach.com.
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