Just as the “Cake Boss” put Carlo’s Bakery of Hoboken on the culinary map, Plainsboro has not just one but two award-winning bakers who are making the town — which is better known for pharmaceutical and financial companies — a destination for foodies from literally hours away. And in the spirit of the season Joan Wilson, pastry chef and manager of It’s a Grind, and Gigi Burton, owner of the Sugar + Sunshine Bakery,located coincidentally across the street from one another on Market Street in Plainsboro in front of the new library, are baking up a storm to remind us that the holidays are all about food, especially baked goods. Both shops are filled with wonderful smells wafting through the air — sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, caramel, pumpkin, and gingerbread — that have the power to conjure up golden memories from childhood and meld holidays past with holidays present.
The Sugar + Sunshine Bakery is known for its uncommonly large variety of cupcakes and homemade ice cream. This holiday season cupcake lovers can expect an overflowing basket of seasonal variations on this specialty, with everything baked from scratch daily: pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting, gingerbread cupcake with cream cheese frosting, egg nog cupcake with egg nog frosting, vanilla cupcake with caramel frosting and homemade caramel filling, and vanilla or chocolate cupcakes with peppermint frosting. The homemade ice cream will include seasonal flavors like pumpkin, gingerbread, pecan pie, vanilla, chocolate caramel, and egg nog. Other specialties include mini tarts and cheesecakes (great for holiday dinner parties) and molasses ginger cookies.
Across the street at It’s a Grind, the focus is on homemade pies: pumpkin, apple crumb, covered apple, and pecan will join other mouth-watering favorites baked daily on the premises — carrot cake muffins, cheesecakes, and apple tarts.
It’s a Grind
Wilson, who has two sisters and three brothers, says her childhood holidays growing up in Robbinsville were huge when it came to baking. “My mother made 10 to 15 different kinds of Christmas cookies and also made special desserts like nut roll and homemade fudge. I was right there baking alongside her. I was the only kid who had the interest in doing that; the others all were just interested in tasting.”
Today Wilson’s own family holiday tradition is making gingerbread houses. Her two children, Cait, a 2008 graduate of High School North and a junior at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and Andrew, a 2010 graduate of North and a freshman at Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia, are joined every year by their cousins for the event. Wilson also likes to treat her family to her own original artistic creations. Last year it was a special espresso custard; this year, she’s thinking of a seven layer cake — a vanilla cake with coffee butter cream and chocolate fudge icing.
Wilson’s maiden name is Baker, and so I ask if growing up with that name gave her any sense of predestination or direction in life. She laughs and says that her stay-at-home mother was a prolific baker not just during the holidays but at all times of the year. “There was always something homemade sitting on the kitchen counter at home. My mom’s specialties included cinnamon buns, red velvet cake, and something they call ‘gobs,’ also known as whoopee pies, two pieces of chocolate cake with cream in the middle, kind of like a homemade devil dog.”
Her father worked for the Department of Transportation but the baking tradition trickled down to Wilson from her father’s side as well. “My dad’s family lived in western Pennsylvania in a coal mining town. It was poor. On top of that, his mother lost her husband very early in life and had to raise nine children pretty much by herself; she ran a diner and baked for people on the side to make extra money.”
Wilson met her husband, Andy Wilson, who grew up in West Windsor, shortly after he got out of the Marine Corps in 1988. He is now a state trooper based in Hamilton.
Wilson attended Johnson and Wales for its culinary program and graduated in 1986 with an associate’s degree and multiple job offers. She started at Scanticon Conference Center on College Road, which has since undergone several incarnations and is now owned by Marriott, as a prep cook and herself underwent several title changes there. By the time she left in 1996, she was the pastry chef. Since two babies had come along in the meanwhile and she was in the heavy-lifting period of motherhood, she decided to work part-time at a bakery in East Windsor as a cake decorator and then also worked a few months as pastry chef at Greenacres Country Club in Lawrenceville.
But she was itching to be her own boss. In 1998 she started a business, a bakery and craft shop called the Cookie Cottage on Nottingham Road in Hamilton. “It was crazy,” she says. “I would go in at 3 a.m. to do the morning bakeoff, then run home and put the kids on the bus, then run back to work and then run home again to get them off the bus, then take them back with me and make deliveries. It was busy and stressful, but it was my own business and I loved it. And since I owned the store I could make sure I was there when the kids needed me.”
It was during the Cookie Cottage years that she struck up a business relationship with David Bradley Chocolates that thrives to this day. “I developed a special chocolate chip cookie for them, dipped in milk chocolate on one side for a half moon, then dipped in dark chocolate on the other side. Today they are sold all over the world, including at Barney’s (the upscale clothier) in New York and now in Los Angeles too.”
Another part of the business was crafts. She would rent out hutches to local crafters and sell their wares through the shop.
But by 2004 working seven days a week was taking its toll, and in addition, she was suffering from physical ailments that grew from the repetitive motions of kneading and rolling and shaping constantly. She had arthritis and underwent a number of surgeries, including one for carpal tunnel. She sold the business, which moved next door on the same street in Hamilton and is still in operation today. After taking some time off to recover, she returned to her first love, working with three-year olds, as a teachers’ assistant in Blawenburg.
Meanwhile, fate was working behind the scenes to get her back into baking. Her good friend, Cathy DiOrio, was opening up a coffee shop in Plainsboro with her husband, David, and partners and family members John Nuzzo and his wife, Deborah. “I’d known Cathy for years,” says Wilson. “We met when our boys played soccer together and our daughters were very good friends too. In the beginning I was just helping them out with informal advice in bits and pieces, when they were buying machines for their shop and so on. They knew I had years of experience with food.” Four years ago, the informal advice-giving turned into an offer for a full-time job. This summer, It’s a Grind also hired a chef to prepare lunches, so now customers can enjoy fresh, mouth-watering soups and sandwiches.
Sugar + Sunshine Bakery
Burton has fond memories of growing up in Altoona, Pennsylvania, with a plethora of homemade sweets being shared with loved ones. “The dining room table was always filled with different tins of cookies,” she says, “and there were always care packages of these sweet treats — cookies, pies, cakes and candies, being handed out to friends and family members.”
Burton, who graduated from Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and advertising, opened the Sugar + Sunshine Bakery in 2008, after leaving a successful career as a marketing executive as JP Morgan Chase in New York. She is a graduate of the pastry program at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, which she attended at night while working at JP Morgan. She and her husband, Ray, a vice president at MetLife in New York, have lived in Plainsboro for 12 years. They have no children.
She says that since so many of the shop’s customers come from outside the West Windsor/Plainsboro area, she is interested in opening a second location. “We’ve been so busy this year that we haven’t had much time to fully explore our options. However, we are leaning more towards a mobile location so our out-of-area customers can access our products more easily.”
Both Wilson and Burton are sharing their favorite holiday recipes for readers.
“We’ve decided to raffle off the gingerbread house and donate the proceeds to Toys for Tots so we can make the holiday a little more joyful for children who may need it,” says Wilson. Raffle tickets may be purchased in the store for $2 apiece and the raffle will be held at a reception on Wednesday, December 15.
Burton is sharing her recipe for chocolate truffle cake, selected by Ghirardelli and Ladies Home Journal as America’s Most Intense Chocolate recipe a few years ago. As Burton says, “I think it is a perfect recipe for the holidays because it is easy to make, requires very few ingredients, and can be made in advance. You can also put your own spin on the recipe by changing the garnish.”
Gingerbread House Raffle Drawing, It’s a Grind Coffee House, 7 Schalks Crossing Road, Plainsboro, 609-275-2919. Tickets are $2 each, available now. All proceeds benefit Toys for Tots. Make a donation to Toys for Tots between 3 and 4 p.m. and receive a special treat. Winner need not be present to win. Wednesday, December 15, 3 p.m.
