HOOD RIVER — Sugar and spice and in-house milled grains, that’s what the fresh bread baked at the newly opened Bran & Ash bakery in downtown Hood River is made of.
Located at 112 Seventh St., the business is operated by Casey Hardi and Zoe Mitchell. The storefront had its grand opening in May, but their name may already be familiar from the Hood River Farmers Market. This is their fifth season as a vendor.
“Last year was the first summer season that we were consistently sold out at every single market,” Hardi said. “We’re trying to bring more to every market, and it’s still not enough.”
With a growing demand for their signature sourdough loaves and pretzel twists, the duo hopes the storefront will spread purchases throughout the week rather than concentrating them on market days. The building’s equipment also increases their bread-making capacity, and they just hired their first employee.
Along with bread, the front’s pantry section houses other Bran & Ash specialty goods. It includes their cocoa ginger granola and Lapins cherry preserve, along with sourdough bread kits, baking mixes and storage bags with a screen print designed by Mitchell.
Almost everything at Bran & Ash uses a whole grain, which is stone-milled in-house. Here is durum grain, baked in baguettes.
Emma Renly photo
“The whole space felt like a community project, we’ve had help from so many people,” Hardi said. “There’s no way we would have been able to do it just by ourselves.”
The back room houses bins of grains, flours, cooling racks and baking equipment. Hardi begins baking there before sunrise, sometimes as early as one o’clock.
“Everything you’re eating that day was baked that morning,” Mitchell added. The grains are stone milled in-house the day before being mixed into the dough, a process that preserves more of the grain’s oils, flavor and nutrients compared to roller milling.
Hardi began baking as an apprentice at 16 with a local bakery and later completed his degree in business. Mitchell graduated from UC Davis in food science, assisting in research at the school’s fermentation lab. They first met while working together at a bakery in Davis, California and have been together since.
Originally, they hoped to build a bakery business of their own in Northern California.
“We were having such a hard time in California fitting in, finding clientele and finding places to sell everything,” Mitchell said. She said the reception in Hood River was an immediate welcome.
They quickly garnered wholesales from local cafes and restaurants, as well as a reputation for delicious recipes with locally sourced produce and grains. To bake their goods, they rented out the kitchen at Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles.
“A lot of people have been asking about a storefront since we moved here,” Mitchell said. “When people hear bakery, the first question is, ‘Where’s the bakery?’”
Finding this building, Hardi said, was serendipitous.
The location previously housed other small Gorge businesses — Pacific Rim Coffee Roasters and Columbia Gorge Chocolates. The high ceiling, floor drains and convection oven were selling points, as well as the location.
After solely seeking a kitchen to rent, they were offered the option of taking over the entire building’s lease renewal.
“Everything fell right into place after that,” Hardi said. “It feels like we haven’t tried to rush or push too hard on anything. It’s very organic.”
This summer, they’re starting Bread Cult, a bread subscription program with weekly or biweekly membership tiers. Over the winter, classes and workshops are in the works as well. Topics will include sourdough, laminated pastry (used for croissants) and experimentation with whole-grain varieties and methods.
“We’re just happy to be here, finally,” Hardi said. “We’ve been talking about this since we got here five years ago.”
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