By Rich Fisher
To best describe the effort, attitude and uniqueness that goes into making the Gingered Peach in Lawrenceville one of the most fun and delicious bakeries in central Jersey could take a year., But hey, let’s give it a shot., The first thing one must know is that every item prepared comes from the depths of each baker’s core. Owner Joanne Brown calls it “hand-crafted baking with soul.” That means it is not just being made by someone reading a book and throwing things together. It’s almost like a spiritual thing., “We make pastries with integrity, and I want people to taste the effort in what we did,” Brown said. “I want them to realize ‘Hey, we wanted to make this. We’re putting our heart and soul into this. We thought about this one product for six months before we said we think it’s ready for you.’”, That’s not an exaggeration. Brown will come up with a new product and present it to her team of four bakers; then ask them to come up with five different versions of how they would create it., “I’m one person with one set of taste buds,” she said. “I want them to tell me what they think. I say ‘This is what I’m thinking, this is how I want to build it out.’ I’m trying to develop leaders in my kitchen.”, Once the idea is finalized, the hand-crafted baking with soul takes place. Or another expression could simply be “the human touch.”, “It’s important for people to know that human hands have touched everything that’s here,” Brown said. “We barely use any machinery. Of course there are ovens and mixers, but human hands have flipped that batter and dough.”, Which makes more of a difference than one might think., “It helps control it better,” Brown continued. “We can feel it better, we’re more connected with the work we’re doing, and it makes a better product. This will sound super weird, but I tell the bakers ‘I need you to connect with the product. You’ll get it after you’ve laminated croissants three or four times. Your arms are going to feel something is off; something went wrong with the dough. If you’re not connected, a whole bunch of crazy products are going to roll out here and we’re not gonna catch it.’”, While that may sound extreme, it is what makes the final creation special., “Having that awareness creates a better product at the end of the day,” Brown said. “By connecting and opening up, you’re not just looking at the experience anymore. You’re part of the smell, the texture the feel. We can make it better or just scrap it completely and come back to it another time.”, Everything is made with what is considered the “upper crust” of baking ingredients around., “We use the best ingredients we can get our hands on, in bulk, that is produced in the United States,” said Brown, noting the one exception being five different types of Barry Callebaut, a Belgian Chocolate. She also uses King Arthur Flour, a superstar among bakers, and Nielsen-Massey extract, one of the best vanillas on the market. They partner with local roasters to bring in coffee and a farm in nearby Pennsylvania for their butter., The result of this heartfelt process has been an invigorated, charming establishment that sees a steady flow of happy customers throughout the day. Gingered Peach offers your basic donuts, cakes and cookies, but also features a wide array of treats you won’t find anywhere else., A big favorite is the olive oil cake, which this author was provided with but unable to eat until a day later. Not only had it retained remarkable freshness, it was a delicious blend of extra virgin olive oil, orange juice and some Grand Marnier., “People think oil, and they think greasy,” Brown said. “It’s not like that at all. Most people don’t use olive oil for baking, they save it for the savory cooking world. We look at it and say, ‘Why does Savory get to enjoy all the delicious flavor of olive oil? What if we leverage it but make it sweet?’”, That is just one example of the Gingered Peach’s “off-beat” products that Brown takes such pride in. Through her countless visits to bakeries in her hometown of Hoboken, and even in Mercer County, she noticed the same range of selections in most places., “You always see canola, or a crumb cake, but you’re not seeing anything that’s a little weird, a little different,” Brown said. “Our palettes are changing. People are becoming riskier eaters and that’s what makes this fun. You want to explore, ‘Can these two things live together in the same pastry?’ I don’t know, let’s figure it out! We’re not doing what everyone else is doing.”, Well, they are doing that for folks who want the standard fare, and those basic treats are as tasty and fresh as you could hope. Just ask Lawrenceville resident Carol Tracy., “Everything is great,” said Tracy during one of her frequent visits to the Peach. “I just ordered my first cake, everybody said it was the best chocolate cake they ever had. The croissants, everything is wonderful. I usually get an almond croissant, but everything is consistently good. I’ve never been disappointed.”, For those traveling the offbeat path, they can try a goat cheese brownie, or a triple berry jelly donut with homemade raspberry, blueberry and strawberry jelly all in one. The cream donut is made with southern sweet cream that Joanne’s grandmother — and inspiration — used while baking in Georgia., There are several uses of Brioche, a traditional French bread, to create the Trenton Volcano or the Caramel Crack. The Volcano is brioche filled with pork roll, spinach, cheddar and Swiss cheese. That is rolled into a bagel topping., “We bake it and when it bakes up it looks like a volcano,” Brown said., The Caramel Crack is a combination of toffee from old-school British pudding combined with cinnamon sugar, which is applied as a topping to the Brioche as it becomes covered in caramelized toffee goo. A weekend special is the Sticky Piggy, which are sticky buns in which the bakers render bacon fat, make it as part of the goop and then bake bacon inside of it., “Those are some of the weirdo products we have,” Brown said. “We also make a cookie with potato chips and pretzels. It’s walking the route that very few people have walked, or want to. I just think there’s a market for people who want something interesting.”, Brown walked a pretty long route to get to this point. Her professional career started with full time positions at Bed Bath & Beyond, where she was a liaison between departments to launch new stores, and moved on to become a training specialist at Panera Bread. The latter job helped her see the training side of the food business, along with executing the operation., But the jobs were not fulfilling. She learned how to bake from her grandmother, Johnnie Branda, and loved it. Her father was a big proponent of a people doing what they love for a living, and not working just to pay the bills. That advice stayed with Joanne., After getting married to Matthew Brown, the couple moved to Ewing and Joanne finally decided to do what made her happy. In the summer of 2012 she and a partner opened a bakery named “Let Them Eat Cake.” The focus was mainly on cakes since that was Brown’s comfort zone, but she also began to challenge herself with cookies and croissants., Joanne’s partner was forced to move when her husband got transferred at the end of 2013 and the main business folded. But the manager at the Thomas Sweet shop in Montgomery was so enamored with Brown’s work; he set her up in his kitchen so she continued to supply him with cakes., This provided added confidence and some income as she searched for another spot, which needed to be bigger than the 600-square feet space in Ewing because Joanne planned on expanding her inventory. She discovered a gutted building on 2 Gordon Ave., just off Main Street, that previously housed the Village Bakery for nearly five decades., Can you say serendipitous?, Everything had to be installed, from display cases to kitchen equipment, but the space was twice the size of her Ewing operation and Joanne was like a kid in a playground. She and Matthew worked feverishly to give the building life, and made the entire public area as charming as someone’s dining room., There are chairs and tables along the wall across from the counter, along with a sitting space in the back for folks to chat, read and enjoy their treats. The walls are adorned with historical Lawrenceville photos and several old family photos and keepsakes like rolling pins and teacups., “I wanted you to feel you were coming into the home I grew up in because there was so much love and so much warmth there,” Brown said. “I wanted everyone to feel that way, because I felt if you felt that, it would change the way you tasted the pastry. And I wanted people not to feel they had to leave. I wanted them to stay a little while and chill out.”, After creating the proper atmosphere and starting on her mountain of creative inventory, all that was left was to find a name prior to the grand opening on Dec. 6, 2014. Once again, it was a tribute to grams. Johnnie was a Georgia Peach who always advised Joanne to “just ginger it up” if she didn’t have the right ingredient, which was her way of saying use what you have to make something awesome., “When she said to ginger it, she made you feel like you could make anything with nothing, so I wanted that to be the name,” Brown said. “I don’t bring in random nonsense from all over the place. I take the ingredients that exist and figure out ways to make something different by cooking it a little longer, or changing the ways the ingredients are added or the way they’re beat together. I want them to know we’re taking simple things and turning them into something wonderful.”, Wonderful, unique and delicious. And that doesn’t even begin to describe it all., The Gingered Peach is located on 2 Gordon Ave., Lawrenceville. For more information, go to www.thegingeredpeach.com or call 609-896-5848.
