Golden Hearth Bakery provides fresh, handmade goods to local community

Located on the corner of King and Cedar Street in Kitchener, is a local, 11 year-old confectionery that sells baked goods made completely from scratch with quality, organic ingredients.

Providing a variety of fresh products for both the community and other localities in the area like Gilt Restaurant Bar and Lounge, Legacy Greens, Smile Tiger Coffee Roasters and Vincenzo’s — among several others — Golden Hearth’s simple approach to bakery fare seems to be what makes them so successful and highly praised.

Tavis Weber, the owner of Golden Hearth, had his flour-dusted apron donned and an easy going attitude about his business — which he’s owned for eight years — and his dedicated customer base.

“So we are primarily a sourdough bakery, with sourdough breads, we make our own croissants, cookies, granolas, bit of squares.

We do everything from scratch; we use mostly organic flour or organically grown flour. We supply local cafes, restaurants and health food stores,” Weber said.

Although it may sound like a tired-out cliche, putting love and care into what you make is essential in creating something that people will appreciate just as much in return.

If their 4.9 star rating on Google is any indication, people can’t get enough of their products — especially croissants, which are some of their most popular items.

They offer a collection of delicious sounding viennoiserie goods —baked similarly to bread, but with ingredients that give them a sweeter, heavier quality closer to a pastry — along with frozen pizza dough and perhaps their most sought after selection, their sourdough and yeast-based breads.

Their store reflects their product: uncomplicated, warm and inviting.

With mustard coloured walls and an uncomplicated storefront, customers get a glimpse into their busy kitchen and everything they have to offer.

They regularly sell out of their baked goods early into the opening hours throughout the week, it’s easy to see why.

The combination of the welcoming atmosphere and reliable service makes for a pleasant food shopping experience.

Their chalkboard menu displays their list of pastries and bread for sale at reasonable prices — a selling point for people who don’t want to sacrifice taste and quality for affordability.

In terms of what sets Golden Hearth apart from other bakeries in the area, the answer is simple: their bread — but it’s a lengthy process to get the desired product.

“We’re actually making full sourdoughs, so we don’t put any yeast in our bread — we have a few that have yeast in them — but if we call it a sourdough, its 36 hours, start-to-finish.

So we’ll start a dough on a Monday afternoon, start the starter, mix the dough on a Tuesday and then bake it on Wednesday.

 So it’s a three-day process, same with croissants, they also take that long,” Weber said.

Baking and doing it well is a skill that requires long hours and endless devotion for the products that you’re producing each week.

Although it may sound like a tired-out cliche, putting love and care into what you make is essential in creating something that people will appreciate just as much in return.

“We’re an artisan bakery: we work with our hands, we do everything by hand other than mixing, everything else is done by hand, so it’s a labour of love,” Weber said.

In a time where so many of the things we buy are mass produced by machinery, it’s refreshing to see that an innocuous little bakery can continue flourishing and providing the community with such acclaimed, tasty food made from scratch. Golden Hearth Bakery is definitely the place to go for high-quality products.