By Don Murtha
To enjoy authentic German baked goods, you would think you would have to travel to Germany.
Twyla Blatchford went to Germany to learn the secrets of German baking studying under master bakers in the Black Forest.
Now Blatchford has brought her knowledge home to Mount Angel and plans to open a German bakery and café this month on 415 S. Main St.
The new establishment is Leona’s Bakery and Café. It will offer such German delights as pumpernickel bread, pretzels, German dinner rolls, torts, chocolate cheesecake, crème cakes and a variety of cakes and pies and specialty items.
Another German specialty the bakery plans will be authentic German gingerbread hearts, a Black Forest tradition. The café will also have breakfast and lunch menus.
“We will have a drive-up window where you get milk for your breakfast cereal, take out coffee and to pick special orders,” Blatchford said.
There will be tables in the front section and more tables and booths in the back of the café for meetings and special events with seating for 30 or more.
The café will open at 5 a.m. for breakfast with a menu will include items named for Blatchfords’ children – Jonathan’s scramble: eggs, potatoes, meat and onion –Rose’s French toast and Emma’s biscuits and gravy. There will also be a vegetarian breakfast.
Patrons will be able to order through the Internet and have their order ready when they arrive. Blatchford says she plans to accommodate customers’ desires.
“Some people at the Benedictine Nursing Center across the street have only half an hour for lunch, so we will serve them and get them back to work quickly,” she said, adding the bakery will have box lunches for those who eat on the go or just want to take out their lunch.
The café will offer sandwiches, soups, salads and every day feature a special, like lasagna bake with salad.
In addition to other baked goods, Blatchford is planning to offer baguettes, sourdough bread, gluten–fee items, whole-grain breads, oatmeal molasses bread, Italian flat bread and the list goes on.
“You can come in and sit down and have a slice of pie and coffee, if you like and just relax,” she said.
Blatchford said the café and bakery are the culmination of a dream of 35 years.
“I totally love baking ever since I helped my mother in the kitchen,” she said.
Blatchford was a state champion several times in the 4-H baking competition where her breads, pies, muffins and cookies took trophies.
In high school she developed a strong desire to live in Germany. The cost at the time was prohibitive. But Blatchford was multi-talented and one of her skills was sewing.
“In high school I made my own clothes and my friends wanted clothes like mine,” she said.
People paid her to sew items for them and pretty soon she was doing weddings and other needlework on a professional basis, a business that has lasted 40 years since the beginning in high school.
After graduating from high school, she worked for a year, still dreaming of Germany. Finally, the time came and with enough money and airline tickets, she flew off to a small town in the Black Forest, Ohmenhausen, near the city of Reutlingen in southern Germany. There she spent the year of 1977 with a family. It was a remote location and few people spoke English.
“I was so homesick at first because I couldn’t talk to anyone,” she said.
But she soon adjusted and became part of the family. In the years afterward, she had many German exchange students in her home and returned to Germany for extended visits. On each visit she stayed in a different place.
For several months she stayed in Reutlingen working in a bakery with a master German baker learning the necessary skills. She also made trips to other German cities, including Bremerhaven and Tubingen.
She said she was taught some of the real secrets of baking in Germany and is applying them to her own bakery.
“I am ordering a special oven. The baker who taught me said the most important piece of equipment you can have is your oven,” she said.
