Confection Connection
Sandra Maxwell, one of the new owners of Burkholder’s Bakery in Sharpsburg, shows off a cherry pie.
Burkholder’s Baked Goods rolls into 30 years with new owners and old recipes and traditions
By April Bartel
Call it Burkholder’s Baked Goods, Burkholder’s Bakery, or The Way 2 Burkholder’s, this Sharpsburg icon is known for supplying the sweetest indulgences since 1995. Ruth Burkholder, along with daughters Julia and Susan, started churning out cookies, then fresh bread, pies, and more from their farmhouse kitchen.
Papa Nathan Burkholder hauled the goodies to the former Amoco station parking lot in town and sold them out of the family’s van. Word spread. Lines grew. And by 1999, the family needed a place that could be home, hearth, and business.
People drive from miles away to experience Burkholder’s donuts, and other sweet treats like cherry pies are culinary delights as well.
They found a corner lot a few blocks off the main drag that fit the bill. It was a cozy home with an already converted two-car garage that quartered a local plumbing company. By early 2000, the fully outfitted bakery was steaming along, just steps from the Burkholder’s new back door. The minimal “commute” made it perfect for a profession that requires notoriously early hours. Nathan nods for emphasis, “My wife got up for work at 1 a.m.”
Now he starts bake days at 3 a.m, joined by new owner and budding baker Sandra Maxwell. She and her partner/childhood friend, Damien Tapocik, took over from second owner Jennifer Ryan in May of this year.
“Damien wanted to do a bagel shop in honor of his grandfather who was a baker for the Navy during World War II,” she says.
Like the Burkholders, the duo started as cottage bakers, offering homemade bagels via Facebook. Maxwell is a nurse-turned-entrepreneur. She says, “I have been baking since I was a kid. I was the one who made the family birthday cakes. Granted, then it was boxed cakes. As I got older, I started making stuff from scratch because I enjoyed it.”
Nathan’s wife taught him to bake. When she retired at 75, he chose to stay on to ensure that the business would continue to thrive under the next owner. “What else am I going to do?” He shrugs self-depreciatingly and says, “I will stay to help as long as I am in good health.” That’s good news for longtime fans who appreciate the bakery’s signature items and accommodating service.
Sweet Success
The shop is known for fresh, fluffy donuts, glazed apple fritters, sweet and savory breads made without preservatives, an array of handmade pies, and plentiful cookies, including the colorfully decorated butter cookies that are in demand all year round.
Maxwell offers high praise. “Nathan’s dinner rolls are his best-kept secret. The texture and flavor are fantastic.”
She and Burkholder share a hunger for experimentation in the kitchen, perfecting recipes and searching for new items to delight customers. The place has a reputation for being responsive to requests, whether that means adding extra seeds to the fresh-baked rye bread or customizing their popular cheese bread with bacon and onion. When special orders come in, they bake a few extra for the sales case.
Maxwell and Burkholder converse amiably about what’s on the menu, tips of the trade, and ideas for working with other local businesses, like Nutter’s Ice Cream shop down the street or The Savory Spoon caterer in Boonsboro.
“Did you hear about the burger donuts?” asks Burkholder. Those were a short-lived trial based on a customer’s suggestion. (You can still make your own burgers at home and wedge them between Burkholder’s glazed donuts in place of buns.)
During our visit, we spotted rows of whimsically decorated cherry and blueberry pies lined up for baking and a tempting pair of special-order chocolate peanut butter pies; but the donut trays were wiped out. Those are always big sellers, and for good reason. There’s no factory conveyer belt for these pillowy bites of sweetness.
They are handmade, tender inside with a crisp exterior, usually loaded with a wide variety of fillings or tempting toppings. Folks from as far away as Ohio, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. plan their travel routes so they can grab a few dozen. And wedding couples eschew traditional cakes for Burkholder’s donut towers.
The difference is in the technique, not the baking mix. On a typical Saturday, for example, they crank out about 60 dozen donuts, not counting fritters and twists. The sticky dough is precisely rested, then fried fully submerged, instead of turning them halfway through as is customary. The result is a delicately textured treat that soaks up less oil.
More to Love
Eventually, the bakery will add chewy New York-style bagels into the mix. Maxwell admits it is a complicated dance to have everything ready for the morning rush since baking so many different items requires precision and masterful timing.
She laughs, “We are so busy with what we’ve got. I might be working seven days a week to make bagels happen.”
The tasty pepperoni rolls at Burkholder’s Bakery.
In the meantime, visitors can grab classic West Virginia-style pepperoni rolls or inventive mini pizzas (made with donut dough), whoopie pies, and apple dumplings to sate their cravings. The self-service fridge holds more breads and cakes, packages of bacon, and dozens of farm-fresh eggs. Whole creamline milk is available from Deliteful Dairy, along with heavy cream and small-batch cheeses. The dairy produces and bottles its milk on the farm within a day or so of being on Burkholder’s shelves.
Maxwell and Tapocik are excited to continue Burkholder’s traditions, even while making the place their own. They are blending new vigor with sage experience to keep this beloved bakery charming customers for years to come. For sweet lovers, the proof is in the pudding.