Edith Pietkiewicz knew she was on to something when she developed a killer starter for her sourdough bread. She’s been feeding the one she currently uses since 2015. When we spoke on the phone Pietkiewicz told me, “The genesis of B’anne Bakery is the sourdough.”
She adjusted her sourdough boule recipe for a couple of years. “It took me that long to develop it to the point where I was very happy with the flavor, the texture and the aesthetic of it,” she said. When she arrived at that happy point, she decided it was time to sell her loaves of bread. Pietkiewicz also uses the starter in her popular chocolate chip sourdough loaf as well. B’anne’s baguettes are an entirely different product.
During the pandemic, I was one of the millions of home cooks who did not attempt to make my own sourdough bread. But I asked Pietkiewicz why starters are the crucial ingredient. “The flavor will be consistent,” she said. “It gives you the same bread over and over again. The quality and the shelf life is always the same.” Conditions change in kitchens. Sometimes the starter cooperates and sometimes it doesn’t. “You have to know it because it moves. And when it moves you have to move with it,” Pietkiewicz explained. “The yeast owns you as a baker.
“But you know what though? If you know how to work with it, oh my God, the product that comes out of it is wonderful,” Pietkiewicz said. “That’s why I do what I do because every time I cut through one of those big loaves and I eat a piece, I always say, ‘This bread is delicious.’”
Pietkiewicz trained at the San Francisco Baking Institute. She also undertook an apprenticeship at Michel Suas’ Thorough Bread and Pastry, located in San Francisco, where she learned how to handle the bulk production of pastry and bread. After graduating, she decided to hone her craft at home. Her husband Steve, who is B’anne’s CFO, helped secure professional baking equipment. They converted half of their garage to see if baking would be a viable business to pursue.
The moniker B’anne is a combination of the letter ‘B’ for baker and Anne, Edith Pietkiewicz’ middle name. Banne in French means awning—an unanticipated connection but just as applicable because there’s one in front of the store. And, when spoken in a certain way, it also corresponds with pan, the Japanese word for bread.
Pietkiewicz and her husband are based in Fremont. When they made the decision to move out of the garage and into a brick and mortar, the couple drove all over the South Bay, the Peninsula and all the way up to Orinda. After a year’s worth of research, they saw a for sale sign in San Jose’s Japantown. “We walked around and I felt something,” she recalled. “It might sound weird, but I said to my husband, ‘This is it. This is where I want to be.’” The Dobashi family, known for their neighborhood market, owned the building. After a year of negotiations, they sold it to the Pietkiewiczes.
The long list of pastries that the bakery makes includes many varieties of croissants—chocolate, almond, ham and cheese—kouign ammans, braided cinnamon buns, danishes and scones. Pietkiewicz also created a lunch menu with five different sandwich options. “I’ve always been attracted to the European way of producing bread and pastries,” she explained. “Part of that was they take their own breads they make in-house and turn them into lunch products like sandwiches.” Since she introduced the lunch menu, it’s gained traction with customers.
I noticed an item on the pastry menu that I’d never heard of before, a gibassier. Pietkiewicz told me B’anne will launch the product during the holidays as a seasonal baked good. Gibassiers are similar to brioches; both are made with enriched dough. But gibassiers are made with orange blossom water, candied oranges and anise seeds. “One of my goals is to introduce our community to different pastries from Northern Europe because not many bakeries sell those,” Pietkiewicz said. “From my own research and travels in Europe, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of pastries in Europe that we don’t even know about in the United States.”
B’anne Bakery, open Thurs to Sun 8am-2pm, 224 Jackson St., San Jose. bannebakery.com.
