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60 sweet years
Published March 5, 2009
Walking into the Albertville Home Bakery and inhaling the sweet aroma of baked goods is a treat in and of itself.
But, once you taste any of their homemade goodies – cake squares, cookies, donuts, cakes, cheese straws or sausage balls – you become a customer for life.
Albertville Home Bakery has long been known for its signature white cake, fun, custom designed cakes and catering. This year, owners Nick and Nicole Landers are planning to celebrate the store’s 60th anniversary, giving thanks to loyal customers who have made the bakery part of their family celebrations for years.
Tucked in a shopping center near Albertville’s downtown area, the bakery draws customers and brides from as far away as Atlanta, Ga., Chattanooga, Tenn., and Tuscaloosa.
Bridal cakes have been taken from the Home Bakery to Gulf Shores and Chattanooga.
Other customers come in year after year, ordering cakes for birthdays of their children, and now grandchildren.
“We have been a part of people’s celebrations for years. We have people coming in telling us we made their wedding cake and now we are doing their child’s birthday cake. It’s amazing,” said Nicole.
The Landers bought the bakery in October 2004.
During high school, Nicole had worked with the members of the Bopp family, the previous owners, and enjoyed what she did. After graduation, she moved to Birmingham and took a job at Louise’s Bakery.
All the while, she remained in touch with her former employers, returning to Albertville to help out during busy holiday times.
After college, Nicole and Nick both worked for banks and remained in touch with the bakery. The family asked if the Landers would be interested in taking over the business, since the former owners’ family did not want to carry on the tradition.
“We moved back here in 2002. They indicated they wanted to retire, and because they had no family to carry on the business, they wanted to know if we wanted to buy it.
“We struggled with the decision. We didn’t know if we knew enough about the bakery to make a go of it. We asked ourselves if we could do this, if we wanted to be tied down.
When Wachovia announced it was going to merge with another bank, I knew right then I would be losing my job. That made our minds up for us,” Nicole said.
Nick said the former owners were very helpful during the transition process.
“(The old owners) assured us we could do this, we could make a good living doing this. He promised me he would stay on until we could handle things on our own. He taught us how to make the donuts, about ordering supplies and all that goes along with the business. We are grateful to him,” Nick said.
A tour through the kitchens reveals a nod to days gone by mixed with modern supplies. Along one wall are 80-quart industrial mixers, one dating back to the early 1900s that have been retrofitted with an electric motor. Each mixer is able to handle batter batches large enough for 64 cakes at a time.
“White cakes are our most popular, most requested cake,” Nick said. “What people don’t realize, or may not know, is that 90 percent of what we make, we make from scratch. Not too much we make is from any kind of a mix. Making all we do really separates us from lots of our competitors.”
“We still use a lot of the recipes from the original owners,” said Nicole.
In addition to the original recipes, the couple continues to use an antique scale set. Retrofitted with a new scoop or measuring bowl, the couple maintains the scales are more accurate than some newer versions.
Long, heavy-duty wooden tables are laden with cheese straws, mints and cakes. In plastic and metal bins stowed below the tables are well-worn cake pans in various sizes and baking staples including flour, sugar and powdered milk.
A behemoth oven takes up much of the rear of the kitchen. Inside a large vertical sliding door are racks rotating to ensure each cake is cooked evenly. The oven is large enough to accommodate 12 full sheet cakes.
Toward the front of the kitchen, is where the ordinary cake becomes extraordinary. Decorators use a variety of tips and techniques to hand embellish and decorate cakes for every occasion. Nicole lifts out a sheet pan from a rack nearby. Lined up in neat rows are hundreds of icing tips in various shapes, sizes and designs. Each has a specific function and allows the decorators to produce varying shapes, such as leaves, stars and fine lines for writing or outlining.
Lining a nearby rolling rack are cakes in stages of completion. Some have base coats of icing; others have been airbrushed with background color while others are finished, with the exception of adding 3-D elements, like a plastic cell phone for a teenager’s birthday cake, for example.
“We are all pretty much self-taught decorators. There are classes out there to take, and we have taken some, but we play really well off each other. Some are better at doing some things than others, but we all really enjoy what we do,” Nicole said.
In the front showroom are glass cases loaded with donuts, cookies, cake squares, pastries and candies. A second case shows off layer cakes, pies and hand-decorated pottery and giftware.
“We are trying to keep things as close as possible to what they have always been,” Nick said. “We have, over the years, added some things. We always try to find new things to try.”
Above a case loaded with specials order ready for pickup behind the counter are examples of wedding cakes.
Wedding cake sales have increased each year since the Landers bought the bakery. In 2005, they provided 41 cakes. In 2008, they designed and baked more than 100 bridal and groom’s cakes.
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