Petaluma sisters ready to give Covet Artisan Bakery a home

When they were in their 20s, sisters Taunya Moore and Melody Hendrix grabbed a 2-for-1 coupon book and went out to eat together. Then they wrote their own restaurant reviews, just for fun.

“We are both foodies,” confessed Moore, 49, of Cotati, who tests software at CA Technologies in Petaluma. “I would write notes right in the coupon book.”

“We still do that today,” added Hendrix, 39, of Petaluma, who works in accounting for a pharmaceutical firm and is the former manager of Central Market restaurant in Petaluma. “I will text her that I’m waiting for a sandwich, and it took too long and wasn’t very good.”

A few years back, Moore transitioned from food reviewer to dreamer and doer when she took up a serious baking hobby. While the software engineer sunk herself elbow-deep into flour, her sister served as quality assurance.

“Melody would come over and say, ‘This is really good,’ and ‘This is crap,’?” Moore recalled. “Then one day, she said, ‘We should do something with this.’?”

What they did was launch their own cottage industry, Covet Artisan Bakery, which Moore has cultivated since 2015 in her spare time. The business was made possible by the cottage food law (AB-1616) that was passed in January 2013, allowing “low-risk foods” (such as baked goods) to be produced in private homes with limited oversight.

Now, Moore and her sister are getting ready to take the next big step. The foodie duo is searching for a brick-and-mortar space in which to open a European-style bakery where they can showcase Moore’s traditional chocolate croissants and panettone, San Francisco-style sourdough and Semolina sesame bread, among many other items.

It would mean that Moore could finally upgrade from using her home oven to baking in a professional kitchen with a customized mixer and oven.

“My home oven is an LG double oven with a convection oven for the pastries and slate tiles for the bread,” Moore said. “I can fine-tune it, but it will be nice to be on custom equipment.”

The dream of launching their own bakery has been fueled by positive feedback during the monthly pop-up sales they stage at the Farmer’s Wife Boutique in Cotati and the Moj San Gift and Garden Center in Petaluma.

“People will say, ‘I’ve been to Europe, and this is the best croissant I’ve ever had,’?” Moore said. “The feedback has been big.”

Enter fair contest

Those kinds of comments encouraged Moore to enter this year’s Sonoma County Harvest Fair Professional Food Competition, where she went mano-a-mano with veterans of the local baking world and took home the sweepstakes award for winning the most points.

“When the results came in from the competition, I was dumbstruck,” Moore said. “I got six double golds and one gold, plus the sweepstakes award ... I was up against Village and Costeaux bakeries. I remember looking at their breads, and they were gorgeous.”

Lesley Patola, executive director of the nonprofit Farmer’s Wife Barntique in Cotati, had predicted that Moore was going to win an award for her sourdough bread, if nothing else.

The sisters sell their Covet baked goods at the monthly Barntique pop-up sale to benefit Petaluma Animal Services. Patola said she cannot resist starting the day with one of their chocolate croissants, which are buttery, crunchy and not too sweet.

“They are just dreamy,” Patola said. “My daughter loves all the muffins, and we always enjoy the sourdough bread with our pasta dinners. We love it all. That’s the problem.”

Moore, who makes a healthy, six-figure salary in high-tech, knows she will eventually need to quit her full-time job and work 80-hour weeks for what she figures will be about half the pay ... if she’s lucky.

“I need to take a vow of poverty,” said Moore, an early riser who squeezes in baking time before work, between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m., as well as after work.

The pair would love to find a spot either in Cotati or in Petaluma, where they already have a strong following.

“Businesses succeed there because people are locally minded and love food,” Hendrix said. “Neither of us expect to get rich ... We have realistic expectations and are building from there.”

At the bakery, Hendrix will be able add her front-of-the-house and business expertise to the enterprise.

“I’m the person in the back covered in flour,” Moore said. “But the front of the house and the presentation and the money, that’s all her.”

The sisters would like to serve a breakfast and lunch menu that would play off their artisan product line.

“We want to have a small breakfast menu of pastries, quiches and good coffee,” Hendrix said. “And for lunch, just keep it simple: sandwiches and soups and things that complement what she’s baking.” In order to get enough capital to make it through the first year, Moore is refinancing her house, another step forward in the risky road toward entrepreneurship.

“Melody is insistent that we have a certain amount of money in the bank when we open,” she said. “And our families understand that this is going to be our life for a while.”

So how did this magical, “Like Water For Chocolate” dream get started

Charge for dinner

The sisters, who have two different fathers, grew up in the food business. Their mom worked as a restaurant manager and often had to work at night. By the time she was 12, Hendrix was cooking dinner for her older brothers, at cost.

“I used to make a menu and charge them for dinner,” said Hendrix, whose dad was a professional cook. “I would make chef’s salads, grilled cheese, whatever we had.”

Moore, whose dad was a chemistry and math teacher, was always attracted to baking and its scientific formulas.

“I’ve always liked to bake stuff, especially breads,” she said. “I would go to San Francisco for business and go to the Tartine Bakery. That bread was ... WOW!” In 2013, when Tartine baker David Robertson released his renowned cookbook, “Tartine Bread,” Moore started experimenting with the complex recipes, which range from 3 to 38 pages each. Then she signed up for classes at The San Francisco Baking Institute.

“I’d take a week of vacation, and I’d go to class,” Moore said. “Then I went home and practiced, practiced, practiced. I worked on the croissants for a year before they passed the quality test.”

As a first step in launching the business, the sisters had to come up with a name.

“The whole idea about my baking is that it’s a two- to three-day process to make each product,” Moore said. “And I have to covet it in order for it to be good.”

Next, the sisters applied for a cottage food license from the state, a business license from the city of Cotati and a website address. Then they had to register a fictitious business name with the county, which enabled them to open a business bank account.

On the culinary side, Moore went on an exhaustive search to find a high-quality, European-style butter to make her pastries really stand out, especially the croissants. After choosing three local products, she held a “butter challenge,” making croissants with each butter and asking 50 people to test them blind.

“The overwhelming winner was Petaluma Creamery’s Spring Hill Organic European butter,” she said. “It’s not cheap, but we want to stand out and be best in class.”

For flour, she turned to Keith Giusto Bakery Supply in Petaluma, which carries the Central Milling Co. product used by all the top bakeries in San Francisco, including Tartine.

Then she settled on sourcing chocolate from Valrhona, which makes chocolate batons specifically for chocolate croissants. She also uses the company’s cocoa powder for brownies and its cocoa nibs and couverture (chocolate with a higher percentage of cocoa butter) for her decadently rich chocolate panettone.

In the beginning, Moore baked mostly for friends and colleagues, doing home deliveries with Hendrix’s help every Saturday. Then she expanded to bi-weekly deliveries.

Home delivery

Now, she does business deliveries and special home deliveries only, with minimum orders of $50 and at least 48 hours notice.

Pop-up customers also can order in advance, ensuring that they get their favorite treats before the bakery runs out.

Once the sisters find the right storefront location, they don’t plan to open until everything is ready to launch, from the pastries and bread line to the breakfast and lunch menu.

After all, as lifelong restaurant reviewers, they know you need to make a good impression right out of the gate.

“The first year is key for customers,” Hendrix said. “Everyone will try you once, but whether they will come back ... It’s a small window.”

In December, they are launching a baking podcast, which will offer tips and tricks for the home baker and interviews with professionals.

“We will also talk about our own journey in opening a bakery,” Moore said. “The more we go forward, the more we are being pushed in the direction of doing it ... It will be fun.”

Staff writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 707-521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.