Mill Hill Bakers Collective supports small businesses

With Bragg Jam right around the corner, and Macon Baking Week already underway, the Macon Arts Alliance recently decided to cancel their culminating baking competition due to a lack of participants.

The Central City Bake-off was set to cap off the Great Macon Baking Week on Friday, and in years past has drawn a number of competitors. 

Baking Week continues, and folks can get involved by ordering desserts and collecting stamps at participating restaurants. This year, 16 restaurants across Macon are participating, including Dawson’s Kitchen, Dovetail, Z-Beans and more.

As you collect more stamps, you become eligible for more prizes, starting at a baking kit for five stamps and going up to an entry to win a stand mixer at 16 stamps.

Great Macon Baking Week came out of the arts center’s Mill Hill Bakers Collective and was created to showcase local restaurants and their dessert making, said Maria Andrade, project director of the Macon Arts Alliance.

“The goal was to get the community rallying for baked goods and then have the finale be the bakeoff to showcase hobby bakers and people who weren’t necessarily … professional bakers,” said Adriana Horton, founder of the Mill Hill Bakers Collective.

The collective was founded in 2019 as part of the Mill Hill Community Arts Center, and serves as a “launching pad” for small baking businesses, Horton said. The shared kitchen space has housed roughly 10-20 baking businesses, ranging from cookie and cake artists to bagel makers to kolache specialists.

“Baking, just like food culture, can kind of elicit a sense of coziness, that warmth of maybe your grandmother’s kitchen,” Andrade said. “Not everybody is a talented baker so we look to our community to find them.”

Horton, who also started her company OhHoney out of the shared kitchen, said the kitchen offers an alternative to starting a cottage food business— or food made out of a home kitchen.

Starting a cottage food business can be difficult, Horton said, as bakers are required to go through home kitchen inspections and follow certain guidelines like separating food between personal and business use. She added that cottage food businesses also require a specific license that costs a fee and approval from the planning and zoning committee.

Under Bibb County laws, Horton said only baking companies can operate shared kitchens like the one at the Mill Hill Community Arts Center. Businesses that produce other food products, with meat for example, aren’t allowed to use a shared space.

The Mill Hill Bakers Collective is also the only shared kitchen in Middle Georgia, and provides specialized equipment like mixers, commercial ovens and a fondant sheeter.

Being in a shared space allows for “a sense of community,” Horton said.

“You do learn just from being in the kitchen, with Lisa, watching her use her sheeter or watching her put fondant on a cake or learning just different techniques from different people.”

Lisa Shepley runs Lisa Mae Cakes, serving people across Middle Georgia. She had her own space in Byron before meeting Horton and joining the collective.

She said while she had a commercial oven and refrigerator at her old space, having multiple commercial ovens is helpful for when she’s busy, and working at the collective lets her brainstorm and collaborate with other bakers.

Horton said they hope to offer some type of pastry education through the collective, as there are no pastry programs at nearby culinary schools.

As for Great Macon Baking Week next year, Andrade said they hope to promote the collective on social media and find enough interest to hold a bake-off.

“Sweets have a lot to do with culture and community, and cultivating spaces that allow cultures to express themselves and share with the community are important,” Horton said.