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Wildflour Cottage bakery owner Sarah Slick with her sourdough starter 'Doughlilah.'

Adams Home Bakery Preparing for Business

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
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ADAMS, Mass. — A new home bakery is looking to pop up in the Adams community.
 
The Wildflour Cottage, owned by Sarah Slick, will be offering baked goods like bagels, muffins, bread bowls and more.
 
Slick was inspired by her mother and family traditions to start baking again and she wants to make it into a business.
 
"Growing up, my mom was always baking in the kitchen, and every holiday she had, like this giant spread, a bunch of different stuff, and we lost her about nine years ago," she said. "So I'm trying to restart traditions with a bunch of baking and whatnot. And growing up, it was always homemade everything. So I'm trying to get back into that kind of habit."
 
Slick is waiting on her business permit and is currently taking donations toward ingredients for orders. She hosted a sampling event in July for people to try her goods as well as a lemonade stand to help raise donations.
 
"Technically, I'm not selling right now. I'm asking for cost of donation toward ingredients. And we did do a lemonade stand during the sampling day, because I don't have the business license yet, so I'm just asking, if you want me to make it for you, just help me pay for it to get the ingredients going," she said.
 
Once she gets up and cooking, she hopes to eventually expand her space or have a storefront. She also hopes to go to farmers markets in the future.
 
"The dream would always be like a commercial space. Tight now, obviously I'm just doing it from my home kitchen, but eventually we want to get a house and maybe run it out of that," Slick said. "Or if I can find somewhere commercial that would be affordable, I would love to do it that way as well, because that would be a lot more space."
 
Her favorite items to make  "is always going to be the bagels," she said, especially the white cheddar. "If you put a little jalapeno cream cheese on it, it tastes like a jalapeno popper."
 
"I like to incorporate the flavors into the dough rather than just top it, because nothing I hate more than an 'everything' bagel and all the everything seasoning pops off of it," Slick continued. "So I actually put it inside of the dough as well, so that you're not losing it when you eat it."
 
Slick said baking is her passion and she loves to make good things for people to eat, always making sure it's her best batch.
 
"It's my hobby. It's one of the one things I do for myself that relaxes me, and I put love into it. So when I'm working with it, I'm thinking about what flavors I can make next, or what different sizings of things I can do," she said. "I'm always trying to nitpick how I'm making my things so I can make them not just perfect, because I like perfection, it's unrealistic. I want to make sure what I'm giving to people is also I would eat myself."
 
She also hopes to be able to offer fresh bread with no secret ingredients. Her sourdough starter "Doughlilah," which she started in November, is her base ingredient. 
 
"If I could do this full time that would be amazing. So that way, I can just have fresh bread for everybody. That would be amazing," she said. "But I just want people who enjoy fresh baked goods, I can tell them exactly what's going into it. So you don't have to worry about added chemicals and whatnot."

Slick can be contacted through her Facebook page but notes there is a two-day turn around for baked goods. if they would like anything but to note that there is a two day turn around because of her starter.


Tags: new business,   bakery,   

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Adams Zoning Board Talks Signage Bylaw

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
ADAMS, Mass. — For more than a decade, the Zoning Board has deliberated over several matters involving its "restrictive" sign bylaw. 
 
Now, the board is developing a proposed amendment that would make the bylaw less constraining for businesses while preserving the town’s character and protecting neighboring properties.
 
The current bylaw has been in effect since around 1986, and for the past 10 to 15 years, it has sparked controversy nearly every year when a new sign is proposed for installation in town, said board member David Rhinemiller. 
 
When it was developed in the 1980s, the goal was to preserve the town’s 1950s and 1960s-era character, he said. 
 
As part of the process, the town surveyed residents about their vision for the community, and the overall feedback favored maintaining that aesthetic, which was then reflected in the zoning bylaws, including restrictions on internally illuminated signs, Rhinemiller said. 
 
The board hopes to make the baseline of the bylaw more realistic and acceptable to modern businesses while ensuring it protects the safety and comfort of the surrounding area, board members said.
 
"The way our current bylaws are written, virtually anything that somebody might want to do to change the sign regulations to accommodate their business is subject to meeting the requirements of a variance, which we all know is very difficult to do," board member Raymond Gargan Jr. said.  
 
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