German-born Benno Deifel and his wife, Heike, opened Backhaus in 2014, offering fresh-baked German breads, pastries and cakes. Their recipes emphasize authenticity, and most of their baked goods use ingredients imported from Germany.
Have you ever felt the need to compromise authenticity in order to please a broader palate? With our German upbringing, and having intimate knowledge of the flavors and tastes of baked goods from our homeland, we're able to bring authentic German and European flavors to our customers. It puts us in a distinct position in the marketplace apart from other domestic bakeries.
The majority of our customer base are European immigrants, or were brought up by European immigrants, and we really cater to their tastes and palates. We get many tourists from Germany and Europe who drive to our bakery to try our cakes and pastries and they're very appreciative of being able to obtain such baked goods in Orlando. We also live a very health-conscious lifestyle and we want to serve the same quality food products to our customers that we would eat ourselves. In fact, most of our bakery items use less sugar than you would normally find at other bakeries.
How are you reducing food waste and making the bakery more sustainable? We are extremely vigilant when it comes to food waste and don't waste any of our food products at all. Fresh-baked products which aren't sold the same day are sold at a 50 percent discount the following day. Anything left over is donated to various charitable organizations supporting less privileged people. We also make every effort to only bake as many items as we can sell the same day.
What was your very first food addiction? Black Forest cake rolls and Black Forest cake. I'm very particular and prefer using kirschwasser from local Black Forest producers, which we bring back whenever we travel to Germany. (the-backhaus.com) ▲
