Visit Stone Ground at the Farmer’s Market in Valencia
Come check us out at the Farmer’s Market in Valencia!
Every Saturday from 8am to 1pm
That’s right! We’ll be participating in a couple of farmers markets in various local areas. That includes the Farmer’s Market in Valencia at Chesebrough Community Park. It’s held at the corner of Mc Bean Parkway and Sunset Hills Dr.
We’ll also be at the Saugus Swap Meet at Saugus Speedway!
Every Sunday from 7:30am to 2:00pm
Location: 22500 Soledad Canyon Rd.
Saugus, CA 91350
We’ll be at these locations according to the dates stated above. We will keep you informed of any changes via our blog.
Hope to see you there!
Not able to visit the Farmer’s Market? That’s ok! Because now you can order our goods right off our website via our online bakery
Sunset Magazine – Living in the West
Muffins in Agoura Hills -(Article in the current issue of Sunset living in the west Magazine)
The average carb lover probably heads straight for the bread at StoneGound Bakery. The challahs, sour-doughs, and multigrains- made with whole-wheat flour ground on-site – are delicious.
But the more advanced bakery aficio-nado goes instead for the muffins: big as softballs, golden-domed, and crunchy in all the right places. The sticky-sweet honey bran one gives roughhead a good name.
Come for your morning coffee, and you’ll get a sense of a honest bakery hard at work. Muffins $2.55; stongroundbreads.com
- Alan Phinney
Kosher Oatmeal Cookie Recipe
Stone Ground Bakery’s Kosher Oatmeal Cookie Recipe: Post-Holiday Baking
-By Amy Scattergood
Stone Ground Bakery in Agoura Hills, just off the 101 between Calabasas and Ventura, is one of those L.A. shopping mall treasures, a great bakery trapped in anonymous concrete that you find only if you know the happy repeat customers–or have exited to get gas and discovered great bread instead.
A kosher bakery run by a Lutheran from Hohenlimburg, Germany, Stone Ground has amazing challah, all braided by hand, and bear claws that operate like currency in my house. They also have great over-sized oatmeal cookies, the recipe for which is on the next page. They’re kosher, thus made with margarine, but feel free to use butter instead, which owner-baker Abby Franke admits makes the cookies taste even better. Of course it does.
Oatmeal cookies
From: Abby Franke of Stone Ground Bakery
Note: This recipe is measured in weight rather than volume, which is more accurate and the preferred method of most bakers (and Europeans). If you don’t have one, an inexpensive kitchen scale is a seriously useful cooking tool.
8.5 ounces brown sugar
8 ounces sugar
1/4 ounce baking soda
1/2 ounce salt
12 ounces trans-fat-free margarine (or substitute unsalted butter)
10 ounces honey
1/4 ounce vanilla
10 ounces all-purpose flour
4 ounces cake flour
18 ounces rolled oats
1/4 ounces baking powder
about 4 ounces water
1. By hand or in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle, mix the sugars, baking soda, salt, margarine (or butter), honey and vanilla together until combined.
2. Add the remaining ingredients (flours, oats, baking powder and water) to the mixture and mix until thoroughly incorporated.
3. Using a 4-ounce ice cream scoop (or a spoon or your hands), scoop out or form 4 ounce balls of dough on cookie sheets. Leave plenty of room between the balls of dough. Freeze the trays of dough for at least half an hour or longer.
4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, until golden brown around the edges. Cool on racks.
Stone Ground Bakery: 5005 Kanan Road, Agoura Hills; (818) 597-8774.
Where to find us
Stone Ground Breads is located just south west of the 101 freeway on Kanan Rd. in Agoura Hills, CA
Please call directions: (818) 597-8774
Click here: for directions
The Old Fashioned European way
In September 2004, Sherman and Franke took over the space of a former bakery in a strip mall that features restaurants like Islands and the International House of Pancakes. Like its immediate neighbors – a deli and a karate studio – StoneGround is nearly undistinguished in the row of retail businesses. But Sherman and Franke weren’t thinking small when they planned the business. Like any retail bakery, they wanted to feature a case of mouth-watering pastries and racks of delectable breads. But the pair also patterned their layout after up-scale restaurants with open kitchens, so customers are able to watch young bakers rolling out the pie crusts and shaping bread dough.
In their wholesale area, the space is crammed full of racks of beautiful golden breads waiting to be shipped to a variety of natural and specialty grocers. StoneGround Bakery was first approached by Whole Foods to produce kosher breads for their shelves and then added Trader Joe’s as a client. Other markets that carry StoneGround include Gelson’s, Bristol Farms, Lassen’s and Malibu’s PC Green. “These stores are carrying more kosher products today,” Franke said.
As patrons sipped coffee and devoured pastries on the bakery’s small patio, Franke took a moment out of his hectic schedule to sit down. But within a few minutes, he bolted out of his chair and darted back inside to supervise the removal of freshly baked pumpkin and blueberry pies from an industrial oven. When he returned, he held a piece of sugary crust and revealed it was made without sugar.
It’s a challenge to make sugar-free products that don’t skimp on flavor. Not to be outdone, Franke returned into the bakery and returned with a sourdough roll. He pulled off a piece, eager to demonstrate its intense sour taste. “The bad sourdoughs have an unpleasant aftertaste. We played around until we were happy with the flavor. Since we don’t use preservatives, we add honey to the dough to preserve the bread,” he said.
Franke is enthusiastic about being able to mill his own flour. He invites customers in to admire his authentic 30-year-old stone mill. He turned on the mill and demonstrated how his flour still contains all parts of the wheat. In traditional bakeries, mills leave elements on the floor that carries healthy benefits. At StoneGround, nothing goes to waste. “Very few
bakeries actually have a stone mill,” he said, beaming with pride.
The bakery produces a variety of breads, including Nine-Grain, Rosemary Rye, Sunflower and many types of Challah; including a whole-wheat, a chocolate chip, a water, and a jalapeno version, just to mention a few.