Mehera of Meraki Baked goods is passionate about people with limited dietary requirements. She is gluten-free herself and likes the challenge of making delicious stuff even if she can’t eat what others can eat.
Three years ago Mehera launched Meraki Baked Goods. It’s a woman-owned, specialty baking business with a focus on high-quality ingredients; some of which are locally sourced.
She started off baking both gluten and gluten-free baked goods, but she is now fully transitioning to gluten free. Soon she won’t be taking any more non gluten-free orders.
Mehera has been an avid baker her entire life. She has master-baker lineage on both sides of her family. Before Meraki Baked Goods, she hadn’t done baking professionally before, but did it for fun and for friends. This changed when she took a break from her career to stay home and spend time with her kids before they transitioned into school.
Having a career background in industrial water treatment and chemistry, it wasn’t a big leap to go into commercial baking for Mehera. Baking has chemistry, so it there is some relationship between the two skills.
The product she is most famous for these days has been one she has being doing from day one: Maple Coconut Granola. More recent success is the gluten-free bread line. It took years to develop a delicious gluten-free bread and has the right texture.
When developing gluten-free recipes some of the work goes into finding the best ingredients while other challenges are presented in the baking processes. She starts with a base level recipe and then improves on it. She builds on principles and then switches out flours, rise time, steam levels, rise times, etc; until she finally gets it right. She loves to read what other people have tried and build on their successes while avoiding their failures.
After she finally worked out a great, gluten-free bread, it has been a real hit with her customers. Some people thought they would never be able to eat bread they could be enjoy and she surprises them. It’s this confirmation it’s worth what she was doing; worth the effort.
We asked Mehera for some baking tips. She recommends to always use butter, and high-quality ingredients. It can be a reach to source or use more expensive ingredients more or less, but the quality of ingredients is what adds extra flavor. With a lot of gluten-free cooking there are so many more gluten-free ingredients out there these days than ever before. She does own flour mixture for most of her goods, but for quick process like quick cookies, there are pre-mix flours that are really great too!
For the skeptics, Mehera recommends people taste everything if they can. She encourages people to eat in a way that makes them feel good. She hopes they give it a chance, because gluten-free has a long way!
For people new to gluten-free baking or for regular bakers looking to make a treat for a gluten-free friend or loved-one, she recommends they start with the book How Can It Be Gluten-Free by America’s Test Kitchen. This seminal achievement is the best place for people to start making gluten-free anything. They do tests and explain the processes that led them to make great gluten-free food. You can learn a ton through their many detailed explanations.
Currently Meraki Baked Goods is carried by stores in Dover, Conway, and Wolfboro. She also has a road-side stand here in Tamworth at the end of Stewart Lane. She’ll be putting more effort into marketing herself to new retail locations in the coming winter.
It has been work, but she has seen real success in first three years. She is doing all the delivery herself, one or two days per week. Now that it’s fall, pies are coming back in a big way. The fall is the only time she does pies. It’s more expensive to make and sell pies, but it’s the season people are looking for them.
This was the first year she has done the Tamworth Farmers’ Market, but she has done the Conway market for the previous two. She was impressed with the dedication of shoppers in Tamworth and how they are hardcore enough to shop outside in 10 degree weather! The commitment of Tamworth folks to shop locally is impressive. She so impressed that people still come out for it despite weather inconveniences.
When asked about the next generation, Mehera confirmed her kids have a little bit of the baking bug. One of her daughters is big extrovert and does really good helping out at the farmers market. Her other daughter isn’t so much into the baking yet, but still loves the sugar, obviously.
Through Meraki’s website people can always ship granola. You can order from the website any time. Locals can also put in orders for pickup at her stand on Stewart Lane. She keeps the stand stocked year-round with various goodies, but it’s usually always filled with cookies and granola.
Follow her on Instagram to stay up-to-date on all the gluten-free excitement!