Maybe you don’t think too much of Pop-Tarts, the mass-produced, sugary, toaster treat designed to appeal to a kid’s love of sweets and a parent’s love of convenience.
But your nay might turn into a yay if you taste a homemade version made fresh with local fruit, natural ingredients and no preservatives.
And if you like the store-bought Pop-Tarts, you’re probably going to love the homemade toaster pastries made in Winston-Salem by Jelaina Frelitz, the owner of Yay Snacks Bakery.
“They are the thing people go rabid over,” said Frelitz, who sells about 100 of the toaster pastries a week.
The pastries, which usually sell for $2.50 to $3 apiece, are handmade with a tender, buttery crust and such homemade fillings as strawberry and sweet potato.
Since 2011, Frelitz has been attracting a loyal following for her pastries, crackers and breads. She bakes them in a renovated house next to her home on the Southside.
The bakery does not have a retail location. Frelitz has sold her goods at the Cobblestone Farmers Market. She now sells them at Krankies, Washington Perk and Provision Co. and Let It Grow Produce. She also makes select desserts for Mary’s Gourmet Diner and crackers for Mooney’s Mediterranean Café. And she has a popular bread club of customers who sign up for six or eight weekly deliveries of homemade loaves, buns, rolls, pita and crackers.
Frelitz, 33, grew up in Michigan. She always liked to cook, but professionally she darted from one job to another, working as a bartender, teacher, bookstore clerk and waitress. As an adult, her interest in food grew, and bread-baking became a serious hobby.
She and her partner, musician Ryan Pritts, moved to North Carolina about seven years ago after a chance visit during their travels around the country. Her brother had just moved to Greensboro, so she and Pritts moved there, but it wasn’t long before they relocated to Winston-Salem.
“Greensboro is a nice place, but I feel really at home here,” Frelitz said. “There’s just this sense of community in Winston.”
When she and Pritts were looking for a home about 2½ years ago, they happened to find two houses next to each other in the Southside. Pritts decided to buy both because they were cheap and Pritts wanted to build a recording studio in one. The houses needed work, but Pritts is handy. “He has an awesome skill set,” Frelitz said, and friends pitched in, too.
As they started renovating the houses, Frelitz was looking for something different to do.
“I was in the kitchen one day kneading a loaf of bread,” Frelitz said, “and it was almost like a comedy sketch. I was up to my elbows in dough, saying, ‘I don’t know what I want to do.’ Ryan is staring at me and finally he says, ‘I think what you’re doing right now is what you want to do. I mean, you get up at five in the morning to make bread.’”
Frelitz already was feeding friends and neighbors on a regular basis. She already had a repertoire of tried-and-true recipes. Everything else came together quickly.
The house with the studio had room to spare, and Frelitz soon found out what she needed for a kitchen to qualify as a bakery by the N.C. Department of Agriculture. And then she was off and running.
She had made friends with employees at Krankies and other stores, so she soon had places to sell her wares.
The bakery name was easy.
“I have a tendency to get really excited,” Frelitz said. “For years when people came over I would say, ‘Oh, do you want a snack plate?’ Then I would come out with all these snacks and say, ‘Yay, snacks!’”
Her sister gave her the idea for the bread club. “She said you should start a private club where people sign up to get your bread. I said, ‘That’s a great idea. There already is something like that (for produce). It’s called a CSA (community-supported agriculture).’”
So Frelitz’ bread club is set up much like a CSA. People commit to six or eight weeks, paying $6 a week in advance for her fresh bread. Each Thursday, she makes one sandwich loaf, or eight to 12 buns, or rolls, or a pound of crackers for each member. She delivers to those who are close or she arranges a pick-up spot when members live farther away.
Becky Zollicoffer, the owner of Let It Grow Produce, likes Frelitz’ baked goods so much that she stocks them and she belongs to the bread club. “I really like her multigrain crackers, and her pita bread is exceptional, too,” Zollicoffer said. “It’s fun because it’s a surprise, but you always know it’s going to be something delicious.”
Frelitz, too, likes the variety of baking something different each week. She has a maximum of 20 members at a time.
“I make something different every week, and you’re getting the freshest bread possible. I usually am letting it cool just enough so I can bag it and deliver it.”
The club is her favorite part of her job, Frelitz said. “That makes me feel like a neighborhood bakery. Sometimes I just take a walk down the street to deliver the bread.”
The club is beneficial because it gives her some capital to buy equipment, and it can allow her to make something special, knowing she already has a market for it.
Bread, though, wasn’t her first product. It was crackers, and they are her second-most popular item, next to the toaster pastries. She makes a lavash-style cracker with different herb and spice toppings. She also makes a popular olive-oil cracker.
“I love crunchy, salty crackers,” she said. “They are an essential part of my diet.”
Other baked goods include Parker House dinner rolls; burger buns; a loaf made from English muffin bread; and a savory, pull-apart (“monkey”) bread with mozzarella.
Frelitz has also made such desserts as a Granny Smith apple cake, orange-cinnamon coffee cake and sweet-potato whoopie pies for Mary’s Gourmet Diner.
“I like that she’s so creative,” said Mary Haglund of Mary’s. “She‘s unique and her unique quality comes out in her baking. Like the Pop-Tarts. Who does that? And they are mind-blowing!”
In general, Frelitz said, she tries to make breads and other baked goods that other bakeries in town don’t make.
She feels strongly about not using preservatives, and she sources local and organic ingredients when she can. This winter, she has been making a lot of toaster pastries with a sweet-potato filling.
Frelitz said that one reason her toaster pastries appeal to people is because they are not too sweet. She doesn’t even put frosting on them. “I use as little sugar as possible,” she said. “I believe the ingredients should be delicious on their own without needing a lot of sugar to make them taste good.
“People like that. They feel good about eating them.”
Frelitz said that the last year and a half has been busy but rewarding. “It’s way more work than I real- ized, but it’s pretty perfect.”
She has no plans to hire help or greatly expand the business. “I like it being just me. I’m intense, and I’m fast-paced. I’m most comfortable with just my brain and my hands in the stuff I’m making.”
She also likes the instant gratification inherent in a small business. “I’m feeding people, and it’s great to get all this feedback.”
“It tastes the best when I’m the happiest. And I’m the happiest doing small batches. I don’t want to be a factory,” Frelitz said.
“I want to bake for people who get excited about it.
And we do have that in Winston — people who get really excited about food.”
Pita Bread
Makes 12 pitas
3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour (preferably King Arthur), plus more for kneading/rolling out
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (or 1½ teaspoons instant yeast)
Pinch of sugar or tiny squeeze of honey or maple syrup
1¼ cups water, room temperature
2 tablespoons neutral oil (canola, olive, grapeseed)
Cooking oil spray
1. Fill a clean spray bottle with water; set aside. Whisk all dry ingredients together in a large bowl until evenly distributed. Add water (and honey or maple syrup, if using) and oil; stir with sturdy spoon until dough comes together. Cover bowl with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap and allow it to rest about 20 minutes to make mixing easier.
2. Sprinkle a clean surface with a little flour and scrape the dough out. Knead about 5 minutes, then invert bowl onto dough and allow it to rest 10 minutes. Knead again for another 5 minutes. At this point, the dough should be soft and pliable but not sticky. If necessary, sprinkle a handful of flour onto the dough and knead it for a few more minutes.
3. Place dough into an oiled bowl big enough to hold twice the quantity of dough you currently have. Lightly spray the top of dough with cooking-oil spray. Cover with plastic wrap and allow it to rise until doubled, 1½ to 3 hours, depending on how warm your space is.
4. One hour before you are ready to shape the pita, place an inverted cookie sheet in oven and preheat to 475 degrees.
5. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface, roll into a long snake and divide it into 12 equal pieces. Work with one piece at a time, keeping others covered with plastic wrap.
6. Shape each piece into a ball, flatten slightly with your hand and allow to rest, covered, for about 10 minutes. Then, using a rolling pin, roll each piece into a round disk, about ¼ inch thick. Lightly flour surface again as needed if dough starts to stick.
7. Once all the pieces of dough are all rolled out, use spray bottle to lightly mist dough with water. (The mist helps the pitas puff in the oven to create the pockets inside.) Gently transfer as many pieces as will fit at a time (generally 2) onto the hot baking sheet. Bake until just puffed up like a balloon, about 3 minutes. Remove with oven mitts and a pancake turner to avoid burns from escaping steam, and allow them to deflate. Stack and cover with a towel to keep them soft until all are baked. Serve right away or cool to room temperature on a rack, stack and store in a plastic bag at room temperature up to 3 days. The pitas also can be frozen.
Recipe from Jelaina Frelitz.
English muffin bread
Makes 1 loaf
1 cup 2 percent milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon warm water
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
½ cup local stone-ground cornmeal
Cooking oil spray
1. Fill a clean spray bottle with water; set aside. In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat, add milk, sugar and salt; whisk to dissolve. Heat until small bubbles begin to form on the surface of the milk. Remove from heat and allow to cool to lukewarm (about 100 degrees).
2. In a large bowl, measure out the 3 cups flour. Dissolve yeast in a tablespoon of water. Add yeast mixture and lukewarm milk mixture to the flour, stirring hard with a wooden spoon until a very soft dough forms. It will be sticky.
3. Flour your hands and knead the dough right in the bowl about 5 minutes, adding no more than an additional ¼ cup flour. (If you add too much flour, the bread will be drier and tougher than desired.). Oil a clean bowl and scrape dough into it. Turn dough to coat with oil, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until double, about 1½ hours, depending on room temperature.
4. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface, shape into a rectangle about 6 by 10 inches. Dimple the surface with your fingertips to dispel any trapped air, and tightly roll it into a cylinder that is just a bit longer than your loaf pan, pulling the dough taut to create tension. Gently rock the loaf back and forth under your hands to remove any remaining air bubbles and pinch the ends closed.
5. Spray the loaf with water and sprinkle the very wet loaf with cornmeal, making sure to cover the entire surface area, including the bottom.
6. Place into a lightly spray-oiled loaf pan, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until dough is about 1 inch above the rim of the pan, about 1½ hours.
7. Heat oven to 350 degrees and bake loaf until bread is a deep golden brown on top and bottom and the loaf sounds hollow when thumped on the underside, about 35 to 40 minutes.
8. Cool on a wire rack and wait at least an hour to slice or else you will mash the crumb. The bread will keep wrapped at room temperature for 4 to 5 days. Leftover bread is great for French toast.
mhastings@wsjournal.com
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