The windows at Brimstone Bakery are often steamed up early in the morning, as jar upon jar of fresh jams and jellies cool on racks in the small but mighty kitchen. This culinary haze only adds to the cafe’s cozy ambience, tucked away at 922 Chestnut St. in the bucolic Schoharie County village of Sharon Springs.
The sweet, spicy and savory preserves include wine jellies – Grenache juniper, pink peppercorn rose, and Riesling caraway – and fig spread, made with figs, sugar, balsamic and sherry vinegars and thyme. There are also jam flavors blueberry lemon, peach ginger and the popular strawberry-balsamic-black pepper, a recipe straight from owner Anthony Leberto’s Italian roots.
“We make everything by hand, and it shows,” said Leberto, a pastry chef and food stylist who hails from Pennsylvania by way of San Francisco and New York City. “Nothing is processed and we use the highest quality ingredients that we source from all over, especially locally whenever we can.”
Leberto’s pastries and creative cafe menu may seem fit for a metropolitan city, but the village’s 500 residents, as well as out-of-towners, direct to customer online orders and several regional wholesale accounts, keep Brimstone Bakery bustling.
Brimstone Bakery
922 Chestnut St., Sharon Springs
Hours: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.
For information, call 518-284-6093, email [email protected] or go to brimstonebake.com.
Named after a local creek, Brimstone is a dream come to fruition for Leberto and former business partner Ross Wassermann, a restaurateur and wine marketing executive. Though they began by producing proprietary goods for the Beekman 1802 brand in 2018, Brimstone was born online with the launch of a website in 2019, along with an original takeaway window for curbside pickup.
Wassermann stepped…
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