Vermonters are very familiar with self-serve roadside stands bursting with peak-season farm and garden harvests: piles of zucchini and sweet corn, punnets of blueberries, clutches of backyard chicken eggs. But the finely trained noses of Seven Days’ roving food writers have sniffed out a new bree d of roadside stand — and one farmhouse porch — offering a bounty of self-serve fresh-baked goods. From Grand Isle to Cornwall, surprisingly credentialed and passionate bakers are kneading, shaping and baking breads, pastries and cookies for passersby. All these small, home-based cottage bakeries accept cash or Venmo, and some take checks — but none accepts cards. Please, just don’t try to pay with your own excess zucchini. M.P. Pastry on the Porch Backdoor Bakery, 315 Bridge St., Huntington, 802-434-3422 Pop-ups start at 8 a.m., usually on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month, May through October, but not on July 25. Accepts cash, Venmo and checks. Dean Menke of Backdoor Bakery Credit: Melissa Pasanen Four cyclists came spinning down Bridge Street in Huntington and braked upon encountering an unexpected sign on the side of the unpaved road: Backdoor Bakery. “Whoa! Whoa!,” called one. “Where’s the bakery?” It was around 11 a.m. on a late-May Saturday when the quartet of friends slowly cycled down the short driveway of the 1880s farmhouse to investigate. On the wide porch, a few pastries sat on a covered tray. The bikers nabbed the last two almond croissants ($6), a rhubarb turnover ($5) and a gluten-free/dairy-free oat bar ($4). A steady flow of customers had already made short work of the roughly 175 freshly baked breads and pastries that Dean Menke had made in his licensed home kitchen for one of his bimonthly porch pop-ups. They open at 8 a.m., generally the second and fourth Saturdays of the month, through October. He also takes preorders and runs a community-supported bakery share through the winter. “That just melted in my mouth,” cyclist Chris Ouellette of Shelburne said after inhaling an almond croissant. His pal Bill Skiff of Williston took a bite of the turnover and praised its “perfect sour-sweet rhubarb tang.” Locals know to bring their own mug for coffee ($3) and show up early to get the widest choice among the dozen or so different baked goods Menke, 58, makes for Backdoor Bakery. They might include light, fluffy cinnamon rolls ($4.50), punchy triple-ginger scones ($4), focaccia ($4) with seasonal toppings such as ramp pesto, and sourdough loaves ($7). The culinary school-trained chef makes his own laminated puff pastry dough and uses local eggs and the family’s own backyard raspberries and apples. This is the second summer of what Menke called the 2.0 version of his cottage bakery. Its first run, from 2007 to 2014, started with customers coming around to the home’s back door to pick up their goods, hence the name. Menke, who works part time as a chef-instructor at the Essex Resort Spa, restarted his “hobby gone bad,” in his words, at the request of his 15-year-old son, Henry, who fondly recalled the regular neighborly buzz of bakery customers on the porch. “He asked us to bring back community,” Menke said. “We moved here in 2007 and didn’t know anybody,” Menke’s wife, Patti Delaney, said. “Now, we know everybody.” M.P. I Brake for Bakeries Bittersweet Bakery, 262 Route 2, Grand Isle, 802-922-8074 The shed is stocked daily May through October and, with less variety, through the winter. Accepts cash, Venmo and checks. Bittersweet Bakery cinnamon rolls Credit: Courtesy I took a small risk earlier this year when the “open” banner hanging from a cute bakery shed on Route 2 in the Champlain Islands caught my eye and I spontaneously decided to make a quick turn: It is my professional duty to investigate all promising roadside eating opportunities, and I did check my rearview mirror. Unlike many other roadside bakery stands, Bittersweet Bakery distinguishes itself by offering many frozen, ready-to-thaw or take-and-bake options. I bought single-serve cups of lemon cheesecake ($6) and peanut butter pie ($6) and a bag of six large chocolate chip cookie dough balls ($14) from the freezer case. By the time I got home, the cups had thawed and were ready for my eager spoon, delivering tangy, citrusy mouthfuls and silken, chocolate ganache-drenched peanut butter-cup vibes, respectively. Bittersweet Bakery’s frozen chocolate chip cookie dough baked up into paragons of perfection. A month or so later, I remembered the cookie dough and threw the frozen balls onto a sheet pan. They baked up into paragons of homemade perfection beyond my normal reach — with 99 percent less effort. I already knew that particular stretch of Route 2 in Grand Isle had one worthy baked goods stop from Seven Days’ previous coverage — DonnaSue Bakes+Cooks pie-forward roadside stand. I had somehow not previously noticed Bittersweet Bakery, although I later learned the shed opened in 2022. Owner Kristen Ward, 33, grew up baking at her grandmother’s and mother’s elbows. In 2020, she resolved to combine her business degree, entrepreneurial drive and love of baking when her work and daycare commute effectively consumed any time she had to enjoy her first child. Bittersweet has morphed a few times over its six years to fit into what Ward described as “the seasonality of life.” Her original preorder delivery model broke down once she was loading two kids, her pregnant self and baked goods into the car. Her husband, Josh, who owns a construction company, built her a sweet little self-serve shed. Ward now juggles raising her trio of kids, running a licensed home bakery and helping with the construction biz. This summer, she’s focused more on refrigerated and frozen than fresh-baked offerings. Her shed’s fridge holds creamy lemon shortbread bars and single-serve carrot cakes (both $6), and the freezer bursts with cookie dough, cheesecakes, pillowy take-and-bake cinnamon rolls ($15), and ice cream sandwiches ($6) made with housemade salted-caramel ice cream and brown sugar cookies. Regrettably, I left my second visit to Bittersweet Bakery without tasting an ice cream sandwich. When I head back, I promise I’ll start signaling far in advance. M.P. Good to the Last Crumb Crumb Clover, 13339 Route 116, Hinesburg, [email protected] The stand is stocked by 8 a.m. most weekend mornings through October but will not be open July 24-25. Accepts cash and Venmo. Crumb Clover Credit: Melissa Pasanen When Sarah and Matt Fidler launched the Crumb Clover self-serve stand at the end of their Hinesburg driveway last summer, the first note they got from a happy customer praised not only their cookies but also the tin-roofed shed, which Matt had built. The customer liked it so much, they paid Matt to build another. “We were a little worried that maybe we had made an Amish shed business instead of baking business,” Matt, 38, joked. “We took that off the menu.” What is on the menu are breads such as sourdough baguettes ($4), round boule loaves ($7) and challah ($10); their version of “New English” muffins ($5 for 4); and cookies, including double chocolate chip ($5 for 2) and my new favorite indulgence: brown butter shorties ($5 per jar of 9 to 10 small cookies). The delicate, rich and nutty, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread rounds are rolled in marigold sugar and, as if that weren’t compelling enough, charmingly packaged in a jelly jar. That could be useful to keep them fresh if I could resist eating the whole jar at one go. Sarah, 37, brings the professional background to the couple’s “passion project,” with a Culinary Institute of America baking and pastry degree and a decade under her belt so far as Ben Jerry’s global research and development chef. But her husband, who works for the Lake Champlain Land Trust, has an equal fervor for baking. There’s only so much we can eat but we wanted to bake more.Sarah Fidler The couple’s appetite for the activity exceeded their appetite for its output, which led to Crumb Clover. “There’s only so much we can eat, but we wanted to bake more,” Sarah said. The couple also saw an opportunity in Hinesburg, where there are few places to buy freshly baked goods. “There’s nothing you can really sink your teeth into,” Matt said. Busy with two full-time jobs and two kids, the Fidlers currently bake to fill any preorders and stock their stand only on weekends from spring through fall. They’re baking at a small enough scale that they don’t need a Department of Health inspection, but that may change soon: The couple are working on a bakery expansion and have started offering bread through nearby Dig Dig Farm. On top of deploying sourdough in baguettes, the Fidlers use excess starter to make their compact, craggy New English muffins and to add a subtly tangy note to some cookies. The sourdough combined with different dark chocolates in the chocolate chip cookies “amplifies that tart fruity flavor,” Sarah said. She said it also yields a moist, more tender peanut butter cookie that makes perfect ice cream sandwiches. Somehow, I think we can take her word for that. M.P. Neighborhood Nook Green Mountain Girl Sourdough, 51 Booth Woods, Vergennes Open Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Accepts cash and Venmo. From left: Toasted s’mores cookie bars and homemade Pop-Tarts-style pastries at Green Mountain Girl Sourdough Credit: Courtesy photos Tucked away on a cul-de-sac off a one-way residential road, Green Mountain Girl Sourdough’s front-yard farmstand isn’t easy to stumble upon. But I couldn’t miss it: A sign pointing the way goes up every weekend across the street from my house. Friday through Sunday, Amanda Anderson fills two “bread huts” with sourdough goods from her licensed home bakery. For a little over a year, Green Mountain Girl Sourdough has been her full-time job. On the left of the seasonally decorated front-yard setup is a first-come, first-served stand stocked with loaves, savory breakfast muffins, cinnamon rolls and other sourdough treats. The hut on the right is for preorder pickup on Friday but turns into a pantry stand on Saturday and Sunday, offering soup mixes, granola, breadcrumbs, breakfast casserole kits and croutons. Anderson, 38, attended the New England Culinary Institute before she ultimately got a teaching degree. During her 15 years as a preschool teacher, she often baked and cooked with her classes, including making Chinese pork buns and honey-oat rolls for families at Thanksgiving. “It became known around the community that I liked to cook, and I cooked a lot,” Anderson said. She started selling sourdough through word of mouth, popping a table outside her house for orders. The setup evolved to a single bread hut, then the two. Now her daughters, Olivia, 11, and Noelle, 9, help when they’re home — and tag along to source ingredients from local farms, like a recent blueberry-picking trip to Sweet Roots Farm Market in Charlotte. They also like to eat leftovers, though Anderson donates most of what she doesn’t sell to the Teen Food Pantry at Vergennes’ Commodore Club. Olivia Gluten-John, Anderson’s 4.5-year-old rye sourdough starter, gets a weekly workout. Olivia Gluten-John, Anderson’s 4.5-year-old rye sourdough starter, gets a weekly workout, producing up to 35 loaves between staples such as sesame or cinnamon-swirl and specials like roasted strawberry-toasted walnut. Once a month, Anderson makes 250 bagels. On a Saturday-afternoon stroll to the stand, I found it filled to the brim with goodies. My son chose a savory breakfast muffin ($6) with local bacon, Cabot cheddar and herbs. I opted for a cinnamon roll with vanilla-bean glaze ($7). Both were hefty, so we split them between afternoon snack and breakfast the following day. We nibbled on a half loaf of cinnamon-swirl bread ($9) throughout the week. All three had a light sourdough tang, balanced perfectly with their other flavors. A family of bears, whose movements have been well documented on Vergennes’ Front Porch Forum, have visited Green Mountain Girl, too. But they didn’t get any treats: The stands are empty at night, so the bears just played in the tree above them. They won’t get any if they come rummaging through my trash, either. We ate every bite. J.B. Fair Share Lemon Fair View Homestead, 4048 Route 125, Cornwall, 802-349-0764 Open 24–7. Accepts cash, Venmo and local checks. A baked sourdough loaf at Lemon Fair View Homestead Starting a farmstand was on Kaitlin and Steve Rheaume’s to-do list when they moved to their property on the Bridport-Cornwall border a decade ago. The high school sweethearts wanted to make things from scratch and involve their four kids in the DIY of homestead life. They put stand plans on pause while the kids were young. But Kaitlin, a nurse, baked sourdough loaves regularly as a hobby, sharing the results with friends. When her grandma Joy died in 2023, Kaitlin vowed to honor her by doing things that bring her, well, joy. “This was one of them,” Kaitlin, 36, said. “Baking bread, having a farmstand — I really felt it in my heart.” She and Steve, 38, “are pretty spontaneous people,” she continued. They built a small stand on a whim. On May 1, 2025, they filled it with eight loaves and sold out. For the next month and a half, they doubled their output each weekend. Now, Lemon Fair View Homestead is on its second, much larger farmstand. The Rheaumes’ licensed home bakery produces up to 275 sourdough loaves per week, wholesaling to six accounts in Addison County and Richmond. The business is Steve’s full-time job. I first purchased one of Lemon Fair View Homestead’s crusty boules at the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op earlier this spring but hadn’t yet been to the hillside homestead. When I parked in the driveway on a recent Friday morning, I was greeted by the sound of poultry pecking nearby. Inside the spacious shed, I browsed crafts from local entrepreneurs of all ages before zeroing in on the tall black cabinet filled with fresh loaves up for grabs. (A separate cabinet for preorders is clearly labeled.) Preordering is the best way to guarantee you’ll get cheesy dill, buttery steakhouse sourdough or whichever of the Rheaumes’ 20 options you prefer. But I found plenty of flavors when I stopped by without preordering. I chose a plain sourdough round ($10) to make BLTs, a loaf of sliced honey-oat sourdough ($13.50) for PBJs, and a bag of sourdough pancake mix ($10) for weekend breakfast. Even when they’re sold out of bread, the Rheaumes keep their stand open at all times so neighbors can grab a gallon of Monument Farms Dairy milk or local beef from the freezer when nearby stores are closed. “Nobody works the same hours; nobody has the same schedule,” Steve said. A few recent theft issues made them reconsider leaving it unlocked. “But we always want to be an option for people,” he said. So it will remain 24-7 for now, all year round, bringing joy. The original print version of this article was headlined “Standing Out | From sourdough to cookies, self-serve bakery stands — and one porch —bring treats to Vermont roadsides” The post Self-Serve Cottage Bakeries Bring Treats to Vermont Roadsides appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less