By KATE DANIEL
South Whidbey Record

By 2 a.m., when the majority of Whidbey Island residents remain nestled snugly in their beds, Langley baker Kelly Baugh is already hard at work.

The Clinton resident and single mother of five said she had always dreamt of a place in which she could fulfill the age-old profession of village baker.

“I’m awake, alone, and the rest of the world is just turning over for the first time,” she said with a smile, adding that she finds a great sense of tranquility in baking.

At 11 years old, Baugh began her career in the food industry making pizza dough at an Italian restaurant.

“I was like a Ryan’s House child,” she said.

Throughout the years, Baugh enrolled in college five times, earning a degree in early child development and child psychology and, in 2001, she received her Associate of Arts degree in bakery and pastry arts from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. She worked as a baker and manager for Great Harvest Bread Company and later baked for Lucky Eagle Casino in Rochester, Wash.

During a typical day at her establishment, Sundance Bakery, Baugh does everything from threshing the grains to operating the cash register. Her eldest daughter and a handful of other employees assist with various aspects of the business.

Baugh moved to Whidbey with her five children, son-in-law and two grandchildren and rented a space on Second Street and DeBruyn Avenue, formerly a cafe, nearly two years ago.

A sense of community, she said, is something she always yearned for, something she found in Langley. As a single mom, the Village by the Sea afforded her peace of mind that urban life lacked.

“For 10 years I searched for a place where I could be the village baker, and I found Langley and fell in love,” she said. “Imagine every dream you’ve ever had happening.”

Baugh never required a bank loan, she said, and instead acquired a loan from Whidbey Island Local Lending and received donations from investors.

In order to furnish the bakery’s brick oven, she ran a credible campaign, raising enough money to build the wood-fire oven — a unique mechanism made largely from recycled materials — which she uses to make hundreds of baked goods per day.

Sundance Bakery currently collaborates with Whidbey farmers such as Ebey Road Farm, Grege Lange, Sherman Farms, Morningstar Honey Farm, Deep Harvest and Jones’ Road Blueberries.

“We’re more than just a bakery because we grow the grains with the farmers here on the island,” she said. “Any time you buy anything from this place, you’re actually helping local farmers.”

Recently, she also began working with the Salish Sea Trading Cooperative, which supplies flour from Nash’s Organic Grains in Sequim via the Port of Langley. She also works with the Pacific Rim Institute and was advised by Dr. Stephen Jones of Washington State University Island County Extension as to which grains grow best in the Puget Sound area and which provide the greatest yields. Perhaps her most unusual grain is barley seed she obtained from a historian. The seed, dating back to 700 A.D., was found in an Egyptian pyramid and is now grown at the Pacific Rim Institute.

Each day, the bakery produces six different breads, four varieties of muffins, cinnamon rolls, cookies and pies. Soon, she said, they will be baking eclairs.

“They’re dangerous, kind of like Pandora’s Box,” she said with a chuckle, adding that eventually, she hopes to hire more employees with experience in pastries in order to expand the menu.

The most rewarding aspect, Baugh said, is hearing the exclamations of satisfaction from customers.

“When people say, ‘I haven’t had bread this good since my grandma made it,’ that feels pretty good,” she said.

Her personal favorite product, the Swedish rye, comes from a 150-year-old recipe.

“When you’re dealing with traditional grains, you have to look at old recipes because of the ratio difference in the protein levels,” she said.

Chantelle Freilinger a dishwasher who began working at Sundance about two months ago, said this is by far her most enjoyable and least stressful job.

“The whole process of how she does everything is so unique,” Freilinger said. “There is a story behind everything.”

The brick oven, which Baugh built over the summer, was made using materials from Island Recycling, former fire places and what was once a Seattle post office. She has moved her antique grinder mill across the country four times, finally finding it a permanent home at Sundance.