New bakery offers childhood nostalgia

A simple whiff at Amaya’s Bakery can teleport any sweet-toothed visitor to grandma’s kitchen.

For owner Teri Harget it’s more of a trip back to her childhood, when under the guidance of her grandmother Sarah, she first experienced the therapeutic joy of getting her hands sticky with dough.

On Oct. 1, that delight finally puffed into Amaya’s Bakery, the sweet biz she opened at 715 Southeast Fidalgo Avenue in Oak Harbor.

In 2022, Harget moved from the San Francisco area to Whidbey to follow Amaya, which surprisingly isn’t a person but her life partner Steve Henry’s Yankee Dolphin 24 boat, named after a sea critter he met at a swim with dolphins experience in Mexico.

After 20 years of working as a marriage family therapist and growing her passion for baking during the pandemic, the idea of running a bakery began to rise in Harget’s mind. When Henry expressed interest in moving to the Puget Sound area to sail, she thought it was her chance to embark on a new adventure and turn her love for feeding others into a profession.

The Loft, which was originally a feed and seed building built in 1937, was the ideal space to evoke the image of a grandma’s house, Harget said.

Nestled inside, the bakery offers a sweet and savory menu that changes every week as staff learns what the community likes. Some past and reoccurring fan favorites include cinnamon rolls, raspberry custard cinnamon rolls, bacon cheddar biscuits, quiches, strawberry rhubarb scones, apple spice Bundt cakes, sour cream and chive scones and more.

Some of the recipes, like the Norwegian lingonberry apple pocket pies and the inside-out carrot cakes, came respectively from Harget’s grandmother and her partner’s mother.

Currently, the bakery is offering Christmas-themed goods such as ginger molasses cookies, apple spice cakes and fruitcakes, keeping a suggestion box on the counter that welcomes any new ideas.

Community members can also request custom orders with fun designs. Vickie Berry, one of the team’s bakers, specializes in decorations. The barista, Emma Parick, can also create customized orders with regular, soy, almond or oat milk, which she embellishes with designs that have included hearts, snails, Christmas trees and even rainy clouds, Harget said.

“The art matches my mood,” she said. “I haven’t seen her miss even one time.”

The bread options, all made in house, include white bread, Vermont honey oat, sweet molasses, French bread and whole wheat.

With some exceptions, most items are available in regular, gluten-free and diabetic-friendly options, made with ingredients sourced from local farms.

Harget wanted to offer fun but healthier options for people like her son, who has type 2 diabetes, and herself, whose arthritis symptoms get worse after consuming gluten.

Though not certified by an independent third-party organization, Amaya’s Bakery offers “best effort gluten-free” options, which are diligently prepared in a separate workstation, baked in a separate oven and displayed in a different display case.

Henry, Harget’s partner and helper, said it’s hard to tell the difference between the gluten-free, the diabetic-friendly and the regular goods, as they are all similar in flavor and texture.

Regardless of the need, Harget said, all baked treats share one ingredient: love.

“We put all our love for baking into what we do everyday,” she said.

Amaya’s Bakery welcomes community members from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

To place an order, call 360-682-6792, message the team on Amaya’s Bakery Facebook account or shop on the Whidbey Island Grown Cooperative’s website at whidbeyislandgrown.com.