The pie’s the thing

Photos by David Stuck

At Sunflower Bakery in Gaithersburg, trainees and employees have been hard at work getting the baked goods ready in time for Thanksgiving week. Covering Thanksgiving cookies with sugar and preparing pies for people’s tables, the kosher bakery’s operations have been in full swing.

“Thanksgiving is our third busiest holiday,” said General Manager Liz Hutter. Rosh Hashanah is the bakery’s busiest holiday, with Purim coming in at second.

In the week before the holiday, Sunflower, which trains adults with learning differences in pastry arts, baking, barista service and store operations, made $30,500 in sales — including 844 pies and tarts (eight varieties), and about 120 pounds of Thanksgiving sugar cookies. We visited Sunflower Bakery just as production went into high gear.

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