Farmers markets connect consumers to food sources and expand the customer base for niche farmers.
For other vendors, their incentives are less financial. They're rooted in self-expression and personal satisfaction.
Gail Tenney, a self-described "closet Martha Stewart," left her job as a law librarian in Chicago to stay home with her two children. Selling breads and sweets at the Miller Beach Farmers Market gives her a chance to channel her inner Martha.
"I like being creative though it's often hard to find the time. This gets me going," the Miller resident said.
The first time Linda Simon took her homemade chocolate croissants and muffin-shaped "Whoopie pies" to the market, she sold out.
"I made $60," she says excitedly.
But consider this. Simon, who also lives in Miller, is a pension attorney at the Chicago office of Locke, Lord, Bissell and Liddell, a national law firm with a London office.
Making croissants is an all-day process while it takes six hours to produce miniature whoopie pies.
Factor in the costs of her labor and ingredients -- like the Valrhona chocolate that the food purist uses for her croissant filling -- with her time at the market. Simon probably earns about $1 an hour. It's a safe bet her hourly office rate is higher.
So what attracts the two professional women, long-time friends and now business partners, to the market?
"I love making chocolate croissants," says Simon, the mother of three young boys. "No, let me restate that. I love eating chocolate croissants."
She also bakes croissants because she can't find good ones locally, she stated.
"I like them to be square like they're supposed to be, not shaped like regular croissants," she adds. Some bakeries just split plain croissants in half and add chocolate, she insists in an aggrieved tone.
Like Tenney, Simon also likes the process of being creative.
"I think it's great that I can actually make something so cool," she says.
Simon debated whether to use Julia Child's or Nancy Silverton's croissant recipe. She finally decided on the latter, though she did borrow Julia's idea of adding an egg wash to create a golden color.
Tenney makes half-moon cookies that she brings to the market. And because both women noted that buyers frequently asked for bread, they partnered with Bit of Swiss in Stevensville, Mich., to sell the bakery's artisan breads.
The baked goods are made in a French brick bread oven that was hand installed about a decade ago. The Bit of Swiss baguettes were once ranked by USA Today as among the Top 10 in the country. Owner Tim Foley and his team won the coveted Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie several years ago as well.
Stevensville is about an hour's drive from Miller but Tenney managed to negotiate a meeting place in Michigan City.
"But they wanted us to be there at exactly 6:15 in the morning," says Tenney.
Tenney and Simon also sell other Bit of Swiss products including their Danish and apple pockets. But the big sellers, besides the bread, are the half moon cookies, the chocolate croissants and Cranberry Island Whoopie Pies.
Simon snagged that recipe from Martha Stewart's website.
"You make this half-butter cream and half-marshmallow fluff filling," says Simon who recently made 144 pies for her 6-year-old son's birthday party. "It makes it taste like a Hostess Ho-Ho fake cream ... which is just wonderful."
The Miller Beach Farmer's Market is open from 11:30 to 3:30 on the first and third Sundays from June until Oct. 17. It's located across from Wirt/Emerson High School at the United Methodist Church at 215 N. Grand Blvd.
Cranberry Island Whoopie Pies
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, preferably organic, room temperature, plus more for muffin pans
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 large eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, preferably organic
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup buttermilk, preferably organic
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup boiling water
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, preferably organic, room temperature
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 jar (7-1/2 ounces) marshmallow Fluff
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, preferably organic
DIRECTIONS: In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add Fluff and vanilla and continue mixing until well combined. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 4-inch muffin top pans. Line each muffin cup in the pan with a parchment paper round, butter parchment, and set aside. Cream together butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until combined, 2 to 3 minutes. Add salt, eggs, and vanilla, and beat just until combined. In a small bowl, mix together baking soda and buttermilk. Add flour to mixer, alternating with buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with flour. In a medium bowl, whisk together cocoa powder and boiling water until smooth. Add to batter and beat until combined. Fill each muffin cup with a heaping 1/4 cup batter. Transfer muffin pans to oven and bake 9 minutes, rotate pans, and continue baking 9 minutes more. Let cool slightly before transferring muffin tops to a wire rack. Let cool completely; remove parchment paper. Repeat process with remaining batter. Place a heaping 1/4 cup filling on the bottom side of half of the muffin tops. Top with remaining muffin tops, bottom side down, to form pies.
Makes 10 servings.
Chocolate Croissants
1-1/2 cups whole milk, heated to warm (105-110 degrees)
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast (from 2 (1/4-ounce) packages)
3-3/4 to 4-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon kosher salt
3 sticks (1-1/2 cups) cold unsalted butter
Semisweet (55 percent) Valrhona batons
DIRECTIONS: Stir together warm milk, brown sugar, and yeast in bowl of standing mixer and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If it doesn't foam, discard and start over.) Add 3-3/4 cups flour and salt and mix with dough hook at low speed until dough is smooth and very soft, about 7 minutes. Transfer dough to a work surface and knead by hand 2 minutes, adding more flour as necessary, a little at a time, to make a soft, slightly sticky dough. Form dough into a roughly 1-1/2-inch-thick rectangle and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until cold, about 1 hour. After dough has chilled, arrange sticks of butter horizontally, their sides touching, on a work surface. Pound butter with a rolling pin to soften slightly (butter should be malleable but still cold). Scrape butter into a block and put on a kitchen towel, then cover with other towel. Pound and roll out on both sides until butter forms a uniform 8-by-5-inch rectangle. Chill, wrapped in towels, while rolling out dough. Unwrap dough and roll out on a lightly floured surface, dusting with flour as necessary and lifting and stretching dough (especially in corners), into a 16-by-10-inch rectangle. Arrange dough with a short side nearest you. Put butter in center of dough so that long sides of butter are parallel to short sides of dough. Fold as you would a letter: bottom third of dough over butter, then top third down over dough. Brush off excess flour with pastry brush. Turn dough so a short side is nearest you, then flatten dough slightly by pressing down horizontally with rolling pin across dough at regular intervals, making uniform impressions. Roll out dough into a 15-by-10-inch rectangle, rolling just to but not over ends. Brush off any excess flour. Fold in thirds like a letter, as above, stretching corners to square off dough, forming a 10-by-5-inch rectangle. Chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, 1 hour. Make 3 more folds in same manner, chilling dough 1 hour after each fold, for a total of 4 folds. (If any butter oozes out while rolling, sprinkle with flour to prevent sticking.) Wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap and chill at least 8 hours but no more than 18 (after 18 hours, dough may not rise sufficiently when baked). Cut the dough in half and chill one piece, wrapped in plastic wrap. Roll out the other half on a lightly floured surface, dusting with flour as necessary and stretching the corners to maintain its shape, into a 16-by-12-inch rectangle. Brush off any excess flour with a pastry brush and trim edges with a pizza wheel, or a sharp knife. Cut into square and add two batons of chocolate in the center. Fold each side over. Let croissants rise until slightly puffy and spongy to the touch, 2 to 2-1/2 hours. Adjust the oven racks to upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat to 425 degrees. Spritz inside of hot oven with water and close the door. Place croissants in oven, then spritz again before closing door. Reduce the temperature to 400 degrees and bake for 10 minutes without opening door. Switch positions of the baking sheets in the oven and rotate sheets 180 degrees. Reduce the temperature to 375 degrees and bake until croissants are deep golden, about 10 minutes more. Remove to a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.
