MOCKSVILLE— There’s a photograph of a little girl hanging on the wall behind the
display case of baked goods at Ketchie Creek Bakery.Wearing a blue dress, she is standing on a chair so she can reach
the kitchen counter. Her face, covered in flour and wearing an expression of dismay at
being caught in the act, is captured looking straight into the camera.
It seems Merrell McClannon had
been making biscuits and walked away just long enough for her 18-month-old daughter,
Debbie, to climb up and help.
“I pulled the chair and got
up there and started doing it,” says Debbie McClannon Koontz. “I guess that was
a sign that I was destined to do this.”
Koontz, who grew up and started
Ketchie Creek Bakery in her basement, had forgotten about the photograph until her mother
gave it to her as a Christmas gift several years ago.The black-and-white image had been
enlarged, painted and displayed in a gold frame.
By that time, Koontz’
business had outgrown the basement of her home in the Davie Academy community of Davie
County and she had moved to a shop beside Wal-mart in Mocksville. When she ran out of
space there, Koontz moved her bakery to a new, 3,600-square-foot building on Valley Road.
That was three years ago.
“And we’re quickly outgrowing it,” she says.
Ketchie Creek has 24 employees,
including full-time and part-time, and a reputation for its cakes and gingerbread houses
that extends far beyond Davie County.
The bakery’s wedding cakes
have been featured in Elegant Bride magazine, and last year, Koontz was asked to do a cake
for a musical tribute author Maya Angelou held for Oprah Winfrey in Winston-Salem.
“It was the day after
Thanksgiving,” Koontz says. “They had people flown in from all over for
that.”
Ketchie Creek has done birthday
cakes for Davidson County artist Bob Timberlake and Salisbury native Elizabeth Dole.
Koontz and her four decorators
have sculpted cakes in the shapes of houses and businesses, cars, dogs, armadillos. You
name it, they’ve done it. They even did an alligator standing on snow skis as a
groom’s cake.
“We’ll try to do most
anything,” she says. “If you wanted us to sculpt a horse standing up or
something, that would be possible, but we would have to come upwith a structure and it
gets very costly.”
Though they decorate cakes of all
kinds, Koontz says the gift package design is popular now. Decorated to look like packages
stacked on top of each other, the cakes can be used for birthdays, showers or holiday
gatherings.
The color possibilities are
endless in decorating, according to Koontz. “It’s just like an artist’s
palette,” she says. “You can take and mix tons and tons of things
together.”
Decorators use air brushes to
create shading and other special effects on cakes.
When customers order
children’s birthday cakes decorated with Pokemon or Blue’s Clues characters, for
example, Koontz says they have to use packaged kits because of copyright laws.
“Sometimes, it’s hard for customers to understand that,” she says.
Customer favorites
Ketchie Creek has a large
assortment of everyday favorites for sale at all times, including pound cakes, classic
dessert cakes, ice cream cakes and frozen desserts, pies, cheesecakes, cookies, pastries,
bread, cheese straws, fruit flans and fruit pizzas. Cakes, which account for about 45
percent of the bakery’s sales, can be bought whole, in halves or by the slice.
Many of the recipes are ones
Koontz has developed over the years, as well as old family favorites. Some of the pound
cake recipes came from her grandmothers.
Ketchie Creek pound cakes come in
four basic flavors — traditional, chocolate, five-flavor and amaretto — and can
be ordered plain or with cream cheese or chocolate icing. A 6-inch version is also
available.
“We go through cookbooks
regularly looking for new things,” Koontz says.
Some of the cakes are seasonal,
such as the fresh strawberry, apple pound, tropical orange, hummingbird, banana split and
toasted almond amaretto varieties. Coconut, carrot and red velvet cakes are big sellers
this time of year.
Gingerbread architects
The bakery also makes gingerbread
houses and has recently started selling gingerbread churches. Koontz’ aunt, Mildred
Bean, her mother’s twin sister, decorates them.
Pies are also popular during
holidays.“We did tons of pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, and apple pies,” Koontz
says. “We do a lot of chess pies. They’re really popular. It’s an old-timey
pie that very few people make at home anymore.”
With its relocation, the bakery
also began serving deli sandwiches on fresh-baked bread with a choice of potato chips,
pasta salad, red potato salad or fresh fruit. Salads topped with gourmet dressing, soups
and specialty coffee drinks are also available.
Koontz, after graduating from
Davie High School in 1973, went on to study commercial art at Central Piedmont Community
College and worked as the visual director for Belk at Hanes Mall for seven years before
resigning to become a stay-at-home mom.
“I just sort of accidentally
got into this,” she says of the bakery.
From paper to cake
A friend, Deborah Dull, who now
works at Ketchie Creek, asked her to draw a doll on a birthday cake for her daughter.
“She knew that I could draw,”Koontz says. “I’d never decorated cakes
before but she figured that ‘If you can draw, you can do this.’ ”
When she tried it, Koontz
discovered that she enjoyed decorating cakes. “Someone saw that one and wanted
one,” she says, “and it just sort of snowballed from that point on.”
The bakery is named for a small
creek that runs through Debbie and Bob Koontz’ property on Ketchie Creek Road. Though
he works for Energy United, Koontz says Ketchie Creek is his “required hobby.”
“He gets to do a lot of
maintenance and repairs and things,” she says. “With this much equipment,
there’s always something that needs working on. He tells people, ‘This is my
play job.’”
Their two children, 17-year-old
Molly and 15-year-old Luke, both work in the business. “They’ve grown up in it,
working and doing things,” Koontz says. “Molly can decorate. Of course, she
hates it when people know that.”
Sensory overload
The inside of Ketchie Creek looks
like a full-size gingerbread house. With its blend of sweet smells and the broadspectrum
of colors in the intricately decorated baked goods, wide assortment of ice cream flavors
and packaged candy, it’s almost too much for your senses to absorb.
Add the coffee beans, balloons,
baskets and gift items such as Gund stuffed animals, cookie jars, Pooh figurines and
Christmas ornaments, and you’ve got everything you need to make someone’s
birthday or holiday special.
“Gift baskets are a big part
of our business,” Koontz says.
Fresh-baked goods and gift items
can be combined to create a custom-made basket from $20 on up.
Baskets for every occasion
Specialty baskets includeCoffee
Time, an assortment of coffees packaged with a mug and snacks; Everything Chocolate, an
array of chocolate creations; Harvest Time, a selection of seasonal fruits with a few
sweet touches; Carolina Pride, a collection of goodies made in North Carolina; and Holiday
Collection, a variety of holiday treats including Moravian cookies, sparkling ciders,
peanut brittle, truffles and ornaments.
People who order wedding or
anniversary cakes from Ketchie Creek are assisted by Pat Barba, the bakery’s events
planner.
“She sits down with brides
and their mothers or even just a family interested in getting a special cake,” Koontz
says, “and helps plan it from letting them taste of things to deciding the flowers
they want and where it’s going to be delivered and what time. She also helps set up
the cakes and delivers them.”
The word is spreading
As the bakery’s reputation
grows, it attracts more and more out-of-town business.
“I would say over 50 percent
of our business comes from out of town,” Koontz says. “One wonderful thing about
Mocksville, we’re in the center of so many different towns, Winston, Salisbury,
Statesville, Lexington, Hickory.”
People are aways telling Koontz
she should start a franchise.
“But the truth is it takes so
much labor to produce all of this,” she says. “I just feel that I’m spread
so much here that I don’t have enough time to properly pursue franchising.
“If the right people came
along one day and wanted to, it’s possible.”
Most days, Koontz works in the
back of the bakery, decorating cakes and doing whatever needs to be done behind the scene.
“I see people that I know,” she says, “and they’ll say, ‘Oh, I
came in the other day, but I didn’t see you. You must have been out flitting around
somewhere.’
“Sure, I’m out” she
says, laughing. “I’m always here.”
60 hours and counting
Koontz says she tries to limit her
hours to 60 a week, but often works more than that. “But I enjoy it,” she says.
“I don’t know what Iwould do if I didn’t do this.”
Her dedicated staff and satisfied
customers make it a rewarding profession.“We have so many, many people who are so
nice and kind and write us thank-you notes,” she says. “I feel like that’s
the one thing that keeps the business going.”
When the staff gets stressed with
the heavy volume of orders, Koontz says she encourages them to think about how
they’re helping to make celebrations happy and fun for their customers. “That
helps get you through,” she says.
n
Ketchie Creek is open Mondays
through Thursdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., Fridays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from
7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Christmas orders need to be placed
early, Koontz says, because Christmas Eve is their busiest day of the year.
The bakery, which has UPS pickups
daily, will ship orders anywhere and delivers in Mocksville and surrounding areas for a
fee. The bakery is located at 844 Valley Road in Mocksville beside of Bi-Lo.
For more information, call Ketchie
Creek at (336) 751-9147. |
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