One of Elizabeth Drake Brown’s earliest memories is of her mother Anne’s tiny kitchen filled with the chaos of their family’s most daunting baking assignment. Dad Harry had volunteered Anne to make 600 dozen cookies for the General Electric Christmas party. Available counter space was covered with mixers and balls of sticky dough, cookie sheets, cooling racks and containers. The oven timer went off like clockwork every 10 minutes or so, signaling her mother to pull out one tray for inspection and insert another. The then eight-year-old Brown woke up for school to find her mother hunched over the counter every morning that December, and after school she returned home to join her in baking until her bed time. Her tiny hands kneaded, mixed and cut like an old pro for the Iron Chef-like three-week challenge of turning out dozens upon dozens of sugar, ginger, and chocolate chunk flavors.
It was back-breaking work; as any seasoned baker knows, the oven can inspire as many aches and pains as an elliptical trainer. But Brown, never averse to a little hard work, fell prey to the lure of the Kitchen Aid.
She was in love with baking.
Though she took a few career detours (as an archeologist/church musician/math teacher), Brown recently decided to capitalize on that childhood love for baking and embark on a culinary career. After snagging jobs at both Sylvania’s Element 112 (making macaroons and other delicacies) and the Toledo Country Club, she’s throwing her oven mitt into the cottage food industry with her home baking business Earthen Dragon. She caught an early break when, in January, Black Kite Coffee & Pies began carrying her scones, cookies and gluten-free brownies, and aims to parlay these early successes into an eventual brick and mortar location downtown or the Old West End.
On the day we interviewed her she was finishing her semester commitments as an Owens Community College instructor, and keeping pace with a baking schedule that starts at 9:30 am and ends well into the night. “It’s busy, but I’m enjoying it,” Brown says. “I really like this kind of work, where you produce something and you look at it and say ‘this is what I made today.’ It’s very satisfying in a way you can’t really quantify in other jobs.”
Brown’s aesthetic is equal parts wholesome and whimsical; she’s as comfortable making confections like marshmallows as she is rustic, not-too-sweet scones. She’s not interested in giving her products the “lite” treatment, but is an adamant advocate for quality — local, organic, natural products are what she seeks. She gleans inspiration from do-good bakers, like her favorites, the Zen Buddhists who created Greyston Bakery in New York City. “They’re interested in sustainability and giving back to the community,” Brown says — a business model she admires and hopes to emulate as Earthen Dragon grows.
“When I get a storefront, I want to make sure that we have profit we can feed back into local businesses or the community in some way,” Brown says. “I would really love to help rebuild, particularly the Old West End area.”
Earthen Dragon products are available by special order via email or phone, or at Black Kite Coffee & Pies, 2499 Collingwood Ave. For a menu of goodies, search Earthen Dragon Bakery on Facebook. 419-376-2534; [email protected].
