The Altadena Cash Mob this week makes its way to the Dutch Oven Bakery, providing both breakfast and dessert to Altadena for nearly 55 years!
This week’s cash mob will take place Saturday, August 4, at Dutch Oven Bakery, 2281 N. Lake Ave.
The bake shop was founded in 1957 and might just be one of the longest running bakeries still in business under the same name in the Pasadena area. Since August of 1990 the head bakers/owner-operators have been David Davis, Sr. and David “Reg” Davis, Jr., a father and son team who live on Mountain View Street. They specialize in continuing baking traditions and developing new ones for those who live in Altadena and those who visit the community (including hikers in need of refueling for up or down the hill!).
Items you can find at the Dutch Oven Bakery include both full size and small tea cakes, pecan pies, fruit pies and cobblers, turnover fruit pies, blueberry muffins, chocolate chocolate chip muffins, German chocolate cake, cinnamon rolls, birthday cakes, Monkey Bread, Seven-Up and Sock It To Me bread, bran muffins, and varieties of pound cakes. Day-Old items are also available at $1.50 per bag. The Day-Old shelf is right by the door, which makes it easy to run in and pick something up quickly.
Photo cakes are available as special orders for occasions, as are custom birthday and wedding cakes with real buttercream frosting.
The Davis’s specialties are sweet potato pies— available as full size or mini-pies— and wide variety of honey muffins. Honey muffins include honey lemon, honey blueberry, and honey pineapple in a yellow cake. The recipe was derived from the former owner Judith Talbert’s* original honey bran muffins without yellow cake, which the Davis’s still bake as well. At one point, the Davis’s owned three bakeries in the area, including the Hillcrest Bakery at Lake and Washington, but Dutch Oven Bakery is the only bakery where you can still get items baked by the Davises.
An Altadena resident since the early 1960s, the elder Davis was a commuter to Mid-City where he was an insurance salesman who moonlighted as a part-time baker (Reg Davis was a full-time baker). Davis had never been in the Dutch Oven Bakery, despite passing it often on Lake Avenue. “I was always rushing down there towards the freeway without stopping,” stated the elder Davis.But one day a colleague told him that the bakery was for sale up here in Altadena by its long-time owners, the Talbert sisters. He pushed it to the back of his mind, but a year later, standing over the mixing bowl, he recalled the bakery and came in to speak with the sisters, leading up to where it is today. Together, the Davises baking also changed a bit, and they began to make new things for Altadena in contrast to the wares at his previous bakery, at Ann’s Creative Pastries on Venice Boulevard. “Doughnuts really sold there, and here we made more muffins and pies,” stated the younger Davis.
“I’ve always loved Altadena, and the people of Altadena,” added the elder Davis. “I want to give something back.”
Davis and Davis are at the bakery beginning at 5 AM on weekdays and Saturdays, and at 7 AM on Sundays. Coffee is also ready beginning at 5 AM, so if you need to start your day extra-early and want some motivation to get out of bed – the Dutch Oven Bakery is open for you.
“To bake, baking has to be in a person,” stated Mr. Davis, “Out of all my six boys, Reg has it…my other sons have tried it...it is not just about the ingredients…it comes from within…It is hard work, late at night and early in the morning...You have to listen to the rhythm of the paddle and the dough in the mixer, you can hear it and you can’t do it from the top of your head in commercial baking…You hear that rhythm and then you know the dough is ready.”
Plentiful street parking is available at that early hour, and for other times of the day, there is also a parking lot in back too. The lot can be entered from a covered walkway between the Altadena Florist and the historic brick Altadena Junction Mt. Lowe Power House.
