Bakery Sight Seeing

For most people who know me, it's no surprise that I would find a way to bake cakes and pastries in Ghana but unfortunately I did not bring all of my supplies with me. So this last week I've been obsessed with finding baking equipment, baking ingredients, baking supplies, and bakeries in Accra. It is not an easy task, as you cannot just Google things in Accra and find them but instead you have to ask around and talk to people which I actually sort of enjoy. It does take a bit of time but I think it makes actually finding the store or bakery I'm looking for that much more rewarding!

Step 1: Find cake pans
There does not appear to be a huge baking industry in Accra so I figured this step would be challenging. My driver took me to a store he thought sold kitchenware and thank goodness the store owner was familiar with what I needed because I'm not sure my driver has ever baked a cake before! She suggested we go to the main market in town called Makola Market where we would find a little stall where men make the pans. I didn't know quite what to envision but never in my life did I imagine what we found. The market was amazing...a whirlwind of action, people, colors, and smells. Tons of people crowd the sides of the street selling their goods and then behind the street on both sides was just shack after shack where I imagine people live and work. So we parked our car in a tiny little opening on the side of the road and asked a shopkeeper to keep an eye on it and ventured into the market. My driver, Frank, kept a close eye on me as I kept a close eye on my purse (as I was told pick pocketing was possible there). We squeezed through people most of whom were carrying their wares on their head (you'll have to imagine this in your head because I didn't have my camera with me that day...which I kicked myself for later!). We weaved in an out of people stepping over debris and garbage almost like an obstacle course and asked every so often where we would find the baking pans. We finally cut inside the market and made it back to where, low and behold, about 4 men pounded away at sheets of aluminum to create baking pans...somewhat rudimentary but clearly baking pans in all shapes and sizes. There were heart shaped ones, clover leaf ones, and the usual square and circle. So Frank spoke to them in Twi (one of the local languages spoken in Accra) and the men took me even further back to show me their stockpile. I put in my order for 3 pans and with help from Frank, we bargained the price down to the equivalent of 6 dollars for 3 pans! I was thrilled with our success and Frank agreed to pick the pans up for me in the morning since it was a quite a trek to get there. I now have baking pans and plan to order more as I need.

Step 2: Find Ingredients
This bit of the story is a little less interesting but basically has involved me going to ever possible supermarket and grocery and then going up and down the aisles until I find what I need. I decided I would make a list of all the things I like baking and then a list of all the ingredients I need and I would keep track of where I have found them and how much they cost since prices can vary a lot here. Easy things are flour, sugar, eggs, cream, and baking powder/soda but the harder ones have been things like chocolate, gelatin, and cream cheese but I've almost finished my list and found everything.

Step 3: Find baking supplies
This would be perhaps the most laborious part of my quest to bake in Ghana. Although I did come here with some basic supplies, I knew that I would need things at some point in time like even just some traditional white bakery boxes and cardboard rounds for the cakes to sit in. I'm used to just going to my favorite baking supply store in New York and picking up everything I need in one place but it's not so easy in Accra. I started asking around to expats but they had no idea. Then I started asking some locals like my maid who knows there is a place but couldn't remember where it is or what the name is. Then I started going to the bakery department within the grocery stores and asking them but the sales people had no idea either. So Step 3 led to Step 4: Find local bakeries.

I figured the only way to get the inside scoop on baking in Ghana was to visit some local bakeries and ask the shop keepers where I can find supplies. So getting the names of local bakeries was no problem. I have been using this website called No Worries Ghana which the North American Women's Association has put together and although it's a fairly simple website, it's a good resource for almost everything. But the one problem is that there are not really addresses in Accra in the traditional sense we Westerners are used to. There are street names but most often drivers and pedestrians don't know or use street names and instead use landmarks and neighborhood names. So even on NoWorriesGhana.com they will list a bakery as being near the Ridge Hotel in North Ridge. If my driver was more familiar with the neighborhoods and shops, hotels, etc. I might have been able to just tell him that information and we could have found it but he's not so familiar with Accra. So, I went to my trusty google map of Accra and mapped out the locations of 4 bakeries all in opposite corners of the city and wrote detailed directions for how to get from one to the other. But, it is very difficult to explain to Frank how to go because he doesn't know the street names and I don't think he is literate and definitely has told me he cannot read maps so I have to convince him that my directions are correct but most often he likes to try his own way which is just as well because I am not convinced my directions will get us there either. So after getting a bit lost and turned around we made it to our first bakery which was pretty cute on the outside but unfortunately was less impressive on the inside. I've found that the whole sense of visually appealing bakeries lined with shelves full of mouth watering cakes and pastries does not really exist here and probably because sweets are not that big of a deal in Ghanaian cuisine. There were a few lonely sad looking cakes in the display with very little fan fare and a few danishes as well as some muffins but overall aesthetics seemed to be to the bare minimum and the place was pretty dingy. I figured I'd need to buy something to get any information from the sales lady but because the place was packed with waiting customers, my two muffins didn't get me much help or information that I could use. So on to the the next one. After asking a few folks on the street how to find the next place we arrived at a very cute and quaint little bakery with a seating area that would rival any Western bakery! Like the other one, there were a few sparse cakes in the bakery display but at least they looked appetizing. Only one thing missing...no salesperson and the place was empty. So I waited for a few minutes and finally the Ghanaian owner came out. What a sweet woman! I told her about my interest in baking and my quest for baking supplies and we quickly found out we had a lot in common. She was also self taught and started her business about 10 years ago. I started telling her how I used to read cookbooks like novels and she said she did the same thing. So after 5 minutes we were in deep conversation about baking and her business. She gave me a tour of her modest but quite well run looking kitchen with about 8 staff who were all busy making 500 sugarpaste roses for a wedding cake that was to be the replica of Donald Trump's last wedding cake (see below)! She gave me one of the roses to take home with me.




We browsed through some of her cake magazines and she showed me where I could find a baking supply store down the road (I would never have found it if it wasn't for her). And then I got up the nerve to ask her if I could spend time at her bakery and maybe help out and learn a few things and she welcomed me with open arms. I met her right hand man who runs the show in the kitchen and I'm all set to join them this Friday for some baking adventures. I am really excited to not only do some baking but also to get to work with and get to know her staff and see how they run this business.

So that is the finale of my bakery sight seeing adventure. I did not even bother going to the other places I had on my list as I've now got most of what I need to do my baking. Below are some examples of my first few baking experiments in Ghana.