Cindy Day

Contributed Photo Cindy Day, owner of the historic Dutch Maid Bakery in Tracy City, Tenn., puts the finishing touches on some pastries.

Cindy Day's eyes light up at the mention of brownies, cinnamon pull-apart rolls and salt-rise bread.

Mrs. Day owns the Dutch Maid Bakery in Tracy City, Tenn., and her passion for baking goes back to her early days of cooking, where she learned the essence of making delicious baked goods.

"I learned that if a recipe calls for real butter, you use real butter, if the recipe calls for real whipped cream, you use real whipped cream, so when I came to the (Dutch Maid) bakery and found all those old recipes, when the old recipe calls for butter, I'm not doing margarine, I'm doing butter, because it makes a difference," she said.

That, she said, is the secret behind all the delicious breads, cakes and pastries at her Dutch Maid Bakery. This weekend, Mrs. Day debuts a 2,000-square-foot dining facility adjacent to the bakery. The new facility will allow her to offer full dinner service on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays beginning this weekend.

The new addition is part of a several-year plan in which Mrs. Day is rebuilding the Dutch Maid brand, through additional stores, a new Web site and online store and an expanded menu. The new menu will include dinner items such as Cornish game hens, bistro steaks and pork tenderloin, with prices that will not go above $14.99 for entrees, Mrs. Day said.

In planning the addition and other upgrades to the bakery, Mrs. Day enlisted the help of Kevin Maxfield, director of the Tennessee Small Business Development Center at Chattanooga State.

Mr. Maxfield has worked with Mrs. Day in the past, but over the recent month, he's helped her with some basic business planning and securing some capital for the new facility and other upgrades, including a new and improved Web site and online store which will debut soon.

"She is doing well, her business is really picking up," Mr. Maxfield said. "She's got a few things on the horizon and I think she'll do well."

Mrs. Day invested about $200,000 into the addition of the bakery's two-story dining room. It will seat more than 100 people and will be ideal for tour groups and other large parties that may come through Grundy County for a visit, she said.

"We wanted to be able to have plenty of seating, whether the group was coming just for coffee and dessert or a tour and a meal, whatever," she said.

The original bakery building was built in 1902, so the new space incorporates building techniques used during that time, such as tongue-and-groove ceilings.

Mrs. Day also added several new activities at the bakery, including classes and theme dinners In November, and she'll be offering classes in how to make gingerbread houses. December will bring Christmas theme dinners at the bakery and she plans to continue theme dinners once a month after the holiday season.

Mrs. Day bought the bakery in 2005, making her the third owner in the bakery's history. She reopened it in October 2005, and made goals for the bakery at the time. She's already achieved several of those goals, one of which was to open a satellite store. It opened in Jasper last year.

Mrs. Day makes everything from scratch at the bakery, which is very labor intensive. But it's fun, she said. She enjoys experimenting with the old Dutch Maid recipes. She's taken one for a basic chuck bread and turned it into chocolate almond bread.

"I love to be creative, and in doing the bakery, it's allowed me to be creative," she said.