GALION — A longtime Galion resident who started his business quite by accident is breaking the baking mold.
Bill Faulds, who runs Bill’s Bakery out of a former laundromat on West Walnut St., has been churning out baked goods for 10 years, now. But his signature sugar cookies and anise flavored Springerle cookies – made with wooden molds – have become favorites, not just with Crawford County residents.
“A lot of baking is eyesight and feel,” Faulds said as he packaged and tied baggies of Christmas tree cutouts waiting to be delivered to retail locations all across the state. “I swore I’d never work in a bakery when my grandfather retired and moved to Alabama.”
But baking is in his blood.
His grandfather, Harry Steineck, owned Steineck’s Bakery in downtown Canton. As a youngster, Faulds was his sidekick, mixing yeast dough for bread, donuts and other baked goods.
“I helped him from the time I could hop on a lard can and get up to the bench,” he said.
In 1952, Faulds and his family moved to Galion so that his father could take a job with the Pennsylvania Railroad in Crestline. Faulds met his wife, Marty, here and spent most of his working career at Sprint, where he retired as a computer programmer after 30 years.
When the old Galion High School closed in 2007 to pave the way for a new school campus, Faulds bought some of its kitchen equipment, including convection ovens and 30-quart mixers. Over the years, he also picked up mixing bowls, baking racks and other essential bakery items.
Bill’s Bakery was born in 2008. In the beginning, Faulds said, he made pies, blondies, brownies and even fresh baked bread and rye buns for Phil’s Deli in town. But five years ago, he decided to concentrate on cookies, especially the white Springerle’s with decorative scenes on the top.
Springerle (SPRING-uhr-lee) cookies, a Yuletide tradition, were first baked in the early 1400’s in Swabia, which now includes parts of southern Germany, the Alsace region of France and Switzerland. They are said to be the first cookie made with a leavening agent that helps them “spring up.”
Faulds and his wife, who is the bakery’s frosting queen, have collected hundreds of antique Springerle molds, many of which were passed down from her family.
The egg-sugar-flour dough recipe is an original, tweaked from a recipe both her grandmother and father used. Each cookie is hand pressed with the carved wooden mold, then cut out with fluted-edge cutters.
“They have a foot on the bottom because they rise up, not out,” Faulds explained. “If you don’t have a foot on your cookies, they’re not real Springerle’s. You gotta have the dough just right. That’s the key to these cookies and their prettiness.”
Although not open to the public, Bill’s Bakery cranks out more than 300 dozen Springerle’s a week, including an orange flavored variety.
“Springerle’s don’t have much flavor except for the oil,” Faulds said. “It gives you a hint of flavor. The orange ones are good for dunking in tea.”
Christmas tree cut-outs are always a top seller this time of year, Faulds said, along with star, bell and reindeer shapes – all made with a hint of almond and covered in a rich buttercream frosting dipped in colorful sugar sprinkles. In January snowflakes take over, just one of more than 1,000 cutters on hand.
Faulds, a self-described cookie monster, admits that the business has been a learning and growing process.
“It all evolved,” he said. “If it’s not fresh, I won’t sell it. I try to make them so I’m proud of everything I sell. I just enjoy making people happy.”