Our Story
When Owner Tim Corrigan was living and working in Japan, he became interested in a particular bakery that was making incredible European-style pastries and breads. For Tim, the allure was two-fold: He loved eating the bread and pastries, and he wanted to learn to make them. Tim worked early mornings at the Merukoro bakery for two years, learning the essentials of bread and pastry making. Tim also studied baking at the Brauthaus Bakery, King Arthur Flour in Vermont, and at The San Francisco Baking Institute. After a career in project management, Tim chose to pursue his passion and open a Bakery.
Tim’s wife Hiromi shares a love for good food. Hiromi brings much talent to the Carlton Bakery, in the form of creativity, culinary ability, and a passion for excellence. Tim & Hiromi worked together to build the Carlton Bakery, and create all of the homemade products, together with a group of very dedicated and talented employees.
In 2020, Carlton Bakery completed construction of a new, state of the art, building at 245 W Main Street, Carlton OR. Tim & Hiromi spent 3 years designing, constructing, and equipping this new building that will hopefully serve as a wonderful place to enjoy free time and good food. Our friends Rob Townsend & Pamela Turner helped to make this new building in Carlton a reality, as did our friend Kris Stubberfield, General Contractor. We are very thankful to conduct business at our new building location, and look forward to greeting you there.
Excellent ingredients are key to producing quality products. High quality ingredients used at the Carlton Bakery include Shepherd’s Grain Flours, local berries, jams from Alchemist Jam (McMinnville), meats from Northwest Premier Meats (Tualatin), eggs from Santos Farms (Yamhill), flours from Tualatin Plains Great Grains (Forest Grove), and jams from Republic of Jam (Carlton). At our Bakery, we work hard to provide our customers with a unique bakery experience that hopefully brightens your day, and reminds you that doing things the old way can be a very good thing.
Nearly all of our pastry and bread take several days to make due to the traditional methods used to make our croissant-based pastry and breads. These methods include creation of pre-ferments, such as poolish, levain, autolyze, and natural yeast–based fermentation. Mastering these methods is part of what makes baking at the Carlton Bakery a challenging and rewarding experience, and is an important element of creating our high quality baked goods. The extra time and effort we put into the utilization of pre-ferments is complimented by both our investment in quality equipment, and the sincerity and skill of our Carlton Bakery production staff.
Our opinion is that the time-consuming element and expense of many traditional baking methods has led to lower baked good standards, with an emphasis on quantity and volume over quality. Carlton Bakery is a business based on quality, unique flavors, consistency, and an emphasis on production methods from centuries past, leading to excellent baked offerings for our patrons to enjoy.