Hungry Harlow Bakery started, like a lot of good things do, in our family kitchen.

Katie has always loved cooking and has a knack for turning even the simplest ingredients into something worth gathering around the table for. Baking, though, became something more after she became a stay at home mom. As we started paying closer attention to the foods we were bringing into our home, Katie was surprised by just how many preservatives and unnecessary ingredients were packed into everyday store bought baked goods. She wanted something different for our daughter, Harlow: food made from ingredients you can actually recognize, made from scratch, and made with care.

Katie had dreamed of working with food for years, but the cost of opening a traditional food business always made that dream feel a little out of reach. When Silas discovered Maryland’s cottage kitchen program, suddenly there was a way to start small, right from home, without losing sight of what mattered most.

And then, of course, we needed a name.

Harlow has always loved food, especially anything her mom makes. While tossing around bakery names, Silas jokingly suggested “Hungry Harlow” because, quite frankly, Harlow would happily eat all of the baked goods herself if given the opportunity. The joke stuck, and before long Hungry Harlow Bakery was born. Harlow has since taken her role as resident taste tester very seriously, although her glowing reviews of just about everything make her a slightly unreliable critic.

Silas helps where he can and proudly describes himself as a “sous chef at best.” His world is usually geared more toward the back of an ambulance than the inside of a kitchen, but being a first responder family is still a big part of who we are. At the end of long days, odd schedules, and busy weeks, food has always been one of the ways our family comes back together.

For Katie, that is really what cooking has always been about. She has a way of finding people’s hearts through the food she makes, and her favorite part has never been the recipe itself. It is watching someone take that first bite and seeing on their face that they can taste the time, care, and love that went into making it.

Today, Hungry Harlow Bakery is still a new, family owned and operated Maryland cottage bakery. Katie’s sourdough has become one of the highlights, but our kitchen is always experimenting, learning, and finding new things to share. Not every recipe comes out perfect on the first try, but around here even the experiments have a pretty good track record of disappearing quickly.

Our focus is simple: make good food from scratch using high quality, recognizable ingredients, avoid unnecessary preservatives, and support local suppliers whenever we can. We want you to feel comfortable knowing what you are bringing home to your family and, just as importantly, to be excited to eat it.

We have big dreams for Hungry Harlow. One day, we hope to grow into a storefront and commercial kitchen where we can expand into freezer meals, new baked goods, and all the ideas currently waiting for their turn in Katie’s kitchen. Maryland cottage food laws mean that, for now, what we bake has to stay here in Maryland, but we would love for the day to come when Hungry Harlow can travel a little farther from home.

No matter how much we grow, though, we never want Hungry Harlow Bakery to lose what started it all. When you buy something from us, we hope it feels like more than picking up a loaf of bread or a box of treats. We hope it feels a little like an invitation into our kitchen and a seat at our family’s table, where the ingredients are simple, the portions are generous, and the food still tastes like someone made it at home just for you.

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