Flaky croissants, stacked muffins and oozing cinnamon rolls ‘fly off shelves’ of new Leaven Bakery & Patisserie in Deer Park

Gooey cinnamon rolls, flaky croissants and other baked goods fill the shelves of the Leaven Bakery & Patisserie in Deer Park three days a week, at least until hungry shoppers clear the display cases each day.

The newly opened bakery is the longtime dream of Christie Janson, who owns the business with her husband, Clint. Though she works full-time as a nurse in Colville, she’s at the bakery at 4 a.m. to make cinnamon rolls, muffins and other baked goods before her lengthy work shifts.

“I’ve always loved to bake,” she said. “It’s very fulfilling to me when people like what I feed them.”

Her husband, who used to own a marketing company, has thrown himself into the work of running a bakery. He makes the sourdough bread sold by the loaf in a variety of flavors as well as the croissants. He watched videos and took part of a master class from a pastry chef to learn the techniques, then experimented with creating his own recipe to account for everything from the elevation of Deer Park to the temperature and humidity.

“Making croissants has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said.

His goal has been to make croissants equal to those made in Paris. To that end, he imports European butter to use in making them. European butter has a higher percentage of butterfat than American-made butter.

“There’s a huge difference in butter, and it’s expensive,” he said.

Clint Janson said he refuses to sell the croissants unless they’re perfect. He uses a hand crank laminator, a slow process that has him making croissants for hours at a time. He said he’d like to get a bigger, motorized laminator that would cut his baking time from seven hours to two hours.

Although the couple employs a baker, it’s not unusual for Clint Janson to make some of the other items on the menu as well, such as the fruit tarts. There are also cheesecakes, scones, cookies and pain au chocolat.

The shop uses local ingredients when it can, he said, including honey produced in Green Bluff. While the bakery does have an espresso machine, there are only a few drinks on the menu.

“Deer Park has a lot of great coffee shops,” he said. “We don’t want to compete with them. People are welcome to bring in their favorite beverage.”

The bakery is open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. Clint Janson said the couple wants to be open more, but there isn’t enough time to hand make everything every day currently.

“I need all day Thursday to prep for Friday,” he said. “As we get going, we’re streamlining that. We will be open Thursdays fairly soon.”

The bakery often sells out of certain items on Fridays and Saturdays, he said, though what sells out can change. The cinnamon rolls, for example, often sell out whether they make 75 or 150.

“We bake a lot, but no matter what, we sell out of some things quickly,” he said. “They just fly off the shelves.”

Though Christie Janson quietly dreamed for years about opening a bakery, it only happened because of her husband’s love of peanut sauce. The space the bakery occupies at 7 S. Main St. used to house the Thai Garden restaurant.

“The Thai Garden had the best peanut sauce I ever had in my life,” Clint Janson said. “I could drink this, bathe in this sauce.”

The couple ate at the restaurant frequently and got to know the owners. In late 2022 he heard that the restaurant owners wanted to retire and he offered to buy the rights to the Thai Garden name and 15 of their most popular recipes. The recipes were written down for him and he was taught how to make them so he could reopen Thai Garden as a take out only restaurant.

As the couple toured the space to evaluate what renovations were needed, Christie Janson mentioned aloud her dream of opening a bakery.

“I voiced that to him, just putting it out into the universe,” she said. “We had the space and I thought, let’s just make this a reality.”

Her husband immediately jumped on board.

“At that point I took Thai Gardens off the front burner and put it on the back burner,” he said.

The couple originally planned to open the bakery last year, but the renovations were more extensive than expected. There was laminate flooring laid on top of carpet and removing the drywall revealed two layers of wood paneling. They finished and opened the bakery first, but Clint Janson said he hopes to have Thai Garden open for take-out this fall.

He said he’s been practicing the recipes he bought diligently at home and has perfected the peanut sauce. He plans to do the cooking himself.

“Most of them, once they’re prepped, are really quick to make,” he said. “I’ve been practicing a lot.”

Clint Janson said the bakery has been welcomed by residents.

“Deer Park has been overwhelmingly supportive,” he said. “It’s nice to be a part of the community and give back to the place where I grew up.”