Kingstowne Farmers Market: If It’s Baked and Tasty, It’s Here

If you notice a short line at the Cenan’s Bakery stall, you might want to make a mad dash for it. There are many tasty baked items at the Kingstowne Farmers Market, but the Vienna bakery usually has one of the longest lines as shoppers choose from an assortment of breads, croissants, muffins, scones and cookies.

“I like good food. I was one of these kids who was with the mother in the kitchen,” said Cenan Pulak, who spent most of his youth in Turkey but has been in Virginia for almost 40 years.

However, he did not plan to be a baker. He was studying engineering when he took a night job at Vie de France in Rockville, MD. He enjoyed the baking, and by the time he left 12 years later he’d helped lead the company’s expansion.

Years of consulting and other opportunities followed, but on December 1, 1992, he got what he really wanted: his own bakery. Cenan’s Bakery, pronounced JEN-ahn, allows Pulak to “just have one location and do a lot of the things that I want.”

“I like baking. I like to work with everything natural,” Pulak said. “No preservatives, no chemicals … I did that from day one.”  He also likes customers to taste the time that goes into each piece of bread. “The simplest bread and croissant that we make takes 48 hours from start to finish,” he said. “We have one bread that takes even 72 hours, the Danish Kernel Bread. One of our most popular breads, [it] has 19 different grains. Very heavy, dense bread.”

Pulak said the Danish Kernel Bread and the Cinnamon Swirl are two of Cenan’s Bakery’s fastest-selling items, especially at the Kingstowne Farmers Market. Having a presence at a farmers market was not Pulak’s idea. He said a French couple sold his breads and croissants along with their own items. When the couple returned to France, the organizers of another farmers market found him.

Pulak believes his engineering background helps him maintain hundreds of recipe formulas. “You can be a great bakery, but you have to be also consistent,” he said. An engineer’s mind also comes in handy when he has to repair expensive, European baking equipment. “Something breaks, it always breaks in the middle of the night and in the weekend.” he said.

But owning Cenan’s Bakery is worth it. “I wanted the quality I wanted,” Pulak said. “To do the things you want, add things you want … it’s nice to experiment. I just don’t like to sit and wait on what’s gonna happen. I look at the trends.”

A natural trend he looks forward to is something Kingstowne Farmers Market fans know all about. “Wait ‘til all the produce and everything comes,” Pulak said with a smile, “we’ll bring even more products” to the Cenan’s Bakery stall.

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Cenan’s Bakery

122 Branch Rd., SE, Vienna, VA 22180, 703-242-0070, http://cenansbakery.com/

Kingstowne Farmers Market Hours: Fridays, 4:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.