Last year Zach Martinucci launched the first Denver Bake Fest, hosting it right in front of his South Broadway bakery, Rebel Bread. It proved so successful, he decided to do it again, growing the amount of goods, people, and entertainment.
“We were so grateful and surprised by last year’s turnout, and it made us excited to make this an annual event,” said Martinucci. “The baking contest remains at the heart of the event, and we’re excited to begin adding additional attractions like cooking demos, bakery tours, baking games, and live music for guests to enjoy.”
It was through a similar type of festival that Martinucci got his start as a professional baker. The event was hosted by Spoon University, an online food magazine intended for college students. Dubbed Spoon UCLA: The Great College Bake Off, Martinucci joined in 2017. He brought his Persona Loaves, which were breads based on his friends’ personalities. Shortly after the successful run, he decided to study baking full time.
The Denver Bake Fest came because Martinucci wanted to give other amateur and cottage bakers a chance to grow and have fun. That’s where Jeff Nixon came in, and became the winner of last year’s bread category with his five-grain Bird Brain loaf. For Nixon, making bread went from a hobby developed during the pandemic, to his current livelihood.
“Sometimes you don’t know what will take off,” said Nixon over the phone. “Right now I am full-time bread, and you could never have convinced me that that’s where my life was heading.”
Before bread, Nixon worked for the television industry, developing trailers for shows his company hoped to produce. The work proved heavy and stressful, he said, and like many people stuck on a screen for eight-plus hours a day, he got burned out. He also missed working with his hands, which is how Nixon got into creating bread at home over two years ago.
“When I started sharing with my community, it wasn’t supposed to be a job,” he said, adding that at first he would just walk down the street and see what neighbors wanted bread, no charge. “I slowly started growing an email list, and now the list has over 500 people on it.”
Turns out a lot of people clamored for fresh, no additives bread, which Nixon made well. The demand surprised him, after all, he said, he wasn’t trained. All the bread-making education came from videos online, recipes, advice, and a lot of trial and error.
Now Nixon maintains a cottage bakery, which he calls Spruce House Bread after the street he lives on with his wife and kids in Centennial. Spruce House Bread is a full time job, and Nixon makes around 30 different items including baguettes, cinnamon rolls, country loaves, babka, a lemon white chocolate bread, and more. He uses a sourdough culture, locally-grown grains, and flour milled at Dry Storage in Boulder. And, he will be at the Denver Bake Fest again this year, churning out a Pueblo green chile and cheddar loaf, a take, he said, on his popular jalapeno-cheddar version.
Stories like Nixon’s is exactly why Martinucci wanted to launch the Denver Bake Fest in the first place. One of his favorite parts of last year’s festival, he said, was seeing so much creativity on full display across the baking contest.
“I was surprised by unexpected flavor combinations like Shivani’s Gajjar Ka Halwa Cheesecake, impressed by the effort and execution put into the baked goods like Miles’ Bagels with all homemade fixings,” said Martinucci, noting Miles’ Bagels is actually opening up as a brick and mortar soon, dubbed Odell Bagels in Highland. “I was also excited to see the enthusiasm people shared through their baking experience, like the 20-plus contestants that competed in the Chocolate Chip Cookie category in pursuit of the perfect cookie.
Judge these treats for yourself and visit Nixon and the other 99 bakers this year on Saturday, October 5 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Denver Bake Fest takes place at 675 S. Broadway in the Denver Design District, right in front of Martinucci’s Rebel Bread. Rebel Bread will be peddling goods for purchase as well, though with over 100 choices from gluten-free cake to brownies to quick breads, it may be hard to pick.
Bonus, this year’s fest benefits Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness, or CHOW, whose mission is to support wellness within the hospitality industry and to improve the lives of our community through shared stories, skills, and resources. For a complete schedule and to see the contest categories, check out rebelbreadco.com/bakefest.
Want more baked goodies? Check out this interview with Bakery Four’s founder.
