Editor’s note: “In the kitchen with …” features people in the local culinary scene at home in their own kitchens. To suggest someone to profile, contact athome@bendbulletin.com.

Here’s a recipe for success: Buy an established bakery, invent a pastry that foodies adore, fall in love with another baker and expand your wholesale business.

That recipe may not turn out for everyone, but it has worked beautifully for Whitney Keatman at Bend’s Sparrow Bakery.

The frosting on the cake came when she found her true love and now bakery co-owner, Jessica Keatman. The couple will celebrate their first wedding anniversary later this month and have officially combined their original surnames, Blackman and Keating, to Keatman.

“It has been going great,” said Whitney, 30, from the couple’s west-side Bend home kitchen. “But during the recession we really had to batten down the hatch and watch expenses. It wasn’t easy. I bought this bakery in 2006, when I was 24. And in those early days we were robbed at night several times.”

But that was then and this is now. Whitney and her partner are savoring Sparrow Bakery’s sweet successes.

“We sell about 1,100 ocean rolls a week now,” said Jessica.

“We have a lot of wholesale clients, supplying breads to many of the restaurants throughout Bend. We’ve moved out of the building on Third Street, which was known as LaVoy Breads, and consolidated it all in our current building under the Sparrow Bakery name.”

The ocean roll

One test of a bakery is often a signature item; a humble roll can be the baker’s crucible. Whitney has proved her mettle with the ocean roll, which has its own loyal following.

“I really think I need to give some credit to my dad because the one piece of advice he gave me when I bought this bakery is that I needed a good roll. We used to go to Rose’s Bakery in Portland when I was little, and their cinnamon rolls were so huge and delicious, we used to share one roll for like nine people. So my dad felt we needed a memorable roll, too,” said Whitney. “I started experimenting, but instead of a cinnamon roll, which uses brioche dough, I wanted to use a croissant dough. My grandmother is Finnish, and she used to put cardamom in everything, so I experimented with what is now the ocean roll and used cardamom. But in the beginning it was all trial and error. Fortunately, people seem to love our ocean rolls.”

The famed ocean roll is sold not only at the tiny Sparrow Bakery cafe, but also at several coffee shops throughout town, which carry Sparrow Bakery products. The bakery has expanded rapidly since 2006, and Jessica says it employs about 25 to 30 people to help with wholesale orders and the cafe.

Culinary mix

While Jessica can manage the books, she can also expertly fold butter into pastry dough.

Whitney hired Jessica, a California Culinary Academy graduate from San Francisco, as a baker whose shift started at 3 a.m.

Recently at the couple’s home, Jessica, 25, used a French rolling pin to roll out whole-wheat pizza dough on a floured countertop in their pristine kitchen.

“We’re going to make a bacon and kale pizza for dinner,” said Jessica, who had already placed the baking stone in the oven. “We probably make this at least once a week. We love this pizza.”

Whitney said Jessica smoked the pork belly herself. It is no ordinary bacon — it’s smoked and seasoned with a sweet paprika glaze.

Whitney said her culinary skills were built upon a decade of acquired knowledge, experience and secrets honed at Ken’s Artisan Bakery and at Wildwood Restaurant in Portland.

“Wildwood was the first restaurant in the state that started using local foods,” said Whitney. “Both places had very high standards of perfection, and I brought that to Blue Sparrow, when I first started working here.”

After Whitney bought the bakery, she shortened the name to simply Sparrow Bakery.

Jessica spread pizza sauce onto her rolled out pizza dough and cut fresh mozzarella cheese as Whitney chopped the basil.

The two doyens of baking casually riffed on all things food as they prepped their pizza. It’s clear they know their way around a smoker, stove and oven.

Beyond the kitchen

Perhaps the real magic for Whitney and Jessica doesn’t happen in the kitchen, it happens with the food products they get from their backyard.

“Want to see our chickens?” said Jessica. “We only have two chickens now. We had a lot more last year, but they had a pecking order, and they didn’t do too well. But our Delaware chickens give us two or three eggs a day.”

The chickens seem content and even happy to see the bakers. Both Jessica and Whitney can hold them and smooth their feathers.

“I think they like to see us because they think we’re bringing them old pancakes,” said Whitney, laughing. “Chickens are great because we can give them old food scraps, and whatever the chickens don’t eat, we put in our compost bins. We have a zero-waste kitchen.”

Near the chicken coop, which the couple built themselves, Whitney showed us her covered raised bed, where her starts for vegetables, like kale,were starting to sprout.

“I had a greenhouse, too, but in that last storm, it completely fell down,” said Whitney.

The couple’s dog, Salt, bounded into the backyard, and the chickens, who had flown the coop, seemed unfazed by the canine.

“We had to work really hard to socialize Salt with our chickens,” said Whitney.

Her explanation of Salt and the chickens sounds like another recipe. Whitney laughed and said she could never live without salt from the sea, which is why the couple’s dog is so named.

What are the three ingredients you’ll always find in your home kitchen cupboard or refrigerator?

Whitney: Kale and an ungodly amount of seasonal fruit.

Jessica: Eggs from our hens.

Favorite home meals you like to prepare?

Jessica: My family is from Chicago, and when they went out to eat, it was always a steak dinner. My favorite meal is always a well-prepared steak, a baked potato and some green beans. Reminds me of family.

Whitney: Enchiladas, hands down.

What is your favorite home appliance in your kitchen?

Whitney: Hmmmm. I don’t lust after appliances in our home kitchen, but I will say that the combination of our two laying hens and the composter in our backyard help us to have a zero-food-waste kitchen. So I guess in a way, that’s my favorite kitchen-related mechanism at our house.

Jessica: I would be in love with our stove, if we had a nice gas stove. If your question was which appliance do you hate most in your kitchen, I would easily say our awful electric range. Yuck.

What is your favorite cooking utensil in your home kitchen?

Jessica: Sharp knives.

Whitney: Fish spatula.

Is there any appliance you disdain having in a kitchen?

Jessica: An electric oven.

What is your spice of choice?

Jessica: Paprika, sweet and spicy, Hungarian, smoked — love ’em all.

Whitney: We really crank through dried spices at our house, but I could never live without salt.

What chefs do you admire most?

Jessica: Mary Diehl, kitchen manager at Zydeco — It’s always great to see a lady running the line!

Whitney: T.R. McCrystal, owner of Jen’s Garden — I think we have a mutual professional crush, or at least I do.

What restaurants do you enjoy, other than your own?

Whitney: Portello Wine Cafe if we’re feeling like being good and eating healthy. La Rosa if we’re feeling naughty — both are our neighborhood joints where we know and care about the staff and love the food.

Jessica: I have a real guilty pleasure for The Pancake House — you can get fruit with whipped cream on top — my two favorite things in the world all in one dish!

Do you have a favorite cooking memory? Or favorite memorable meal you prepared?

Whitney: Went to visit my friend Marja, my garden guru, on her off-the-grid farm in Moab, Utah. We prepared enchiladas (my favorite), made our own fresh tortillas and stuffed them with venison she had shot and butchered herself. I know I can’t live like that, but visiting her is always an inspiration and a lesson.

Jessica: When my mom went back to school to become a teacher, I prepared most of the dinners for her and my older brother. This was truly the roots of my profession.

Favorite room you like to eat your meals in? Deck? Chair? Breakfasts in bed?

Whitney: A favorite place to dine would be at a real long table, or rather multiple tables strung together, in the backyard with lots of friends. I really prefer to cook for 20 as opposed to four; it might have something to do with my profession.

Does your family have a regular dinner or meal together?

Jessica: My mom does try to get family together during Hanukkah for a roast and latkes. Oh, that just made my mouth water.

Best meal you’ve ever eaten in your life?

Whitney: Best ever? That’s so much pressure. Frog legs in France when I was 16 followed by a dessert of fresh garden tomatoes.

Jessica: Actually the dinner we ate at our wedding reception was pretty spectacular. We got married last April at Brasada Ranch, and we asked for a no fuss barbecue. What we got was like luxury barbecue: off-the-hook baby back ribs, the best smoked chicken you’ve ever tasted, all the traditional sides, but each more delicious than the next. We had a cheese course of local cheeses, and they made a beautiful fruit salad! I love fruit!

Guilty food pleasures?

Whitney: Oh that’s easy: American cheese. Once while chowing down on a delicious cheeseburger Jess had just grilled for me, I told her that on my gravestone I simply want it to read: “She loved American cheese.”

Jessica: Chocolate, but definitely milk chocolate. I realize I’m supposed to eat dark chocolate, you know, for my health, but it has to be milk.

What is your ideal dream home kitchen?

Jessica: Well, we have a pretty great kitchen, but it would be so much better if we had a gas range. My kitchen is pretty well set up, though. I love to cook meat, and I have a bitchin’ smoker, a great barbecue grill, just need a better range. Oh, and a big basin sink. I guess there’s a lot I want.

Whitney: Yeah, I agree with Jess. Our kitchen’s pretty great. We’ve been working hard the last few years on our garden and raising chickens — now the garden feels like an extension of the kitchen. We can cook a whole lot with our setup right now.

Favorite food quote, or philosophy you often repeat to yourself?

Jessica and Whitney: At Sparrow, there’s no excuse for poor quality; nothing leaves this kitchen that we aren’t proud of.