Hot And Rising – Sloane Heffernan’s Rolling Sloane’s

Originally posted February 4, 2015

Welcome back to Hot and Rising! This week Sloane Heffernan, the owner and operator of Rolling Sloane’s, is telling us all about her infamous pop-tarts, favorite community of eaters and tips on what to expect as a new entrepreneur.

Although her business is relatively young, Sloane has quite the culinary pedigree. After attending the Culinary Institute of America, she moved to Oakland and spent time interning at Chez Panisse and working at the now-closed Citizen Cake, Bakesale Betty, Sweet Adeline Bakeshop, Ici Ice Cream, Feel Good Bakery, and most recently Beauty’s Bagel Shop. Having worked in so many well-followed cafes, bakeries, and sweet shops, Sloane already has her own following established around town.

“I’ve lived in this specific neighborhood, Temescal basically, for almost 7 years now,” she explains, “and I’ve been watching people have babies and watching their children grow. Those are the people who have been asking me for cakes and mini-cupcakes… I’ve also worked at all of these coffee shops around here, so I feel like I’m developing really personal relationships with this entire community. So I just kind of wanted to have a place where everyone can come to, all of those people who are my favorite regulars.”

While she’s a versatile baker, Sloane has already noticed her clients requesting specific treats – her nostalgic homemade pop-tarts seem to be the fan favorite at Rolling Sloane’s. “I’m currently known for my pop-tarts, which was just kind of something I came up with for the pop-up [at Beauty’s Bagel Shop],” she says. “I ran them for my first pop-up, and they were the first thing to sell out! Every single pop-up since then, it’s always the first thing to go.”

Her pop-tarts, set apart by their flaky pie-like pastry crust, are available at Oakland’s Cat Town Cafe along with a plethora of other sweet treats. From sweet, savory and even vegan pop-tarts, to cat-themed decorated cookies, vegan brownies and traditional, vegan and gluten-free cupcakes, Rolling Sloane’s has the snacks covered for all of the cafe’s guests (just not those of the feline variety).

If the wide variety of pastries she has to offer doesn’t have you sold, the ingredients she uses and the attitude she applies to her baking certainly will! “Everything I use is local, 100% natural if not organic, always in season,” she says happily. “I use Clover Farms Dairy and all farmers market produce and fruit for pop-up pastries. Pretty much any of the flours… are all unbleached and from Central Milling.” She also uses cane sugar instead of granulated sugar, avoids gelatin and loves a challenging order. “My website says I enjoy a good challenge, and that basically implies I’ll make anything you want me to make, so I’ve got to deliver!” she laughs.

So what does the future hold for this budding entrepreneur? Sloane participates in regular pop-ups at Oakland's Subrosa Coffee, Long Weekend, and Beauty's Bagel Shop, and hopes to be showing up at more locations around the East Bay while she prepares for bigger steps.

“My big dream is to have a bakery/live venue,” she explains in earnest. “Basically… I would run a regular coffee shop with baked goods, except they’re made in-house. Also, it could be a place where someone could use WiFi and squat on their laptops. The live venue at nighttime would allow for other small up-and-coming businesses to commandeer my space and use it as their pop-up and serve pizza or something, and also have live shows.” Knowing it may be a long time coming, she sighs contentedly and says “Until then, I’ll probably start out small and just have a tiny store front that seats maybe 20 people – somewhere in Temescal would be awesome!”

Sloane has many tips to share with other business owners and entrepreneurs to be, having been so recently through the process of officially opening Rolling Sloane’s to the public during the summer of 2014. “Start saving money now! That’s obvious,” she laughs.

Returning to a more serious tone, she advises others to “listen to your bosses when they tell you you’re not just going to get to bake whatever you want and that’s your only job. You’re going to have to oversee everything, you’re going to have to do computer work, you’re going to have to do bills, you’re not going to have time to do all of your fun stuff, it’s not just going to be following your passion. You’re going to have to do all of this extra stuff, too.” Sloane dryly admits that “now I’m trying as hard as I can to get pumped to do spreadsheets.”

Sloane is fun, lively and colorful, but she sure keeps it real. “Make sure you definitely want to do it!” she advises. “It’s not just something that sounds cool, or maybe you’ll do for a few years or anything like that. It has to be something that you’re actually giving up your social life for, and that you feel extremely confident about.”

You can find Sloane and Rolling Sloane’s offerings every week at:

• Eureka Coffee Truck - Tuesdays and Thursdays outside of Berkeley Ironworks - 800 Potter Street, Berkeley
• Cafe Underwood - 308 41st Street, Oakland

Extra thanks to Sloane for sharing her famous chocolate chip cookie recipe with us!

Rolling Sloane’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 pound unsalted butter (room temperature)

1 cup medium brown sugar

1/2 cup evaporated cane sugar

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 free range eggs

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

24 ounces semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Make it:

Cream the butter, sugars and heaping teaspoon of salt with an electric stand mixer with a paddle attachment or hand-held mixer with whisk attachments. Scrape all around the mixing bowl with a rubber spatula.

Gradually add the eggs and teaspoon of vanilla extract. Scrape all around the mixing bowl with a rubber spatula again, ensuring that all of the ingredients are well combined.

Add the sifted dry ingredients gradually, mixing slowly and adding the chocolate as you finish mixing in the last of the flour.

Chill it:

Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes before baking. It’s recommended to let it rest in the refrigerator between 12 and 72 hours after mixing.

Bake it:

Preheat your oven to 350°. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

Save it:

If you don't plan to bake the entire batch of dough, place large rounded scoops onto a lined cookie sheet, refrigerate, then transfer to a ziplock back. Freeze the ziplock bag of cookie dough until you’re ready to bake it in the future.