“Marzi Pan”: Baking up a dream

“A dream is a wish your heart makes …”

— From Walt Disney’s Cinderella

(Photos by Stephanie Hellmann, Nice Shots)

Since he was a 12-year-old boy washing dishes in Madison’s Dieken’s Bakery, Rob Youngblood has had such a dream, in the grand spirit of American entrepreneurship: To own his own business.

Specifically, his own bakery, with his own distinctive cakes, doughnuts, cookies, and all the other things that make the aromas of a bake shop suggest that one has died and gone to heaven.

And now finally, in a very short time, Rob and his younger brother, Brian Youngblood, will be opening the doors of their creation, Marzi Pan Cakery & Deli, to the general public for the first time. Rob said “marzi pan” is an almond paste used to cover wedding cakes, make candy bars, and the like.

“I can say that our heart’s in it — it’s our passion,” Rob said on a recent morning as he and Brian paused from their labors, getting the place ready to open, at their new business at 2034 Lanier Drive, the former location of a bike shop, just around the corner from The Waters of Clifty Falls and within easy driving distance of Clifty Drive, the Madison State Hospital and several of Madison’s factories — not to mention an extensive residential area centered on Rabbit Lane.

Rob Youngblood’s wish, his dream, may have started when he decided his part-time job of washing dishes at age 12 was no way to begin a career.

“I had a passion for art,” he recalled, sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee from the cozy dining room in the new “cakery.”  “I brought some of my artwork in to show Mr. (John) Dieken what I could do. He moved me to the cake bench.”

That’s where Rob’s most obvious talent for the baker’s art — creating beautifully decorated cakes (I once bought one that he created, and it WAS beautiful — and delicious) started to manifest itself.

“Mr. Dieken would scale my cakes, with icing,” he recalled. “If it was overweight, he would tell me. We’d scrape the icing off and start over again.” Rob said one of the skills Dieken taught him was timing: icing a cake, decorating it, all in five minutes, flat. Now, he can do it faster than that, Rob said proudly.

At first, he said, Dieken would sell Rob’s cakes at half price. “He was smart,” added Rob, giving the broad, toothy grin that is just like his and Brian’s dad’s (a good friend of mine for many years).

Of course, Rob didn’t just go from working for John Dieken to opening his own shop overnight. There were a number of years in between, including a summer in which Rob worked at a specialty bake shop in Columbus, Party Mart. There, he was able to add to his baker’s skills.

“I learned texturing, and piping out a figure with icing, and sculpture — actually carving a cake,” Rob recalled. Later, he and his wife Ann and their children spent five years in Utah, where he managed bakeries, until returning to Madison. They have baked, decorated and sold cakes from their home in Jefferson County for years. Now, that business will be folded into the Marzi Pan when it opens. “Ann’s glad to be getting her kitchen back,” laughed Rob.

Rob and Brian are scions of an old Madison family, the Youngbloods, with roots deep on Walnut Street. Many older residents can still remember the wonderful smells emanating from the bakery that Clem Schoenstein operated for years in his home on that thoroughfare, known for years as “Incubator Avenue”.

The two young men plan the usual tasty merchandise one would find in a bakery: wedding cakes, red velvet, German chocolate, and the like; carrot cake; and pumpkin rolls. They also expect to offer Italian foccaccia bread, with garnish; chunky cinnamon bread; croissants; Danish rolls; pecan Danish; coffee cakes, or “kuchen” as they’re called in Germany; muffins; and, of course, various varieties of doughnuts. In addition, there’ll be special pastries called “The Honeymooner,” and “The Gator Jaw” (“Which looks just like the name implies,” said Rob). But he asked that the ingredients be kept confidential as a “trade secret.”

The doughnuts will make their trip from ingredients to finished product, “hands free,” said Brian, who will be in charge of the machine that manufactures them. “It’s got a fully automated conveyor system,” he added. “Come watch the doughnuts come off the conveyor!” After the machine is loaded, the doughnuts are conveyed into the fryer, where they are fried on one side, automatically flipped over, then travel on down the conveyor belt until they are glazed, again automatically, at the end. “No fingerprints,” said Rob.

Brian said the machine, once in operation, can produce up to 200 dozen doughnuts an hour.

“We can hold a lot of doughnuts,” added Rob, speaking of the new cakery’s display case capacity. He said watching the process is “a visual experience, and also one of smell.” Rob said that making doughnuts should — hopefully — go on all day. “In some bakeries where the doughnuts are all baked by 6 a.m., and the overnight staff goes home, then when you’re sold out, you’re out.” The freshness of the doughnuts also suffers when it is done that way, he said.

Now to the other part of Marzi Pan’s name — “deli.”

The Youngblood brothers will feature a large selection of sandwiches, soups and other lighter fare, for eat-in or take-out. Rob said take-out orders will have a cookie or other smaller tasty treat added to the sack, free of charge.

“And we’ll give a free cookie, or something like that, to any child who comes in with their parents, and who isn’t tall enough to see over the counter,” he added, and all laughed at the stipulation.

There’ll be original sandwiches such as the “Marzi Malt” and “The Presley, the King of Sandwiches,” Rob said, with another kidding grin. Again, he asked that customers be allowed to discover the ingredients for themselves when they come to shop.

In addition to the goodies to be consumed on the premises or taken home, the Youngbloods are to have something new to Madison: A package deal for upcoming weddings: custom-decorated cake, planner, photographer — the whole nine yards.

“We have a wedding planner working for us here now,” said Rob. “We do a consultation with the bride and whoever she wants to bring. We decorate a cake for them while they’re here, show them how to cut and serve a wedding cake, they get to sample the cake flavors, and the different icings. We plan to make it a Wal-Mart of taking care of the bride. You know, ‘I hope it was a good experience for you.’ I really would like to put this together.”

For those who would like to bring in their laptops when dining at Marzi Pan, the deli will have WI-FI, Rob said.

And John Dieken, who gave Rob Youngblood his start in the bakery trade, will be involved — as an advisor and mentor — in the Marzi Pan, Rob said.

“I guess all the time, he’s been my mentor,” he said of the retired baker. “I would call him if I had questions about something.” Dieken has acted in an advisory capacity and has helped the brothers locate equipment and other things for the bakery, Rob said. Madisonians who remember Dieken operating his own bakery for years may well see him helping out at the Marzi Pan on occasion.

“I can say our heart’s in this; it’s our passion,” said Rob. Added Brian, with another big grin, “Walnut Street’s rising!”

Brian does not have a work history in the baker’s trade as does his brother, but Rob said Brian became enthusiastic about his brother’s dream and is now fully involved in it.

“We’re brothers and partners,” Rob said firmly. “Brian’s learned fast.”

The Youngbloods hesitated to give a firm opening date yet; but it will be very soon. Rob said the likely hours will be 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. “But if we’re still busy at 6 p.m., we might stay until 8 or 9,” he added.

It may sound unlikely that a boy whose most obvious talent was in depicting the world with pencil and paper, should have wound up as a baker — with his own shop, yet. But Rob explained it this way, with another “Gotcha!” grin:

“With my passion for art, I didn’t want to be a starving artist — this is a tasty medium.”