New sourdough bakery opens in Kansas City: cinnamon rolls, sandwiches, loaves and more
.jpg "Sourdough serves dulce de leche cake, cinnamon swirls and other goods.")
Sourdough is the internet’s favorite kind of bread. It’s also Atsuko Hammann’s.
Atsuko has been baking for 30 years and experimenting with sourdough recipes for three. She liked it so much she started putting the fermented dough into cookies, bagels, croissants and other treats.
After running an at-home cottage bakery for two years, she’s finally opened a brick and mortar in the Northland called Sour Rabbit Bakery.
Her bakery made its debut this week at 7715 NW Prairie View Road, serving pastries, sandwiches and some coffee drinks. It moved into the former Anita’s Famous Rolls space, which closed at the end of the year.
“She wanted to have a bakery for a very long time,” Atsuko’s husband, Rolf Hammann, told The Star.
Rolf is a co-owner of the bakery, though for years he was a master sausage maker in his home country of Germany. A culinary apprenticeship took him to Japan, where he met Atsuko and fell in love in 1986.
The two waffled between living in Germany and Japan for several years before coming to Kansas City in 1997.
When Atsuko decided to open a bakery, she knew she wanted to keep her products as gut-healthy as possible.
“Everything is very traditionally made, so very limited in terms of ingredients,” Rolf said. “As clean as possible.”
Taste-wise, sourdough is a slightly more tangy than traditional dough. Not everything has sourdough in it (the cheesecakes for example), but most products are sourdough-based. She doesn’t sell doughnuts (leave that to popular vendor Slow Rise).
Atsuko also does custom orders of shokupan, a milk bread popular in Japan. That’s been quite popular, the couple said, as it can be difficult to find in the U.S.
Sour Rabbit’s first week was hit with a few hiccups. The blizzard knocked out their power and forced them to close the shop for two days so Atsuko could restock.
Even with its light turned off, customers peeked their heads into the windows and pulled open the doors, asking whether they could purchase treats.
Opening day on Tuesday however, was plenty busy, Rolf said. Now that the power is back on, they’re ready to keep rolling.
Sour Rabbit is open 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. It is closed Mondays.