Our volunteers have the opportunity to bake and donate two different items for our neighborhood food banks. You can choose bread, energy cookies, or both! Or mix it up: donate bread one week and energy cookies the next. Both are whole grain, delicious, and equally appreciated by food bank clients. Each donation is your choice!
Once you have attended an information session and registered as a volunteer, you can download the recipes for either of our program bakes.
Our Signature Bread!
Our Honey Oat Sandwich Loaf recipe is available in multiple formats, spreadsheet or pdf, and multiple leavening options – meaning you can use commercial yeast or a natural starter. Folks rave about our bread. Home-baked bread is a time commitment, about 6-7 hours per batch. Batch size depends on your equipment, but generally bakers choose to make 3-4 loaves. Experienced dough-handling skills are not required; we support your journey every step of the way. These loaves are a terrific way to nourish our community.
Our Grab ‘N Go Energy Cookies!
Find bread a little intimidating? Need something that takes less time, something you can mix in one bowl with a wooden spoon?! Our Grab ‘N Go Energy Cookies are a perfect match. Made with six nutritious whole-grain flours (pre-mixed by us, and available for purchase at our online shop), you can whip up a batch of 32 cookies in just a few minutes and complete the whole project in just a few hours of baking.
Have a question? Ask away in the comments!
Hi Darla,
Community Loaves program assistant here!
We found the Costco brand dried cherries on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kirkland-Signature-Dried-Cherries-Ounce/dp/B07DBVGJ39/ref=asc_df_B004CSGRS0/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693368766128&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4477611334006064271&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033276&hvtargid=pla-568657547022&mcid=07758d01633e3ef4ac12a4285fb45fe4&gad_source=1&th=1
Hope this helps! Please let us know if you need any other sourcing help.
Hello, I am a newbie to the Community Loaves. I plan on making the cherry/choc chip energy cookies. Where are people buying the dried sour cherries? I have checked Costco & Target with no luck. Thank you!
Hi Ed, thank you for your question! Our bakers use a special mix they purchase through our shop to bake the cookies, following our signature formula. A lot of time and development goes into each recipe we donate to our partner food banks, as our items are designed to meet certain nutritional specs. It’s not so much a cookie as it is an energy bar in cookie form. You can find more details on the nutritional value of our Energy Cookie here: https://communityloaves.org/nutrition-facts/.
Your oatmeal-raisin-walnut-orange zest-cranberry-clove cookies sound DELICIOUS. We do plan to add to our mix of recipes, and if you would like to share, we will add it to our R&D.
in baking Energy cookies, are CL bakers restricted to a specific recipe? The reason I ask is that I make a great oatmeal-raisin-walnut-orange zest-cranberry-clove cookie and would like to share them with CL distribution.
In my food pantry box this week there were these amazing candy cane and chocolate bars 8 was wondering if the recipe was available. If it’s a large recipe I can reduce it to a smaller one no problem. The bars were so good my family wants me to make more. Happy Holidays and thank you
Penny, this is a delayed response to your question. Our apologies. We’re getting a new system in place. All the instructions for any of our donation items can be found under the formulas tab on your volunteer dashboard. I’ve added an image to the FAQ to help future bakers find the spot.
Carol – this is a greatly delayed response, but yes. Costco yeast is perfectly acceptable. We love it when our volunteers can support our monthly flour fundraiser through the flour store, but in a pinch purchasing these items elsewhere certainly works! Thank you. ~ Katherine
I noticed you sell yeast on your website. I buy yeast from Costco – is it OK to use this yeast instead?
I lost my step-by-step instructions.
