Fern tarts, Eccles cakes, Neapolitans and empire cookies trigger a mouth-watering wave of nostalgia. Whatever makes it tick, the East City Bakery is a comforting place; a place that takes us back to a time that seemed simpler and more innocent. And that's no accident.

"We like to keep it that way," says Markus, who bought the business, Better Home Bakery (since 1972) from the former owner Erwin Bukowski in 2009 and has made only minimal changes since. Change for the sake of change is not Markus Breuer’s style.

Though Mr. Breuer has been a baker since 1986 and still loves his work. With his German training as a Master Baker behind him, he visited the Better Home Bakery in May ’09 asking for a job," Markus’ said. "But the owners said they couldn't pay me any money."

The previous owners, Erwin and Sybille Bukowski, told him they were interested in retiring soon, so they offered to sell him the business. Breuer took ownership of the bakery on Sept. 1, he said. The Peterborough resident is a master baker from Germany with 25 years baking experience, he said. The only real change the neighbourhood will notice is the name. Breuer decided to call it East City Bakery.

"When you ask people in Peterborough where the bakery in East City is, they don't know the name," he said. "So it's now just called East City Bakery."

Along with all customers' favorite recipes, Breuer said he's added some new pastry, cookies and breads. The East City Bakery is a friendly place and Markus is proud of its ambience. "My girls know maybe 60 per cent of our customers by name. That makes the customers feel at home."

While the East City Bakery has a strong following in its immediate neighbourhood, regulars come from across the city, and as far away as Port Hope, Norwood, Havelock, Buckhorn and Kingston to stock cup on many varieties of breads, cookies, cakes, pastries and muffins that fill the display cases.

And Mr. Breuer goes out of his way to cater to the needs of his clients. “A lot of older people come in because they can buy single items. They don’t have to take a whole package. If they only want two cinnamon buns or a half dozen cookies, that’s what they get.”

And if it's  sugar-free bread, cakes, cupcakes or salt-free bread you need, Markus will do his best to accommodate you.

Although gratuitous change is not high on Markus’ list of favourite things, consumer tastes do change and it's only good busi­ness to respond to those changes.

"Fruitcake is not so popular anymore. We still do fruitcakes and plum puddings for Christmas but not like eight or 10 years ago. It's the same with wedding cakes. This year, I did one fruitcake wedding cake. Now it's all carrot cake, chocolate cake, white cake and marble cake. But we still go with the customers wishes!” In the summer season we have about 3 wedding cakes a week up to 4 tiers.

Markus has even done Styrofoam wedding cakes but warns that they aren't a great money saver. "The price isn't much different because of the work in decorating and creating that dummy cake. It takes the same time as a carrot or white cake."

Varying seasonal demands also dictate much of what his oven produces at any given time. Sales of mince meat-Pies and tarts soar' at Christmas time. Rabbit cakes, Easter cookies and Easter bread sell well each spring.

And some 700 East City pumpkin pies make their way onto the dinner tables of area families during the fall season.

About 600lb of Butter we put in our cookie-doughs at Christmas season.

Whatever your favourite baked goodie, chances are excellent that you'll find it at the East City Bakery. After all, it's Markus’ job to know what people want. However, when asked to name his customers' number one favourite, he hesitates before say­ing almost apologetically, "We try to keep them in stock the custard slices, different kinds of brownies and butter tarts, turnovers and danish, fern tarts and empire cookies, eccle cakes and éclairs, cannoli and nanaimo bars, sugar free pastry and cup cakes, black forest and raspberry cream pie, sticky and chelsea buns, cinnamon nut and cherry loafs ... and and and …"