The fresh baked goods from Gloria's Apron are designed to ignite memories of tastes and feelings from treasured moments in your past filled with warm history in your own family's kitchens. The ultimate goal is for you to feel nostalgic about a treasured family memory when you pop a Gloria's Apron cookie into your mouth.
Gloria's Apron is led by baker, Erika Sandstedt, who was inspired to create the business from the wonderful memories she has of her mother's kitchen growing up. Gloria created a safe haven of warmth and yumminess for young Erika, fostering a love of baking and bringing joy to others with fresh baked goods.
She grew up baking with her mother and in 4H, connecting her with food and her community from a young age. Erika wants her bakery to connect with the Fremont County, Colorado community by using her breads, cakes, and cookies to evoke feelings of joy and resilience. She loves taking family recipes from local community members and recreating them for you to eat, enjoy, and remember!
Meet Erika
I got so excited to be in the kitchen with my mother watching her cook and especially when she was making desserts. Even friends who would come over after school would find their way to the kitchen to see what was cooking. One friend in particular loved the warm chocolate fudge sauce my mother made just as much as I did.
We would watch every step as it came together and drool as my mother poured the finished thick and fudgy sauce into a bowl to cool. As an adult, my mom and I would laugh out loud remembering how she could barely save enough to top the frozen banana split dessert before we had large spoonfuls to our mouths.
My mother made the simple moments of each day special with her desserts and that is what I hope anyone who enjoys our food might experience.
I decided to take a leap of faith and begin developing Gloria’s Apron in 2020 after working as a licensed clinical social worker for over 25 years. My hope is to blend my passion of working with people with my passion of cooking and baking in a fun mash up. I love making classic desserts and love when I uncover a special story behind the recipe that brings it to life.
A fun fact about Paul and I is that when we met in 2018, we learned our mothers are both named Gloria and our sisters are named Kara. It was very surprising to us, feeling both names are not very common and the spellings are the same. My mother died in 2019 and Paul’s mom is alive and well living in Colorado.
I got the name of the bakery after my mother died and I was going through boxes at her home with my sister Kara. We found a couple of boxes filled with colorful aprons she wore everyday and for special occasions. I had found the name! Paul’s mother having the same name makes it extra special. Unfortunately, they never got the chance to meet, but we feel the name honors both.
Meet Paul
Erika's partner, Paul, is focused on providing fresh bread to the entire Cañon City community. Paul's mother, Gloria, has always been an avid chef/cook, baker, and entertainer. Growing up in Wisconsin, her mother and four aunts were heavily into baking and passed down myriad recipes for breads, cakes, and pies.
Some of Paul's fondest repeating memories are of walking into his home after school to smell an apple pie as it was baking in the oven. There was always a small plate full of cinnamon and sugar-filled pinwheels left over from his mom's latest crust creation waiting for him to devour.
When Paul was eight, he moved to Italy when his mother remarried a career Navy man. After being absorbed in this culture, he began to appreciate things that taste good. Just a block away from his home was a small Italian bakery with the most amazing panini rolls that he would take home, fill with butter, and devour.
These early memories laid the seeds that would grow into a lifelong passion for making bread. While living in Bavaria/Southern Germany and taking many road trips to various countries throughout Europe, Paul tasted a practically endless amount of breads and other baked goods that are hardly represented in the states.
More than four decades later and after a lengthy career in the construction industry, bread and Erika's bakery dream are Paul's main areas of focus. He wants to provide the residents of Cañon City with a premium bread product that's free from preservatives and unnecessary chemicals!