(upbeat music) - We're cooking up something sweet in this week's episode of You Oughta Know.

- It smells so good.

- A family business passes on to the next generation at a new location.

- In Salem, we're still a community and we're thankful that we get to be part of that community.

- Giving back is part of the recipe for success at this New Jersey bakery.

- I love it, it's like a warm hug for your belly.

- Behind every pie from Little Susie's is a piece of home.

- We renovated the building and have been carrying that tradition of homemade candy ever since.

- And we go back in time to learn more about two of Philly's iconic confectionery and ice cream shops.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to You Oughta Know, I'm Shirley Min.

I'm here at Shane Confectionary in Old City.

This historic candy shop is one of several reimagined specialty shops that make up Confectioner's Row.

And it all started with ice cream.

We decided to come up with the Franklin Fountain like an experience, where we're serving a product, we're serving people, but in an environment that transports you to a specific time.

About six years after the fountain was born, we had an opportunity to buy the candy store.

We renovated the building and have been carrying that tradition of homemade candy ever since.

I'm gonna show you a few of the things behind the scenes at Shane's today.

(upbeat piano music) This is a hand-cranked elevator.

It goes from the basement up to the second floor kitchen.

In the back, in 1916, the buttercream machine was installed, this huge cast iron cream beater which makes the company's center product called buttercreams.

In addition, on the second floor, we make our clear toy candy from these old molds made here in Philadelphia at the turn of the century.

Those are hard candies in a variety of colors and shapes.

Just lightly tap it on the top.

And if it makes this tinging sound, it's not cold enough that it will shatter, but it is not warm enough that it's going to deform.

They're called clear toys because children would play with them and eventually consume them.

And we continue that tradition both at Christmas and at Easter, the two most popular holidays at Shane's.

On the third floor at Shane Confectionary is our Chocolate Works.

We've restored a 1965 made in Philadelphia enrober.

And now what goes into that chocolate waterfall is literally our homemade chocolate that starts here at the Batch Roaster.

And all the bonbons and the chocolate bars are handmade still today.

We knew that candy stores also sold and made their own ice cream.

We decided to compliment Shane's that had been here for so long.

Our philosophy has always been artisanal.

For our mint chocolate chip, we take that fresh mint sauce and we weave it into our peppermint white base with our dark chocolate chip swirls.

The reason we made it white and green was because we wanted to be like Franklin, who was the great compromiser, and we wanted something to be unique to what we do.

Not only is Shane's America's oldest candy store, but Leticia Street, named after William Penn's own daughter, had at least three very famous confectioners.

A baker, Christopher Ludwig, who baked very special gingerbread cookies.

A chocolate maker named Benjamin Jackson.

These kinds of chocolate bars were sold across the street at Benjamin Franklin's actual print shop.

Also on the block, Charles Hyers.

He was really a pharmacist and he learned of a native drink called root tea.

It was really his genius to call it root beer.

And we love to continue that with our homemade ice cream as a root beer float.

There's a lot of history to the site that we're on.

Not only are we doing ice cream and chocolate and hard candy, but there were all these confectioners before us.

Theo, I love that this register actually works.

It really does.

It's a great centerpiece for the building.

All of the old-timey touches are really beautiful, and I need to try this because it reminds me of my little toy cash registers I had.

Oh yeah, that's satisfying.

Oh definitely.

Our customers love it every time they come in.

Well, the old-timey touches, once you step in the shade, is just so magical.

The glass, even, on the outside of the building is unique because it's curved.

It's curved, original to the building itself as well.

My pride and joy is where I always have that little bit of anxiety in the back of my head that it's going to break one day.

Knock on wood.

Well, the building itself has such great bones because there are still a lot of fixtures that are original.

Talk to me about those.

Sure.

Yeah.

So while we did have a bit of a restoration refurbishing when we took over in 2010, still original to the building are a lot of the display pieces with some added touches like the glass doors, the tin ceilings and tin walls still original to the building.

Wow.

The floors are original too.

The floors as well.

Yeah.

No, you can see the age of just existing in here.

So people who have walked across these floorboards 100 years ago were walking across them now.

But that's so beautiful.

It really is an experience and takes you back in time.

I know I feel that way.

Oh, definitely.

That's the experience you're going for.

We are.

Yeah.

No, that is our we have people, customers who come in here who remember being kids in this candy shop.

And we want to like kind of elicit that response of like what it's like to be a kid in a candy shop back in the 1900s, late 1800s, when this building first opened up as confectioners.

Well, mission accomplished.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And there's a new addition to confectionary row.

The cacao pod, which is an event and production space where guests will be able to host events or enjoy curated dessert classes.

The folks behind me are busy making candy and cutting brownies.

Meantime, across town, the folks at Little Susie's are busy making pies, about 7,000 of them a week.

Apparently, they taste like a warm hug, so I had to find out for myself.

Welcome to Little Susie's.

How may I help you?

It's window service only at Little Susie's Coffee and Pie, where the service is fast, the menu is simple, and the pies are world-class.

Oh my gosh, it's so good.

This is so good.

Don't just take my word for it.

Hey, can I get a purple and cheese and a matcha oat?

It's phenomenal.

I love it.

It's like a warm hug for your belly.

It's meant to feel like home.

And that's something that I think is maybe sorely missed nowadays.

From classics like apple and cherry to a half-baked brownie pie, there's something for every sweet tooth.

I'm here about two to three times a week.

My husband likes the savory ones, so he'll get cheesesteak, the pork roll, sausage, egg and cheese.

They're really good.

The sweet ones are nice too, but the savory ones are where it's at.

And lots of people agree with Nicole.

While the sweet pies get plenty of love, the savories are really on a roll.

Dan's top seller, pork roll and cheese.

What started with just four logs of pork roll has grown to 30.

That's a lot of logs.

- It is a lot of logs.

Yeah, we might be the top seller of pork roll in the world.

- Wow.

- This is what our purveyor tells us.

- You feel like you need a crown for that.

- Something, a pork crown.

- And the unofficial pork roll king of Philly is keeping busy.

How many pies are you making?

- So right now, we're pushing out around 7,000 pies a week out of the row home behind us.

- I can't believe you make 7,000 pies.

That is insane.

- It's madness, yeah.

It's gonna have to be 10,000 or 12 by the end of the year.

- Oh, my gosh.

- Without a doubt.

- Dan even put me to work.

- And we just kind of throw a little sugar in there, a little cinnamon.

♪♪ There we go.

There it is.

We lost one, but that's all right.

Rookie mistake.

So just flip it over and kind of do a little hook.

I overfilled this one.

You can try to, you can get your, you can touch the blueberries.

It'll start, yeah.

Mine's not as immaculate as yours.

You're demonstrating every rookie mistake that there is.

Okay.

And then the twist is just one fold over another.

Oh, why are you doing it so fast?

I have 6,999 more to go.

Little Susie's Pie, anyone?

At this point now, it's become so popular that we're looking to take it coast to coast.

So safe to say you like pie.

I love pie, yeah.

But before Little Susie's goes coast to coast, there's one question I had to ask.

Who's Susie?

The name comes from my neighbor who had lived here before we took over.

His name was Bob, wonderful man, and he had a dog Susie and so when it came time to like name the shop it felt very appropriate to name after the pup.

It was already their corner to begin with.

I try to feel like home.

There's a lot of nostalgia around food, especially this type of food.

We want to give people that experience when they bite into one of these pies, they kind of get sent back to a place where they were like, you know, with family and friends.

Thank you very much.

It'll bring back some memories and spark a bit of joy.

From tiny toys to knickknacks, see how this sweet gesture is warming hearts.

If the candy, shakes and pies haven't tempted you yet, just wait.

Coming up, a Philly bakery that's expanding and keeping success in the family.

But first, how one little bakery has become a sweet spot for the Salem community.

Hello, welcome to Willow's Wisp.

What can I get for you today?

I'm big on scones.

So we have a couple different types.

It is blueberry.

When I was on my way to another place of employment, I discovered Willow's Wisp.

We don't have very many food options here in Salem, so it was really awesome when they decided to open up because I could get a little sweet treat or a cup of coffee.

[music] Salem is over 350 years old.

It's a community that's currently healing and I think what helps is having those moments and those pieces that bring joy.

The community itself is doing its work but I think having a bakery and having that those moments of joy and those moments of connection is really powerful.

So my favorite is the brownie.

If you're a fruit person, we have blueberry muffins that are really, really good.

It's important for us to invest in Salem because Salem invests in its small businesses.

(upbeat music) - When people talk about communities and how, you know, communities aren't what they used to be like, where you know your neighbors and they drop off things 'cause they're thinking of you.

In Salem, we're still a community and we're thankful that we get to be part of that community.

We still have customers that come in and thank us all the time for just being here.

We think Salem is a great place to open a business.

The area is very, very supportive.

We do a lot for the community.

Whenever there's a call that somebody needs something, I feel like Ashley always steps up and says, "Yes, how can I help?"

The part that really fosters community is Ashley runs the baking club, which I always think of as a book club, but for baking.

It's the easiest way for me to think of it because you talk about the stories, like people have stories that have to go with the baking.

A lot of times recipes also have a memory associated with it.

So getting to go to these baking clubs, you get to hear other people's stories about baking and it also helps bring people together.

[music] I had a friend with a small business and he was sponsoring a tee ball team and he had mentioned, "If the tee ball team doesn't get a coach, then that's it.

There's no tee ball team."

And so I said, "Alright, no problem.

I'm there."

It wasn't even a thought.

They were like, "Well, we don't know how we're going to find time, but we're going to make it."

And Ashley volunteered, and they were a T-ball coach for this past season in Salem, and we've seen a bunch of the kids come in and their parents come in, and they've all been really appreciative that we're able to provide that as well.

I am most proud of the impacts we make on the community.

You can't change the world overnight.

It just doesn't work that way.

But you can change somebody's world.

You know that feeling like people get when they come downstairs and like breakfast is cooking or mom's baking and like the smells are great you're excited that that would be the goal [Music] Katina is helping us elevate be a bit more contemporary than her father and it's been a real joy it's filled my heart with so much happiness Tiffany's Bakery was started by my parents in 1977.

My very first job was a sampler.

We used to have a cinnamon bread that we used to sample and I would go out front of the store and they put me in a white hat and I think a lot of the ladies were pinching my cheeks.

You know, my dad is 84.

My mom is 82 in excellent health.

My mom really ran the store for many, many years before I came back into it.

Everything started as my dad and my mom's recipes and the strawberry shortcake has been with us for 35 of 49 years or so.

We have a cult following for it and I understand why and I love it too.

One of my favorite products.

I've had the amazing help of my daughter Katina.

Katina has grown up around the business so she's been a part of all of our recipes and testing and plenty of cupcakes have been iced by her.

So I've really had a piping bag in my hand since I was six.

I wasn't a sampler, but I spent a lot of time in the back.

Was very privileged to get fresh cookies out of the oven.

Officially, my role is as creative director and brand manager.

Her having a larger involvement in things has been a real add for us.

She has helped us do a lot of rebranding and has been in charge of all the interior decoration design look and feel.

And it's been amazing just getting to use all of my creativity into highlighting the beauty of our team and bringing Tiffany's Bakery to new audiences.

We have a lot of very long-term employees.

My head baker, she's been with us for 20 plus years.

My head decorator is 35 years.

It's been a wonderful team.

We're so blessed to have them.

Working for Tiffany's Bakery has been amazing.

They help you change your life in many ways.

It's not just a job.

We're all family too.

So we're there for each other.

In April of this year, we moved to 801 Arc Street.

And subsequent to that, we've opened our store here in Manayunk The Manayunk store is our first neighborhood store.

And it's been a great combination because we have a long history with a lot of loyal customers.

And at the same time, we've done a nice refresh on things.

We put so much care into everything we do.

It's been just so amazing being able to work with my dad.

It's been a real source of synergy between us with what we do.

And we want to bring our really special products to everyone in Philadelphia.

I just think there's so much love in our business that then gets mirrored in the celebrations that we get to share with our amazing customers.

This next story is also about a baker who used his skills to free himself from slavery.

WHYY Arts and Culture reporter Peter Crimmins and photojournalist Emma Lee have his story.

An army moves on its stomach.

That's what they say.

And it could not have been more true than during the American Revolution.

George Washington's Continental Army was only as good as it was fed.

We're here at the mill at Enselma in Chester Springs.

We're just a few minutes outside of Valley Forge and we're baking bread in the same way that it would have been made for the soldiers who were camped at Valley Forge.

What we're doing, we're preparing the bread to go into the beehive oven.

The oven has to reach about 500 degrees.

I just spread the coals out all through the oven so it can evenly heat the floor.

Our first loaf of bread.

It takes an army to feed an army and the Continental Army set up a network of bakers so there was a constant flow of bread to the soldiers.

One of them was Cyrus Bustill, who was a black man born a slave.

Through his baking skills he bought himself out of slavery and his descendant, Joyce Mosley, said he helped feed George Washington's soldiers at Valley Forge.

He was a wagoner and a baker so what would happen was they would get flour at the port of Burlington and for one month Cyrus was commissioned to bake that bread and then they drove it the bread to Valley Forge.

This one looks gorgeous I think this one's ready.

As a baker and a patriot Cyrus Bustle didn't just feed a Continental Army as an entrepreneur he taught black Philadelphians what it meant to be free.

He kind of bridged the difference between the people being enslaved and then people being free.

He was able to walk that line and encourage people that were still enslaved.

After the war Philadelphia's black population soared and it needed leadership to show them the way forward.

So people like Richard Allen who founded the Mother Bethel Church, Absalon Jones, the first black Episcopal priest and Cyrus Bustle, the town baker.

People of African descent are coming to Cyrus to his bake shop to understand and make connections with this person of African descent who is doing well for himself.

So we sit here in this space that is considered the oldest land owned by people of African descent in Philadelphia.

And I like to think that Cyrus was an inspiration to Reverend Allen to put this together.

Now this is a wall of all the bishops of Mother Bethel Church starting in 1787 all the way to today.

Now Cyrus Bustle was not a member of this church, but he did co-found one of the first black mutual aid societies, the Free African Society, which inspired generations of black leaders.

In 1787, Cyrus Bustle gave a speech to a room full of enslaved people to give them hope for the future.

I am not a young man.

I am 56 years of age.

I have seen numbers laid in graves at a time some of them little expected.

I know not how soon it will be my turn.

I would therefore that we work while it is called today.

For a night cometh where in no man may work.

Cyrus was saying to them, there's a path forward.

There are some steps that you might have to do.

They might be a bit uncomfortable as far as how you want to carry yourself.

But at the end of the day, the goal is for us to get some agency, to be able to have something for ourselves and to be able to build community from within.

All this candy has me thinking about something sweet, but not the kind you eat.

On South Street, one woman is delivering little surprises and big smiles to strangers.

I am a lifelong Philadelphian.

I'm an attorney by trade.

My job day to day isn't super creative, so this is like my creativity flag.

♪ Someone could be having an otherwise crappy day in the world right now and they just happen upon the box and find something cool that sparks joy and gives them a little happiness in an otherwise not so happy day.

♪ This is the Philly Trinket Trove.

It is a box where you can come to give a trinket or take a trinket or both.

(upbeat music) The definition of trinket is pretty loose.

It's often, you know, a small toy, a little piece of artwork, crafts, some stickers, little pieces of jewelry or pens and buttons.

You just take one and leave one.

When I see people engage with the box, there's a lot of emotions involved.

At first they're, you know, "What is this?

What have I stumbled upon?"

And then they open it and they see what it's inside and they're like, "Oh wow, you know, I haven't seen one of these in ages," or "I had one of these when I was a little kid."

It's nice seeing when you see a parent, a child, and they're teaching their children, you know, the golden rule and telling them if they are going to take a trinket, they should also leave a trinket and helping them choose which little treasure is going to be the one that they're going to bring home.

Every once in a while, there's a trinket in there that I'll see.

There'll be something that, "Oh, I had something like that when I was a little kid," and it'll it'll bring back some memories and spark a bit of joy.

Yesterday I was sitting at City Hall and there was a Donatello that was laying on the ground and I picked it up and I said this would be perfect for the Trinket Trove.

The community has been really great about the box.

The restaurants and stores around here have all participated in one way or another.

Some of the bars have said it's become a destination and people will come to the Trinket Trove and then go for a drink.

There are other Trinket boxes around the world.

There's a website, it is the Worldwide Sidewalk Joy Map where people can look up other Trinket Troves and similar boxes around the world.

I was not the first person to do this.

I'm not the last person to do this.

It has sprouted a bunch of boxes in the area.

I think we're up to 15.

It's really heartwarming to see how it's spread all over the city in Philadelphia and all over the world.

And that is our show.

A big thanks to Shane Confectionery for having us and thank you to you for watching.

I am going to enjoy this gingerbread.

Oh my gosh, it's so good.

Good night, everyone.

♪♪♪