This summer, Middlebury’s main street gained a charming and unique addition known as Chim Chimney Bakery. Open Thursdays to Saturdays from noon to 7 p.m. and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays, Chim Chimney specializes in a Hungarian pastry known as a chimney cake.
Formed out of a pastry (and not cake), the dough is shaped into a cone and baked before being filled with a variety of options, ranging from the sweet to the savory. Sweet cones are filled with homemade gelato, while more savory offerings feature a dough made from Italian herbs, fresh garlic and cabot cheddar cheese. Current menu options include a warm apple pie cone and a salisbury steak cone, although these selections often change based on ingredient availability.
Chelsea Griggs, the owner of Chim Chimney, has lived her whole life in Middlebury. In an interview with The Campus, she explained that, as the previous owner of the Inn on the Green, she has had experience serving breakfast for hundreds of guests, but had never baked on a professional level prior to owning Chim Chimney.
“Baking was a bit of a change. It was always a hobby of mine, I was constantly a foodie but was never cooking for the public,” Griggs said.
Griggs was first introduced to the concept of chimney cakes by the social media platform Pinterest. A self-described Pinterest fan, she stumbled upon the “doughnut cone,” a cone-shaped pastry filled with soft serve ice cream. She made it her mission to locate a bakery that sold these cones, and eventually stumbled upon a spot called Eva’s Original Chimneys located in Toronto. After a trip to sample the cones there, she began to experiment with baking them at home, which resulted in her daughter planting the seeds for what would eventually become the name of Chim Chimney Bakery.
“It was a lot of trial and tribulation at home, figuring out how to create something that we could cook in an oven to replicate these. While making them at home, my daughter asked me what I was making and I said that I was making chimney cones. She thought that was quite interesting and started singing the Mary Poppins song ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ while we were baking and that’s kind of how we started with the name Chim Chimney,” Griggs said.
After much trial and error, Griggs decided to fully commit to the chimney cake learning process. She quit her job and went to Hungary to stay with family, where she enrolled in a culinary school dedicated to teaching the art of baking chimney cakes.
“After going to Europe and really seeing how these were made, spending time with people that have done this their entire lives, it was just a really fun process. It allowed us to be artistic with the design and creative with the flavors,” Griggs said.
Upon her return, she opened a food truck selling her cones to measure public interest in chimney cakes, which led to the eventual purchase of the Chim Chimney location on Main Street. With previous experience working in the rental real estate market, Griggs opted to redo the building and decorate it herself.
“We were able to find some Mary Poppins-like touches, like the umbrella fixtures, our kites and our spoon full of sugars,” she said.
Griggs explained that all of Chim Chimney’s wares are baked or made from scratch from local ingredients. On a typical week, she spends her Mondays picking up supplies from several different farms. Tuesdays are dedicated to making gelato and sorbet from fresh ingredients including milk and cream from Monument Farms, as well as berries that often determine the flavors available in the bakery later in the week.
“I never know our menu ahead of time,” Griggs said. “I just am inspired by what’s available at that time.”
The chimney cakes are baked daily, a process that takes several hours to accomplish, which is why Griggs begins her workdays at 5:30 a.m. on days when the bakery is open. Every couple of hours, a new batch of cones is produced. Griggs’ family currently helps with day-to-day bakery operations, where her mom, daughter and two stepsons work often alongside her. She is hoping to add to her team soon as the bakery continues to grow.
Chim Chimney’s menu will be expanding for this upcoming winter. Apart from the standard cones, Griggs plans to serve soups as well as purchasing an espresso machine.
“Downtown Middlebury can get a little quiet after five p.m., so it would be nice to offer a place where you can still get espresso or a latte after the evening hours, ” she said.
Griggs is looking forward to providing a space where Middlebury community members can come together, like how the now-closed Ben and Jerry’s did throughout her childhood in town.
“I just hope everyone feels welcome to come by and try our treats, and just say hi! It's lovely meeting everyone and getting to know everyone that's on campus. We are definitely excited to meet more people,” she said.
