Sweet Success

How Pastries By Hanna became a Berkshires baking sensation

By Ellen Lahr

Photos by Max Vadkin

Hanna Rybolt was at St. Andrews College in Scotland on a path to a career in medicine, but a lifelong passion was percolating: she was spending her spartan downtime in the house dorm kitchen, baking. Neuroscience and baking are, of course, not too far apart in vocational demand: precision, brutal hours and discipline, all for a good outcome.

Medicine had its appeal, but baking was a fierce thread in Rybolt’s bloodline. Eventually her dream of being shoulder-deep in flour, in the wee hours while others are sleeping, won out. When she left pre-med studies for culinary school, she was likely among the unusual pre-med students whose family cheered her change of course.

“Even in second grade I wanted to have my own bakery or restaurant, it all came naturally to me,” says Rybolt, who grew up in the Palm Beach, Florida, area; her family later relocated to Boston. “After the pre-med effort, I needed to go into baking.”

She applied to Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island, and was accepted into the grueling culinary program. There, eight of the original 15 students in her lab group program dropped out, worn down by the misconception that baking is easy, or by grueling demands such as the nine-day “chocolate intensive.”

Fast-forward several years: Rybolt worked for a Boston area restaurant group with three delis, a fancy restaurant and a dive bar, partially connected by underground tunnels for convenient food transport. After getting married, she relocated with her husband, Corey Burns, to his native Northwest Connecticut. She took a job at Guido’s in Great Barrington and Burns set up his contracting business; she started baking in the commercial kitchen of the local Colonial Theater, and her husband started work on a new commercial kitchen on property next to their Canaan home.

The plan took root. Today, Rybolt is the head baker, recipe maker and delivery driver for her own business, Pastries by Hanna. Her pies (like Blueberry with Lavender Crumble), pastries (Hibiscus Passion Fruit Morning Bun, for instance), cookies (how about a Dark Chocolate Tahini Cookie?) and doughnuts (Coconut Cold Brew, or a Strawberry Basil fritter) are now infiltrating the Berkshire region food scene.

“I’m not a doughnut person, I don’t like doughnuts, so I wanted to make doughnuts I liked personally,” she says. “And the only place to get doughnuts around here is at Dunkin’ Donuts, or cider doughnuts in the fall.”

Where many health-minded people might pass by sugary, carb-loaded treats, those standards tend to fly away when they see Rybolt’s imaginatively decorated doughnuts, which headline her appearances at the farmer’s markets in Great Barrington and Kent, Connecticut. Great Barrington customers snap up

500 doughnuts each week; in Kent, the doughnut haul is smaller because the market there is still ramping up.

On the wholesale side, Rybolt delivers her pies, challah and focaccia to Guido’s on Fridays, and her bakery treats are found in pastry display cases at Cafe Holli, Six Depot, No Comply, Robbie’s, the Cliff House, two Ilse coffee shops, and other locations throughout the Southern Berkshires.

“People come and ask when she is bringing in her stuff,” says Jackie Robarge,

floor supervisor at Guido’s, which receives her deliveries of pies and other items on Fridays. “By Sunday it’s gone. It’s great for the Guido’s crowd.”

Rybolt’s predisposition to baking comes from her large extended family and their friendly food rivalries at holiday potlucks. Her mom and Aunt Mimi were her main inspiration, but she also credits the scientists in her family and her mom’s graphic design talent. With the recipe for inspiration in place, she needed one more ingredient: the right geographical niche.

After setting up shop in early 2024, Rybolt worked mostly alone, with some volunteer help from family and friends, until she hired an assistant in October 2025. She took a loan to finance the kitchen construction, and Pastries by Hanna began evolving in line with a business plan she had worked on for years.

Now her alarm goes off at 12:08 a.m., while the rest of us are dreaming of a decent doughnut. Her routine “is down to a science,” as she bakes her way each week through 400 pounds of flour, 150 pounds of sugar, and 108 pounds of butter. She snaps up seasonal fruit, crafting doughnuts around the berry or peach of the moment, and she relies on Marty’s Local, a farm produce distributor, for wherever else she needs.

“Saturday is the big one,” she says, referring to the Great Barrington Farmers Market. She says repeat customers arrive early, knowing how fast the doughnuts go, and some now make special orders for her pies and other baked goods. She sometimes turns out surprising danishes that might even pass for a meal: the Ramp & Fiddlehead Danish, or the Cheese Potato Danish; another features asparagus, ramp and ricotta.

While she loves the creative baking side of her business, she also values face-time with her customers at the farm markets.

“I love connecting with people, you don’t see a lot of customers when doing wholesale only,” she says.

What makes her doughnuts sing? She orders European cake yeast because “people appreciate that it springs back,” and she uses the same flour used for brioche bread for her doughnuts. Then there are the unusual temptation of a unique doughnut name, Maple Bacon Old Fashioned.

Rybolt’s doughnut menu has repeat items each week, but there is usually a weekly special. “My favorite is the salted malted vanilla doughnut; that one is always on the menu,” she says.

She plays every possible role in her business—in addition to being head baker, recipe maker, and delivery driver, she is also the point of contact, business manager, Instagrammer, and retail operator at the farm markets. Despite the long hours, it’s a labor of love.

“I’m definitely happy and excited to see how this business changes and evolves, and having a retail location someday is the goal. That’s what my sights are set on now,” she says.

Meanwhile, she’s getting to know her farmer’s market “regulars,” and she knows what they will be ordering before they get to the front of the line.

“I wanted to be part of the fabric of the community, part of other people’s routine, and the community has been so welcoming,” she says, adding an example: “I did someone’s baby shower, and then I met the baby.”