Luckily here in North Jersey, there is no shortage of vegan dining options – whether it’s full vegan menus or restaurants supplying a variety of vegan options. This Bergen county sister duo has entered into the mix and supplies New Jersey with a truly unique, homemade, made-to-order vegan doughnut experience: Food Baby. And it makes its doughnuts from potatoes — that’s right, potatoes. This love child of a doughnut shop has only just opened as of April 2022 at 240 Paterson Avenue, Unit 2 in East Rutherford, but it has already compiled a significant following with its signature heart-shaped vegan potato doughnut. We got the chance to chat with Food Baby and discuss the backstory, process, and, of course, the doughnuts. Read on to learn more about Food Baby, New Jersey’s heart-shaped vegan potato doughnut.
(Photo credit: @foodbbynj)
The Backstory
Although Food Baby was born in April of 2022, the story begins back in the sisters’ childhood.
Andrea and Sara Sievers grew up close to their Italian grandmother, who immigrated when she was 27 years old from Naples, and always had the sisters in the kitchen with her. After Andrea and Sara shared their decision to become vegan, their grandmother would joke about it – “What will you eat?!”
“We decided to take a lot of her recipes and vegan-ize them,” Sara shared with The Montclair Girl. “We would always joke about how good they were, and that one day we would need to open up our own vegan something and that it will be our little food baby.”
(Photo credit: @foodbbynj)
Food Baby’s doughnuts are inspired by their grandmother’s recipe, her famous potato zeppoles. After spending tons of time perfecting the vegan version and creating three different doughnuts, the sisters knew it was time to share their ‘love child’ with the world.
The sisters attended high school at Bergen Tech on Route 46 in Teterboro, New Jersey, and wanted to pay homage to the ‘high school on a highway’ from their youth. Motels, diners, and drive-thrus were an important part of their aesthetic choices when designing the motel-inspired logo.
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The Process
When you order from Food Baby, just know that your doughnut is made fresh. Every ingredient, from the dough, fillings, and toppings, is made from scratch in a bakery in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Each doughnut on the menu has a different proofing method. Proofing is a baking method in which dough is resting and rising. “The dough journey starts a day prior due to all of the different proofing processes,” Sara shared with us. “We have a layered, cronut-inspired doughnut that takes longer because there are so many layers of [vegan] butter. It takes multiple turns and proofing.” You can find the sisters at 2AM frying up doughnuts and prepping orders.
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Food Baby’s doughnuts are also free from any artificial flavoring or colorings. In order to produce some of the colorful frostings you see on the team’s Instagram, the sisters have to get creative. For orange frosting, for example, “a little turmeric or Thai tea is used to enhance the orange coloring, but not enough to give it a taste.”
The sisters are focused on using all fresh, in-season ingredients, even with the themed doughnuts. “We want you to feel good about eating ‘junk food’. It’s made from the heart with lots of love.”
See More: All About Sweet Avenue Bakery, a Vegan Bakery in Rutherford
The Doughnuts
Food Baby likes to refer to its doughnuts as Donnies – and hope that one day you’ll get to order a Donnie through a “little, tiny, quaint, vegan doughnut drive-thru.” For now, you can place orders through the website or through Food Baby’s Instagram DMs. The team announces when orders are open to be placed via its Instagram page, and orders can be picked up at the East Rutherford location at 240 Paterson Avenue, Unit 2. You can also find Food Baby’s donnies every Friday at Feasty Vegan at 62b South Street in Morristown, New Jersey. Food Baby also delivers to a variety of rotating coffee shops in the area, which are announced weekly on its Instagram.
(Photo credit: @foodbbynj)
The sisters love to draw inspiration from nostalgic food from their childhood or traditional Jersey eats – including a previous Rutt’s Hut doughnut. Every Sunday, Food Baby announces the upcoming weekly flavor specials on Instagram.
The sisters also love to hear flavor recommendations – so feel free to send them your ideas! “What’s cooler than getting your flavor recommendation getting made into a doughnut?”
The sisters are extremely passionate about the ‘food baby’ they’ve created. “In life, you just have to do the things that excite you,” Sara told The Montclair Girl. “Follow all of your curiosities.”
