Mariana Stanciu – Maiaua Mea Artisan Bakery

Mariana Stanciu – Maiaua Mea Artisan Bakery


Mariana Stanciu is from Pitești and, for a while, worked at and managed a vegan restaurant in Sibiu. Five years ago, she started learning how to make sourdough bread, as she wanted to be able to prepare a good, healthy bread to eat at home. She already had children and wanted to make bread, as they all enjoyed eating it. She started learning about sourdough bread supported by Codruța Popa from Apă Făină Sare in Timișoara, and later by Raluca, an acquaintance who lived nearby and showed her many tricks.

Now, she owns her own artisan shop, Maiaua Mea – Brutărie Artizanală, which was part of Sibiu Food Hub for a long time (9 Mai St.). Her wish is to have her own artisan bakery somewhere in the countryside, so as to be able to produce bread sustainably.

The starter she uses is five years old and, according to her, must be treated like a child and cared for day after day. She uses this starter to make bread and various other doughs. Her breadmaking process takes many hours, as it is complex and consists of tending and preparing the leaven for the dough, making the dough by mixing leaven, flour, water and salt, kneading, dividing, weighing, shaping and placing it into trays, letting it rise in trays and finally baking it. 

In time, she has made whole-grain wheat bread, whole-grain rye bread, rye cornmeal bread, potato rosemary bread, seed bread. Other sourdough products she makes: baguettes, olive ciabatta, homemade sour cream buns, coconut milk buns, Jewish croissants, coconut butter croissants, cinnamon apple pie, goat cheese pie. 

She likes to eat her homemade bread with plum jam.
A Tale of Bread

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