After four fairy tale decades, Cornwall’s Matthews 1812 House closes its doors

CORNWALL BRIDGE — Matthews 1812 House has ended its 40-year run as a family-run local confectioner.

Owner Cynthia Matthews von Berg said by telephone on March 31, “We had to make a decision about where we were going as a business. We were a mail-order company that became an e-commerce company. E-commerce has changed substantially, with Amazon offering free shipping. The direct-to-consumer business is different in this environment. We needed to reposition ourselves.”

She said a difficult choice was made, adding, “We decided that this would be the time to stop. We are proud to have hit our 40th year. We are a second-generation business.”

The bakery was started in 1979, with $15,000, in the family farmhouse by her parents, Blaine and Deanna Matthews.

Just like in the movies

Matthews had spent 17 years as a clothing buyer and had wanted a career that enabled her to stay at home with her two young daughters.

Named after the year their farmhouse was built, the business originally offered two types of fruitcakes (the creations were adapted from Matthews’ grandmother’s recipe).

As the story goes, while the children grew up, more baking racks sprung up in the farmhouse’s hallways, and two full-time employees were soon sorting fruit and nuts on the dining room table for the bakery’s offering.

Their customers were dedicated, and acclaim came from local and national press. The pastry shop opened up to mail order, prompting The New York Times in 1983 to rave about “the moist and deliciously spirited lemon rum cakes.”

Matthews appeared on “Good Morning America” with host Joan Lunden interviewing her in August 1982. On a YouTube clip, Lunden mentioned Matthews baking 8,000 pounds of cakes in the prior year and inquired about a typical day at home.

How to run a home bakery

“Every day is a different day,” Matthews explained. “Monday, we weigh out our dried apricot, dates, raisins and pecans. Tuesdays, we bake — and we bake 216 pounds of cake. We usually finish baking in the middle of the afternoon and we seal the cakes the same day to maintain freshness.”

After a dinner break with the children, the sealing continued until about 11 p.m.

Wednesdays were spent weighing out ingredients for Thursday’s baking.

“Friday, we package,” Matthews continued. “And, in between the baking days, we also acknowledge orders, ship out cakes, work on advertising. It’s a lot. It’s not just a baking business. It’s a mail-order business.”

In the New Woman magazine October 1981 issue, Blaine Matthews joked about naming Baby Cynthia “Fruitcake,” because during the month before she was born Deanna had baked almost 1,000 pounds of fruit-and-nut cake and brandied apricot cake (perennial best sellers) for her then-new business.

In 1989, on the bakery’s 10th anniversary, they celebrated by making the lemon rum sunshine cake available beyond just the holiday season.

Growing and changing

The shop outgrew its farmhouse by 1991, and the Matthews moved it about one mile from the farmhouse, to 250 Kent Road South, into a facility with a rotating oven. The menu expanded accordingly.

By 2015, the elder Matthewses retired. They were still living in the original farmhouse.

Matthews 1812 House was handed down to youngest daughter, Cynthia Matthews von Berg, who was raising two daughters of her own.

She and her family continued the tradition of producing small-batch gourmet bakery products.

By then the bakery’s web and social media presence as well as its online ordering had expanded. (The bakery’s website at www.1812house.com/blogs/recipes has recipes that Matthews von Berg said she may keep as the site’s main page, for potential recipe-clippers).

The company (which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2019) has never wavered from making quality cakes with all-natural ingredients, with no citron and no corn syrup. Matthews 1812 House won the 2014 Food Product of the Year Award from the Connecticut Specialty Food Association for their chocolate-dipped hazelnut cookies.

Not because of COVID-19

Matthews von Berg said she was not sure what she would be doing next. The decision to close had predated the  COV-19 crisis.

“I was job-hunting,” she said. “We were heading in that direction. I’m relieved to not have to make it through this time [as a business]. It is a nightmare.”

For now, she is assisting her daughters as they do distance learning for school.

“We are still working out the kinks,” she added. “It’s a lot of parental time.”