Anna B's Kitchen: A Hands-On Baking Barn for Petaluma Kids

Picture a converted barn on the west side of Petaluma on a summer morning, a dozen kids in aprons rolling out dough while the smell of cinnamon and warm bread drifts toward the garden. By snack time they are pulling their own morning buns from the oven. That is a typical day at Anna B's Kitchen, a baking barn that has become a second kitchen for North Bay families.

A Petaluma Baking Barn with a Heart for Community

Anna B's Kitchen is the work of founder and chef Anna Barrera, and her story runs straight through the food she teaches. She grew up outside Chico on her parents' plum orchard, where her love of fresh, local produce was nurtured by a mother who kept fruit and vegetable gardens going year-round. She earned an English degree from Chico State but, as her own about page puts it, "found true happiness in the kitchen." So she went to New York City, graduated from the Institute of Culinary Education, and came back to the Bay Area to bake.

What followed reads like a tour of Northern California's best kitchens. Anna worked as a baker at Fog City Diner, Jardiniere, and Chez Panisse, and as a pastry chef at several Bay Area catering houses and restaurants. Since 2002 she has been part of Pan-o-Rama Baking Company while building her own brand of savory and sweet food. The Barn at Anna B's Kitchen in Petaluma is where she now passes that craft along to the next generation, in small groups, with real recipes and real techniques. For local parents, that pedigree matters. The person teaching your child to laminate croissant dough learned it in some of the most demanding kitchens in the region, and she has chosen to spend her summers handing those skills to kids.

Kids Classes in Petaluma: Baking from Start to Finish

Among kids classes in Petaluma, the ones at Anna B's Barn are built around hands-on baking from start to finish. Children ages 5 to 14 measure, mix, knead, laminate, and bake their way through full recipes, then carry the results home. The rhythm of a session is gentle and predictable: campers arrive at 9:00 and bake until snack time around 10:30, take a break to eat and drink some water, then settle back in to finish their projects before pickup. It is the kind of structure that lets a young baker concentrate without feeling rushed.

Because the menu rotates constantly, no two visits are quite the same. Over a year, the offerings move through a wide range of baking traditions and skills:

• Everyday breads and breakfast bakes. Cinnamon rolls, classic morning buns, doughnuts, everyday bread loaves, and ham-and-cheese croissants teach the patience of working with dough and yeast.
• Pies, tarts, and bars. Lemon bars, chocolate cream pie, apple pie bars, and slab pies introduce crust-making, fillings, and the chemistry of getting a bake to set.
• Cakes and celebration baking. Berry long cakes, carrot cake, pineapple upside-down cake, and madeleines turn into lessons in creaming, folding, and finishing.
• Savory cooking. Pan pizza, cheese straws, pesto pull-apart rolls, and flatbreads round out the sweet work so kids leave knowing how to cook a meal as well as bake a treat.
• School-break camps. When school lets out for February and spring break, the Barn runs shorter themed weeks (think moon pies, monkey bread, Irish soda bread, and tres leches cake) so the learning does not have to wait for summer.

Snacks and water are provided during every session, and the requirements are refreshingly simple: a water bottle, closed-toed shoes, and hair tied back. What kids walk out with is concrete. A box of something they made with their own hands, and the quiet confidence that comes from having followed a real recipe from start to finish.

Kids Camps in Petaluma: A Summer of Themed Baking Weeks

When summer arrives, Anna B's Kitchen turns into one of the most distinctive kids camps in Petaluma. Each week takes on a baking tradition and works through it in depth, with menus that read like a culinary passport. British Baking Week brings hot cross buns, Bakewell tart, and Battenberg cake. Scandinavian Week moves to cardamom morning buns, Danish dream cake, and Swedish limpa bread. French Week tackles croissants, macarons, and apple tarte tatin. There are weeks devoted to Classic American baking (Boston cream pie, New York cheese danish), Southern baking (peach slab pie, Mississippi mud pie), Italian baking (tiramisu cake, biscotti, focaccia), and a full Cake Week. On the camp page, the studio sums up the spirit simply, describing summer as a time "full of great camps at Anna B's Barn for kids to be as creative as their imagination will take them."

Families can choose the format that fits. Half-day campers bake from 9:00 until pickup at 12:30. Full-day campers bake through the morning, break for lunch, and spend the afternoon swimming in the pool in Anna's backyard, with two lifeguards on duty and Anna herself present the entire time the children are in the water. It is a thoughtful answer to the long summer day, mixing focused kitchen time with the kind of cool-down a Petaluma July calls for. New for 2026, the Barn has added a dedicated Teen Baking Camp, giving older kids who have outgrown the younger sessions a place to keep developing real pastry skills alongside their peers. Across every week, the group stays small, the recipes stay ambitious, and the goal stays the same: send each child home with something they baked themselves.

An Accessible, Welcoming Resource for Families

Part of what makes the Barn easy to recommend is how flexible it is. Not every family needs a full week or a full day, so Anna B's builds in room to choose. Many of the half-day weeks offer drop-in availability for families who only need a day or two, which is a real help when summer schedules shift. Families enrolling more than one child receive a 10 percent sibling discount when they register everyone in the same session at the same time. And because school-break camps run in February and spring as well as summer, the Barn is a resource families can return to throughout the year rather than only in July.

The practical details are handled with the same care as the baking. Snacks and water come included, the supply list is short, and the cancellation policy is straightforward, with notice asked about a week before a camp begins. Anna B's Kitchen lists its current classes and camps on Enrichment.kids, where Petaluma parents can see which themed weeks are open, check which sessions have drop-in spots, and register in a few clicks instead of trading emails. It is one less thing to juggle in a busy season, and it keeps the focus where it belongs, on the food coming out of the oven.

Where Craft, Curiosity, and Community Rise

What stays with a parent after a week at Anna B's Barn is rarely just the box of pastries, though those come home too. It is the way a child starts narrating dinner, explaining why the dough needs to rest, asking to try the family pie recipe, measuring flour with a new seriousness. Baking rewards patience and attention, and a week spent in a warm barn with a chef who clearly loves the work tends to leave a mark. For a shy kid, the small groups and the steady routine make the kitchen feel safe. For a restless one, there is always the next step in the recipe to focus on.

Craftsmanship, patience, creativity, hospitality, and community, Anna B's Kitchen embodies all these values for North Bay parents and kids. If your child lights up at the idea of pulling a tray of croissants from the oven or piping their first macaron, a summer of themed baking weeks at the Barn is a lovely way to spend it. Browse the upcoming kids classes and camps in Petaluma on Enrichment.kids, pick a tradition that sounds delicious, and let your young baker get their hands in the flour.