This Brilliant Bakery Gives Immigrant Women A Kneaded Boost

When Fanny Perez arrived at Hot Bread Kitchen, she didn't know much about baking for customers.

But now, "I know everything," the Ecuadorian immigrant tells us in a new video from the NYC bakery .

At Hot Bread Kitchen, women of all origins -- from East Harlem to West Africa -- join the Bakers In Training program to learn how to make breads from around the world, like chewy Persian flatbread  and fluffy braided challah . Many of the aspiring bakers are immigrants, and all come from low-income backgrounds . Hot Bread Kitchen recruits them, trains them in a 9-month program and sets them up with industry jobs that pay an average of 70 percent more than what they were making before , according to the bakery's website. 

That's a lot of dough.

Hot Bread Kitchen's bread is sold in greenmarkets, restaurants and Whole Foods around New York City, as well as online . They ship overnight, spokesperson Allegra Ben-Amotz told HuffPost, so the bread always arrives fresh.

So far, the bakery has trained 116 women from 28 different countries , Ben-Amotz said. It's a powerful statement in a restaurant world controlled mostly by men . 

Hot Bread Kitchen is similar to Greyston Bakery , another social enterprise famous for its fudgy brownies  and chocolate-flecked blondie bars.

And both are more delicious, game-changing reasons to eat up.

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