When I first got into baking a few years ago, David and I went on a “bakery-tour” of the North Bay. We spent the afternoon driving to four different bakeries throughout Napa and Sonoma counties. Similar to an afternoon spent wine tasting, but arguably more caloric, we tried two different items at each bakery.
We started our journey in Petaluma, indulging in a fruit and nut scone at Della Fatori on the Boulevard. The café was small, but packed with families enjoying a mid-morning Sunday brunch. The scone was fresh out of the oven and hot, irresistible to the most discerning eye. Though the initial infatuation wore off once I took a bite. Punctuated with nuts and dried fruits, the scone was promising, but far too dry for my liking. David agreed, insisting he’d had better elsewhere.
Our next destination took us on a thirty-minute journey outside town down the winding roads of the Sonoma County coast. The hills were already brown and dried out from the early summer sun, as we made our way to Freestone’s Wildflower Bakery. A small, one room building off the beaten Bohemian Highway, Wildflower Bakery is a baker’s dream. Everything is baked fresh in a wood-burning oven daily and pastries are stacked plentifully on the end of a long wooden table. The other half of the table is used for prep work, and employees work out in the open illustrating the love and care that goes into each batch of dough.
The menu, scrawled in colorful chalk on an old-school chalkboard, changes every hour depending on what is most popular, or which item is sold out. David and I stood in wonder at the stage in front of us before we finally decided on a few items to share. We ordered an apricot-ginger scone covered in powdered sugar, and a sticky bun dubbed Egyptian bread, that was studded with raisins, pecans, and apricots. The scone was moist and sweet, more like a cake than a traditional scone. The combination of ginger and apricots married well with the moist batter. Although it went against my traditionalist taste for the flakey scones of the UK, it was delightful nonetheless. The Egyptian bread on the other hand, took my taste buds for a ride that I welcomed wholeheartedly. The gooey cinnamon pastry was dense and filled with fruit and nuts in every bite. Decadent and rich, I felt like a small child trying to eat as much as I could before my mother yelled for me to stop before I made myself sick. David and I left feeling every bit the “fat and happy”.
By the time we returned home the sun was down, and neither of us could fathom eating dinner. Instead, I felt inspired, wanting to put on my apron and dream up my own creations.
