THE Flour Bakery, it's one of the top and most recommended bakery by various places and websites on the internet. It's also quite a popular bakery amongst the locals as well (says my colleague, who is a PhD student like me and also quite a keen baker). To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to expect, and certainly didn't want everyone to hype it up too much, that tends to get me over-excited and most of the time, when things are too hyped, they don't tend to live up to expectations.
Flour bakery has 4 branches: South End, Back Bay, Fort Point Channel and Central Square. From what I gathered, they sell pretty much the same things. Flour Bakery is owned by Joanne Chang, who is a graduate from Harvard University, with a degree in applied mathematics and economics and left to train in New York, but you can read her profile yourself really on her bakery's website. The bakery itself was featured in Gourmet, the New York Times and also winner of Boston magazine's best bakery 4 times.
I did a little research on what to get before I went, you know searching for the specialties. Almost straight way, I found their Sticky Sticky Bun was featured on "Throwdown! With Bobby Flay". If you don't know what it is, don't worry, I didn't either until I looked it up. It's basically a TV program featuring a celebrity chef challenging chefs at relatively renowned restaurants to their own signature food and then they decide who won. So the battle of Joanne Chang VS Bobby Flay, Joanne won in with her sticky sticky bun recipe. Another thing that she mentioned was her pain aux raisin, which is something she loves. So the sticky bun and pain aux raisins were the two things I knew I had to try before I even went.
When I got there, the first impression was very good. The design was simple, not too extravagant, friendly staff and also, filled with families and little children, it's generally a very warm atmosphere I thought. Moving onto the bakes then, which I'm sure you are dying to hear.
Pain aux raisin, gosh, this was a master piece! It was delicious and soft, and sometimes you can get an overpowering buttery flavour, but this one is well balanced and it's just perfect as far as the pastry goes. However, the slight down side for me was, I would have preferred a bit more raisins in there, I would have a bite of the pain aux raisin expecting to have each bite, not filled, but contains a few raisins. But with this one, I kind of just stumble on a few every now and then. But nonetheless, it is very good!
Now the Sticky Sticky Bun, not sure why sticky appears twice, I thought they just accidentally put sticky in there twice, but apparently it's what it's really called. Anyway, the bun was very soft and there was a very generous amount of topping, and I mean VERY generous amount of it. So much that a lot of it seeped into the actual bun. When you cut into it, 20% of the bun, on the side closest to the topping was wet and softened by caramel topping.The caramel and the nuts on top go very well together and the brioche was very nicely done too, some of the best I've tried. However, it is quite heavy, there is a lot of caramel and for some, it could be too much, I would definitely recommend trying this, but make sure it's the 1st thing you try and with a large of cup of tea coffee with it too.
Chocolate tartlet, simple, good shortcrust pastry, nice chocolatey sweet filling, what more do you need to know?
Chocolate roulade, the surface was so shiny, I was blinded by the light reflected off it, ok, that's slightly exaggerated, but it did look very good. The roulade itself was very light and full of chocolate flavour, which is exactly how it should be, I couldn't fault it really, even the rolling was good.
Raspberry gateaux, I must say, this kind of disappointed me, the cake itself seemed over baked, that or something in the mixture process didn't go right, it felt quite solid when you bite into it. The flavour combinations was great, the zing from the raspberries really hit your tongue from the word go and the sweet cake then neutralises the sourness quickly. But for me, the texture of the cake was wrong.
Triple chocolate mousse, it's essentially a chocolate teacake. The chocolate dome was well done and shiny and it kept its shine for quite a bit as well, which I was impressed with. The middle is filled with very light chocolate mousse and the bottom a thin layer of chocolate sponge. It was a delight to eat. But I think part of me did think the mousse was too light, if it was slightly stiffer, it would be easier to cut and get a better definition from each cut. Each individual component of the teacake was well made, but I'm just not sure whether consistency for the mousse was right when combined with other other components.
Impression: 8/10
Pain aux raisin: 9/10
Sticky sticky bun: 8/10
Triple chocolate mousse: 6/10
Raspberry cake: 4/10
Chocolate roulade: 8/10
Chocolate tartlet: 8/10
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