My visit to Wild Flour Bread last month changed not only the way that I think about bread, but also the way that I think about my schedule. It’s only open Fri-Mon. If I plan on being in LA for two weekends in one month, my first thought is “That’s two weekends I can’t go to Wild Flour Bread.” (Though my next thought, which cheers me up some, is “That’s two weekends I can go to The City Bakery.“) I also think about every Friday and Monday coming up, and whether I can get there to try its pizza, which is served only on those days. I haven’t managed it so far. (6/5/06 Edit: I finally did manage it, but it turns out that they no longer make pizzas)
Anyway, with a lot of excitement and a slight fear that it might not live up to our first visit, Chad and I drove an hour and fifteen minutes on Sunday solely to eat Wild Flour Bread.

We were not let down. We were just as amazed by the bread as we were during our first visit.

The newest revelation that we had, which I think even trumps their sticky bun, was the Egyptian.

Its simple description of “pear, fig, ginger, walnuts” doesn’t prepare you for the fact that it’s an orange-tinged cousin of the sticky bun. Gooey, full of flavor, still warm, chock full of sliced pear and candied ginger and dried figs and whole wheat, about the size of a hardcover book, it was delicious. A thick kind of orange-colored syrup or jam also swirled through some of the pastry, much like the cinnamon swirl in a sticky bun, but this had the added effect of caramelizing into a chewiness on the edges, which was as prized as anything I can think of.

And sure, it was sweet, but it’s not as sweet as its appearance or ingredients would suggest. It’s just sweet enough. I think that the whole wheat helps to mitigate the sweetness of the sugar from the fruits. It looks like this inside.

We also tried the ladder-shaped Goat Flat, full of goat cheese, herbs, and onion. Perfectly flavored, with a satisfying crisp crust and a chewy crumb.

Oddly enough, the cheese inside was orange… I should have asked just what kind of goat cheese they use.

Their orange and white chocolate scone was also great (I wish I had also tried their almond currant scone with rosewater icing). There were a lot of relatively large pieces of chopped orange peel, the orange flavor was mellow enough so that the white chocolate fit in well to complete the flavor of the scone.

It looks like this inside. It had a light texture, and was just buttery enough.

I think that their fougasse changes rather frequently, so this time it was a shitaake mushroom, cheddar, jack cheese, and onion. We took a loaf home (um, plus another goat flat).

The shitaake mushroom imbued a flavor that approached bacon, and the chunks of cheese and mushroom were satisfying in the dough. It was yet another amazing loaf from Wild Flour.

And so begins my scheming to schedule my next visit there…

This entry was posted on Monday, March 13th, 2006 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Bakeries/Pastry Shops, Highly Recommended, NorCal, Sampling, Sonoma Valley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.