Flour Bakery + Cafe, Cambridge, Mass.

I just got home from Flour Bakery + Cafe in Cambridge, the third location of Joanne Chang's fabulous Flour Bakery. The Cambridge location officially opened this past Friday, but today we had a soft opening for employees and their guests. Perhaps this is the right moment to disclose that I am a Flour employee.

I have been working at Flour for almost a year now. I started at the South End location on Washington Street working the cookie shift last July. I baked cookies, shaped croissants, scooped muffins, and helped wherever I was needed on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays while holding down my editing job in the evening and the other days of the week (which I still do now but in a much smaller capacity).

In February I was offered the opportunity to work full time at Flour's second location in Fort Point Channel on Farnsworth Street. I went from baking cookies to making and baking everything we sell there. My official title is pastry cook, and my shift is called the case shift. Being on the case entails finishing and setting out all of the cakes, tarts (and little tartlets like the ones below), and other products that go in our front cold display case, as well as filling cake orders. Once I finish executing my case responsibilities for the day, I move on to production. This is when all the rest of the mising, mixing, panning, baking, depanning, and displaying activities occur.

I get to work with a mixer that has a bowl so big I can sit in it. I use ovens that can bake 18 coffee cakes at a time.

Photo credit: shunafish

And the thing that will probably excite Flour fans most, I make our famous sticky buns and other brioche products practically every week, trading off this responsibility with other bakers.

Photo credit: shunafish

I loved working at the South End location and love my current position at Fort Point too, but I am also beyond excited to be involved with the opening of the Cambridge location. I'll be flitting back and forth between Cambridge and Fort Point for a bit but will ultimately end up working at the Cambridge location, which is closest to where I live and in what I consider my extended neighborhood.

Here are some pictures of the new space and some of the food we had today...

Hope you'll stop by if you live in or are visiting the area! If you're not local and you want to try some Flour goodies, check out the cookbook: Flour: A Baker's Collection of Spectacular Recipes.