Landing in Boston last Thursday at 7am I had one thing on my mind: breakfast from Clear Flour Bakery. Ever since I have had the help of navigation, Boston is a breeze to negotiate and trips like this are exciting. A bit further from the airport as I remember, it was a really nice drive though different neighborhoods and the nicer parts of Storrow Dr. Tucked in a cute neighborhood but a block from a main street this place seems as though it is in the perfect location, a world away from the bustle and it has an amazing, warm, neighborhood feel to it. Abe and Kristy were not around but Kerry recognized my Camp Bread sweatshirt and quickly introduced herself. She gave me a tour of the bakery and I got the feeling that it would be an amazing place to spend time working. It had a great layout with all the right equipment. The selection of product was extensive. Most prominent when you enter are the breads and just to the left of those are the viennoiseries, cookies, quickbreads and rustic tarts. The bakery is very open; while waiting in line you can easily see the pastry chef or cooks working on products for the shelf. One location, all made in house, ingredients come in, products go out. During the Farmer’s Market season they have a stand at one (which I don’t recall) and that must be a fabulous addition to all of the local produce.

Here are some photos of the front of the bakery as well as the sales area.

I got several things: the baguette, a gruyere croissant, a scone and some focaccia topped with onions and herbs. Here are some photos.

The baguette had the prefect thin crisp crust I haven’t tasted in ages. The crumb was open and had a creamy aroma. The flavor was complex and made eating it addictive.

The scone was a bit of a surprise to me but I really enjoyed it. It was not sweet at all and it had a bit of a soft but chewy texture. The gruyere croissant was amazing. It had a very light texture, textbook honeycombed crumb, a crisp and flaky crust and just enough cheese. The flavor was intensely buttery with a nice mild lactic acidity that added volumes to the eating experience. In the bag is the focaccia. This was about a 14” round and was made from a lighter style dough topped with the caramelized/sauteed onions and herbs.

A few days later I made some time to stop by an outpost of Seven Stars on Broadway in Providence. It is a few blocks down from the old Daily Bread which is still vacant (with a Llopis in the back?). This is an interesting and changing part of Providence with some good destination dining in the area. Seven Stars seems to fit right in and fill a void of the upscale neighborhood bakery. A few blocks away on Atwells there are a lot of old Italian Bakeries (which I should explore more on a future trip) but SS has a different market. On a Saturday morning it was moderately busy and there were a dozen or so people having coffee or baked goods outside. I got a ham and cheese croissant, a ginger scone and some lemon pound cake for the Cape. Oh, coffee too.

The cafe is big and open. It seems like and sounds like everything is shipped in from their Hope St location and that they have a new spot in Rehoboth?

I tried the ham and cheese croissant. It had a good flavor and a nice open crumb.

I got two of the lemon pound cakes for a family gathering. They went over nicely and were perfect with tart, fresh blueberries.

There are a lot more bakeries in south eastern New England than in SF or LA or Seattle or Portland. Many of these are older places and serve much of the same product that tends to be older in style. As more and more people turn to places like Clear Flour and Seven Stars, we can only hope that the older establishments can become innovative with some of their products. Consumers are seeking out quality, well crafted items more and more and are reading ingredient labels and making decisions based on them.

Below are some of my formulas for ginger scones and lemon pound cake.

Lemon Cake

Enjoy these recipes and look out for my posting on strawberry and rhubarb.... in the works.

Brian