Bouchon Bakery

[marlena spieler]

Do they make any actual bread there? If so, have you tried it? If so, is it good? If so, why? Also, do you like me?

Like you, Fat Guy?

I LOVE you!

[Stone]

Do they make any actual bread there? If so, have you tried it? If so, is it good? If so, why? Also, do you like me?

They do make bread there, the bread looks amazing but I have not tried it as I've got half a dozen loaves of bread around the kitchen from my efforts to perfect an open crumb sourdough bread. But I suspect I'll end up back there today anyway, so I'll try their bread. Or I suppose I could just go to lunch at Bouchon as they will be serving the bread there...

Melkor never answer this question. I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but I'd rather not say, because I like both Melkor and Fat Guy.

[melkor]

Do they make any actual bread there? If so, have you tried it? If so, is it good? If so, why? Also, do you like me?

They do make bread there, the bread looks amazing but I have not tried it as I've got half a dozen loaves of bread around the kitchen from my efforts to perfect an open crumb sourdough bread. But I suspect I'll end up back there today anyway, so I'll try their bread. Or I suppose I could just go to lunch at Bouchon as they will be serving the bread there...

Melkor never answer this question. I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but I'd rather not say, because I like both Melkor and Fat Guy.

The question was asked more than six months ago - the statute of limitations is up on it, isn’t it?

[jschyun]

On Sat before the potluck, we went to Bouchon Bakery to get the peanut butter chocolate mousse cake for the party. However, we were lured into buying all sorts of unnecessary goods by displays of all the pastries.

We had for breakfast (in no particular order):

Pate de fruits: they had raspberry, cassis and something, and mango and apricot. They were molded in a round lozenge shape. The raspberry had the lush texture of the ones I had at Chuao Chocolatier in Oceanside, last year. cassis as usual was my fave.

chocolate Bouchon: Basically this is a 2 inch long, cylindrical Valhrona chocolate cake with little Valhrona chocolate chips in it. I ate it, and it tasted just like a brownie. A tasty, dark, chewy brownie with little chips in it. If you like your brownies kinda crusty, this is it.

Financier (apricot almond): very cute and tasty financier, with apricot a nice complement to the almonds in the cake and sliced on top. They were little oval cakes as opposed to the rectangular, gold brick shaped cake of tradition. Tiny, about 2 inches or so long. I like fruit financiers actually. Seems less boring than just almond cake.

Chocolate Dutch (?) doughnut: this was Mark's doing, not me. It was a good chocolate doughnut that didn't taste stale the next day.

Riesling Pear Mascarpone cheese tart (I think that's the name): Mascarpone was delicate filling, nice with the pears. Would have been my favorite were it not for the sticky jam that cemented the bottom of the pastry to the cardboard round it sat on. I've never seen anyone do this. Is this normal around here? Gah!

Chocolate caramel tart: They use Valhrona chocolate here and I have to say I usually like it better than El Rey or Scharfenberger, because it doesn't taste as bitter and weird to me. I just can't get myself to like Citizen Cake's chocolate stuff, prob for that reason, or maybe because I'm a bad person. That said, I thought this tart was a little too sweet, but nothing a good cappucino couldn't solve. This tart would have been great if we had not already stuffed ourselves with other stuff. Tart was stuck on carboard round with jam, grr.

Reeses timbale: This was basically a scaled down version of the peanut butter mousse cake we brought to the potluck except the ratio of chocolate to peanut butter here was higher, with a little disk of I think shortbread on bottom. This was very cute,delicious, with smooth light mousse that was eaten in a flash. shortbread disk was stuck to cardboard with jam, gah that is so annoying and it makes the crust go limp faster.

"American style" eclairs: This means that the eclair was split in half and filled with cream, like a sort of cream sandwich, as opposed to french style where you pipe the filling in and then glaze the top with the appropriate flavor glaze. We had the chocolate and chantilly cream versions, and both were nice, with a layer of what appeared to be chcolate or vanilla pastry cream and the whipped cream piped on top of that, then the top half of the eclair on top of that. chantilly cream was my favorite. Side note: Pascal's Epicerie in Newport Beach, CA does a very nice (french) eclair IMHO, but they only have coffee and chocolate. Both are delicious.

I had a caramel macaron. I hate to say this, but I thought the macarons here were too big. I think the size compromised the texture a little, because instead of a tender, moist, ethereally light cookie sandwich, I got a sort of heavy and pasty one. When I buy macarons, I usually buy one or two of every flavor, but I wasn't really tempted to do that here. Anyhow they only had a couple of flavors. They said caramel was the most popular.

Rounded out with a latte, all this junk made a very sweet breakfast. I figured I would go back and grab some croissants but never made it that far. I'll have to eat here a couple more times, it's really a nice place.

You can tell rich people live here because the trash cans had wooden facades to make them look nice and less like trash cans (I'm guessing). No indoors eating though, only outdoor seats with umbrellas.

Maybe the next time I'll do the multi day croissant tour of Napa/SF. But why limit to croissants?

Pics forthcoming

Edited February 24, 2004 by jschyun (log)

[FoodZealot]

Like you, I'm a sucker for every sampler platter, combo plate and mixed dozen. Nice work!

BTW, I think that jam thing is not for style, but just a baker's trick for keeping things from slipping off of their base while being iced, moved, etc. Making things soggy can't be worth it, though.

Anxiously awaiting pix.

Edited February 24, 2004 by FoodZealot (log)

[ludja]

On Sat before the potluck, we went to Bouchon Bakery to get the peanut butter chocolate mousse cake for the party. However, we were lured into buying all sorts of unnecessary goods by displays of all the pastries.

Pate de fruits: they had raspberry, cassis and something, and mango and apricot. They were molded in a round lozenge shape. The raspberry had the lush texture of the ones I had at Chuao Chocolatier in Oceanside, last year. cassis as usual was my fave.

I had a caramel macaron. I hate to say this, but I thought the macarons here were too big. I think the size compromised the texture a little, because instead of a tender, moist, ethereally light cookie sandwich, I got a sort of heavy and pasty one. When I buy macarons, I usually buy one or two of every flavor, but I wasn't really tempted to do that here. Anyhow they only had a couple of flavors. They said caramel was the most popular.

Nice descriptions.

We also stopped by Bouchon Bakery for the first time before the Northern CA potluck this past Saturday. As I mentioned in the other thread, we used it to maintain our fortitude between visits to Acacia, Artesa, and the Hess Collection Wineries.

I really enjoyed the pate de fruits (I tried the cassis/? and mango/apricot ones). Yum, intense flavor and great texture.

I had never had french-style macarons before so I was eager to try them. I got a caramel and a vanilla. Now, I have no benchmark to compare them with--but I really liked them. Jschyun's comments only inspire me to taste more examples. (The other two flavors that day were raspberry and chocolate)

We did also get a taste of the peanut butter chocolate mousse cake that Jschyun brought to the party. It had a very nice unprocessed peanut butter taste and the chocolate was not overwhelming. Peanut butter/chocolate is not usually my favorite combo, but I enjoyed the cake very much. It wasn't too sweet and had a nice underlying flavor that at first I thought was coffee-like but was likely due to the good chocolate and not too much sugar.

Thanks again for bringing it Jschyun; it was great to be able to taste another Bouchon creation.

[jschyun]

BTW, I think that jam thing is not for style, but just a baker's trick for keeping things from slipping off of their base while being iced, moved, etc. Making things soggy can't be worth it, though.

Hmm, yeah we figured it was to keep the thing pretty as it got bumped around in the customer's boxes.

But in all the time I've had wonderful/good/okay/mediocre/spit-it-out pastries, I have not once seen this done. It's logical, but I've never seen it.

My main problem was that my pear tart could not be eaten out of hand because (and I blame that jam) the crust was kinda moist (refrigerated) and stuck to the cardboard when lifted so the whole tart started to collapse on itself. I just left it on the cardboard and sort of gnawed it off. Not my favorite way to eat, but it worked.

The crust of the chocolate tart was crisper, probably because it hadn't been refrigerated. But it was still kind of hard to get off the cardboard and then you had to deal with sticky fingers.

Luckily, they have a tap outside where you can wash your hands. You can get napkins inside to wipe and then there's the fancy wooden trashcan to throw away sticky cardboards.

[jschyun]

Here's some pics of our Bouchon Bakery breakfast the other day.

One of our "American" eclairs.

gnawed on chocoate caramel tart. The caramel might have been salted but my memory is too bad to be sure.

Pate de Fruits. Yes, they look like Sunkist fruit gems.

Pear tart, Reeses Timbale. Hmm, Reeses looks like no jam on cardboard, but you can see it on the bottom of the Pear tart one.

Edited February 26, 2004 by jschyun (log)

[melkor]

Pear tart, Reeses Timbale. Hmm, Reeses looks like no jam on cardboard, but you can see it on the bottom of the Pear tart one.

I think all the tartes I've gotten at the Bouchon Bakery have had jam on the bottom. I don't recall any of them getting soggy though, maybe I just lucked out.

[chezcherie]

or ate them really fast!

[jschyun]

Have you ever seen that jam anywhere else?

[melkor]

Have you ever seen that jam anywhere else?

Nope, but its nice to still have the tarts intact when I get home with them. It's much better than the usual tart smeared all over the sides of the box.

[jschyun]

What, you don't lick the sides of the box?

[melkor]

Only if I can identify whats on them

[artisanbaker]

anyone been lately?

[Carolyn Tillie]

Yeah.... I'm addicted and stop in every other week or so. Around the holidays the pastry offerings including miniature pecan tartlettes, miniture pumpkin mousse tartlettes, and delicate pear/cranberry tartlettes. I'll often just get a bag of 'bouchons' for work or a loaf of bread on the way home.

Also, they started offering canneles -- sadly, after tasting Paula Wolfert's canneles, I found Bouchon's pretty mediocre; unnattractive, mal-formed, chewy, and little or no flavor.

[artisanbaker]

have been in touch with Mrs. Wolfert, thanks. She forwarded me her recipes.

say hi next time you're in

:)

Rob (head baker)

[little ms foodie]

We just spent Memorial weekend at Petit Logis next door so daily trips to Bouchon and a seat in the courtyard were nice treats. We had croissants, brioche with cream cheese, bouchons, home made Oreo cookies, apple tarts, blueberry muffins....lord what didn't we have. The bakery is wonderful and the courtyard sends me right back to Jardin Luxembourg in Paris. And seeing Chef Keller walk thru each morning was fun too.

On our last day we also bought a ham and cheese baguette for the road. It was smeared with butter and dijon and was the best damn baguette ever!

[artisanbaker]

last night i made the best baguettes i've made in america (in my opinion of course :) )

thanks for the comments

we are expanding the courtyard seating so come see!

[MakeLifeFun]

Another vote for Bouchon Bakery!

My wife and I live in Menlo Park, a 90 minute drive away. We have driven up to Bouchon Bakery perhaps 8 times in the past four months. Notice I didn't say drive to Yountville, but to Bouchon Bakery. We go ONLY for the bakery! We spend an hour relaxing in the courtyard and then drive back, usually stopping in San Francisco for the afternoon and dinner.

My wife's favorite is the weekend-only chocolate doughnut! It's killer. We have called ahead on our last two visits to make sure there are enough, since apparently they're only made on the weekend and they make only 6 of them. {Artisanbaker Rob, is this right?} The doughnuts also taste very good chilled the next day. I'm not as big of a chocolate fan, but I do like the vanilla doughnut.

My favorite is the walnut bread and brie sandwich. And I like to get a loaf of walnut bread to eat over the next 3-4 days.. it's rich and chewy and tastes great even after it goes stale.

The ham and cheese baguette is also great, though I don't like mustard on sandwiches at all, I still enjoy it.

Everything at the bakery I've tried has been good except the macarons. I think they're just not my taste, though, not necessarily badly done.

We found the bakery this spring when we had Sunday lunch at the FL, and we were walking off the meal afterwards. And even right after a FL meal, we were tempted to try Bouchon's pastry, and we were hooked!

We haven't been back for three weeks, now it sounds like it's time to go again. :-)

First post, we just joined the forums today in order to give our thumbs up! Thanks, Rob!

[Trishiad]

3 year old and I had nothing important to do today so we drove over to Yountville for pastries. We got there just in time for lunch and started with cashew butter and raspberry jam on grilled brioche (son ate the entire thing, crust and all because it was indeed Yummers) and a ham and cheese baguette, also yummers. The baguette was really perfect. It was crusty without being so hard it makes tiny slices in the roof of your mouth. It had just the right chew. In retrospect, I wish I'd brought a baguette home. We also had: a green pate de fruit (kiwi I think), a couple of chocolate bouchons, a raspberry poptart, a giant oreo, two macaroons, an apricot tart and two eclairs, coffee and chocolate. With chips and lemonade it was a $40 trip. Not too bad for piles of pastry! Brought a great many home and we're still working our way through but so far I love the cookie part of the oreo and the chocolate bouchon. I wish I could have the bouchon fresh out of the oven!

The girls there are super sweet and the birds are "friendly".

[Trishiad]

Oh, and there's no jam on the bottom of my tart.

[mukki]

Brought a great many home and we're still working our way through but so far I love the cookie part of the oreo and the chocolate bouchon.

←

I really liked the oreo, as well. A little like La Brea Bakery's version. Wish I could get Bouchon's recipe!

[MakeLifeFun]

As I anticipated, my wife and I drove the 90 minutes again today (Saturday) to have lunch at the bakery. The courtyard was indeed updated, there are about 4 more tables outside, which makes seating easier. We arrived in a lull in the rain, so luckily we had yet another good experience.

We enjoyed our favorate chocolate doughnut. We were a little early (11 am) so there were no brie-and-walnut-bread or ham-cheese-baguette sandwiches yet. That's no big problem, there's lots of other tasty things to try!

There's always a crowd in the (small) store space. That's good, it shows that people really support it!

I did try the latte for the first time (someone posted that they were good.) It was indeed well done, but we both still like the Bouchon blend coffee better.

I also had the raspberry tart for the first time. Very well done, not too heavy or sweet, and the fresh raspberries came through nicely over the (lemon?) cream.

I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it..

Since both bread and pastries are so good at the bakery, I'm eager to see any other types of food they might make someday.. some savory rolls or breads might be really nice. I am spoiled by my experiences in Japan, where bakeries/pastry shops are everywhere and are very, very high quality (Bouchon Bakery quality, but dozens of them!). Black pepper, bacon, and potato in bread, curry center bread, blue cheese rolls.. (Artisanbaker Rob, are you listening?)

[bekkiz]

A friend and I are making the trek up to visit the Bakery on Friday. Does anyone have a winery or two to recommend in the general vicinity. She like Cabs (And other "big" wines) where I prefer fruity (and sometimes sweeter) whites (though I'll drink a lighter, fruitier red as well.) However, we're both still learning about this whole wine thing and are happy to experiment.

thanks for any help (and all the delicious pictures!)