Chocolate in Boston: Flour Bakery and Cafe

One new addition to Cambridge since I last visited is a branch of Flour Bakery and Café, which boasts a full lunch menu in addition to baked goods.

This branch is a mere block away from the lab I worked in as an undergrad, and I remain ambiguous about whether or not it would have been good for it to have been there. Pros: Great lunch available nearby, and tasty baked goods of all varieties available all day.

Cons: My wallet and waistline would probably have suffered. In order to determine if the tastiness would have been worth this impact on my finances and figure, I picked up a couple of cookies.

The box is simple and functional. No fluff. Inside, though, was a cookie that was just a bit fluffy: the Valrhona Double Chocolate Chip Cookie.

This cookie was not a dense cookie; rather, it was soft and airy with a little crunch at the edges. The walnuts within the cookie were ground to the perfect size such that there was a bit of crunch scattered throughout the cookie without any large chunks overwhelming the chocolate. Each bite had a bit of walnut in it, and also had some dark chocolate chunks, which were soft and will melt in your mouth (or on your fingers) immediately. Between the chocolate dough and the chocolate chunks, the chocolate flavor came through strongly, and the use of high-quality Valrhona dark chocolate was evident. Since the owner, Joanne Chang, has a cookbook out now, I may have to check it out to see if this recipe is included. I need to recreate these, or at least try to do so.

I also picked up a Valrhona Chocolate Chip Cookie for my friend Matt, who gave me a place to stay for the weekend.

He said it was delicious and appreciated the quality of the chocolate. Since he enjoyed it so quickly, I didn’t get a chance to sample a bite myself, but I trust that it was quite good. If just for these two cookies alone, regular visits to Flour would have been in order back in my days in Cambridge. It might become a regular destination on my Boston trips.