Wild Flour Bread, Freestone CA

“If you build it, they will come", so said Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams. Baseball in a corn field, impossible? Well not in the movie. In real life, Jed Wallach dreamed of building a wood fired brick oven bread bakery in the rolling hills of west Sonoma , and build it he did. Located 10 miles from Sebastopol California, Wild Flour Bread is located in Freestone a tiny village of 26 scattered houses , and as they say, “the view from the windows looks out to fields, barns and often a herd of cows.” It should be impossible to have a business so far from town, especially a bakery where it is vital to move the product as soon as possible, but just like in the “Field of Dreams” it works. The bakery has been a success from the start and just celebrated its 11th year of operation.

Wild Flour has been featured on CNN and bakes organic sourdough breads, scones and biscotti. When we say sour dough it does not mean that the bread tastes sour like San Francisco sour dough French bread, rather they ferment flour and water and use this as the levain. Even for their sweet breads. All the bread is baked in a wood fired brick oven. Every afternoon a wheelbarrow of eucalyptus is added to the oven, which turns to ash by 4 a.m. The heat is maintained at 350 and bakes the most amazing hard crunchy crust that customers know and love. When not open, they heat the oven to 1200 degrees which keeps the oven hot until they begin to bake again.

Open only four days a week, because as Jed says, there is a whole world out there to know and explore, the bakery opens with four breads. Sticky buns, cheese fougasse, goat flatbread and whipping cream scones with flavors like double chocolate, espresso, apricot and hazelnut. So good, we don’t know which to pick first, happily they give out samples. By 10:30 the rest of their breads are baked , and out of the oven. There are always at least 10 different kinds .How many loaves do they bake each day? How about nine hundred loaves daily and they are sold only in the bakery.! Unbelievable! When we first heard about Wild flour we had to take a drive out just to see if it really was as fantastic as we had heard. It is. The lines out the doors tell you that. Piles of breads, different shapes and sizes greet you as you enter . Just beyond the baked goods the bakers are rolling out dough, working the ovens and the aroma of freshly baked bread is irresistible. A wonderful experience for children to see a real working bakery. Out in back there is an organic garden with vegetables and flowers a perfect place to roam with a cup of coffee and freshly baked bread.

Wild Flour is open, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday- 8:30 to 6:00pm