A Very Flour Valentine

Flour's Fort Point outpost whipped up all sorts of tasty Valentine’s-inspired treats this past Sunday. I managed to be lured away from their red-and-white-frosted chocolate cupcake by a variety of donuts. Greg has extolled the virtues of Flour's donuts for some time, and I finally experienced why.
The donuts are rolled in slightly-sticky sugar. This guarantees that your fingers, lips, and tongue get a helping of grainy sweetness right off the bat. I may have even tasted a hint of vanilla-y lemon, though that could be the faint flavorings of the donut proper being more noticeable in the pastry’s crust. The pastry part of the donut is unusually sturdy but spare in terms of density and flavor. It is more similar to a slightly-sweet roll than a breakfast pastry; however, there’s a sugary chewiness to the dough that reminds you that it is, in fact, a donut. Such a roll is a great canvas for the sugar…and filling! The filling is plentiful and well-distributed throughout each donut. The same raspberry jam that gives the pop tarts such character fills the donut on the left – the intense raspberry flavor, robust seeding, and thickness still apply. My donut on the right is filled with rosewater raspberry cream. Imagine a very light, whipped frosting that tastes like a creamy bouquet of roses and smells even better, with raspberry jam evenly mixed throughout. The floral-fruit combination is absolute bliss!

However, this Very Flour Valentine doesn’t end with the donuts. How could we resist these adorable conversation-heart sugar cookies? I knew they'd be much tastier than their chalky inspirations. The thin, crunchy vanilla cookie is covered in a layer of hard confectioner's-sugar frosting. Each crisp bite delivers equal parts cookie and icing, though the cookie softens and melts away in your mouth before the icing. The sugar lingers in your mouth like a Valentine's kiss. So good!

Lastly, I had to bring this miniature chocolate cream pie home. It reminded me of the pies I’d find everywhere growing up in the Midwest, down to the shaved chocolate on top! Chewy semisweet chocolate shavings, in the cutest curlicues, sit on a bed of vanilla whipped cream. This cool, refreshing treat covers the heart of the pie, a thick chocolate cream of admirable richness. The chocolate's cacao content lies somewhere between those of milk and semisweet chocolates, and heavy cream keeps the mixture smooth. However, my favorite part of this pie was the crust. The crust’s restrained flakiness – substantive and sturdy on plate and in fork, flaky in mouth – is its standout characteristic. It is also less buttery than many pastry crusts, and more flavoring agents, potentially cinnamon and brown sugar, make up for any butter I may have otherwise missed.

Bravo, Flour!