Asheville, N.C., is a sort of crossroads. It is Appalachian to the core, but its temperate climate makes it attractive both to Northerners seeking shelter from the snow and Southerners seeking respite from the heat. And the city's status as a gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains lures tourists and permanent transplants alike to the area. The resulting community is all-inclusive and a melting pot of food preferences.

Flat Rock Village Bakery in nearby Flat Rock takes the simple, real elements of a mountain town bakery and runs with them. It uses locally sourced, all-natural and organic ingredients that sophisticated, socially aware consumers demand to produce a range of simple but upscale baked products that appeal to the far-flung tastes of the blended community.

David Workman and Scott Unfried are co-owners of the bakery. They also share a restaurant, West First Wood-fired Pizza in Hendersonville, N.C. Unfried started Flat Rock Village Bakery in 2001, then partnered with Workman in 2006 to open the restaurant.

Unfried originally only sold bread out of 600 sq. ft. of production space attached to a popular gift shop and general store called The Wrinkled Egg. The bakery became popular with the store's patrons; primarily families going to and from the nearby summer camps. When Workman joined, the bakery commandeered an additional 600 sq. ft. of retail space from the gift shop that would serve as the café.

Workman runs the bakery, while Unfried handles the restaurant. Flat Rock produces all of the pizza dough and bread for West First, which has a brick oven of its own. Local artisan baker Jon Hartzler joined the team as head baker shortly after Workman became involved.

Brick oven personality

The wood-burning brick oven hearth is the defining characteristic of Flat Rock Village Bakery. The basic oven dovetails nicely with the bakery's rustic, earthy style.

“It's nice to take some of the extra technology out of the baking process every now and then,” Workman says. “I also love the brick oven bread; it bakes really fast, and it's a totally different kind of crust because it doesn't have the steam injection. It relies on the natural steam released from the breads during the baking process, so it's a thicker, chewier crust. It also lends itself more to sourdough breads, so that's what we focus on. Ciabatta is our only non-sourdough.”

But the brick oven also presents some challenges. The biggest issue is temperature variation — the oven cools as production wears on. This necessitates a precise baking schedule to get certain breads in and out in their ideal temperature zone. The oven also had a steep learning curve. In the beginning, if it was fired too hot or too late in the evening; morning bakers would arrive at 5 a.m. to find the oven unusable. They had to open all the doors, clean out the embers and wait until the oven cooled to a working temperature.

“This oven really holds heat well,” Workman says. “We have temperature probes in several places, so we now know what temperature we can expect at 5 a.m. based on a reading at 5 p.m. the night before.” They then make adjustments before going home in order to hit a narrow temperature target window that's 12 hours away.

Customers in the bakery café overlook the deck and outdoor seating area.

At peak production, the oven needs to be exceptionally hot. Bakers start baking bread at 4 a.m., and the oven needs to stay hot enough to still be baking bread at 10 a.m. With so many batches, the doors are frequently opened and closed, so the temperature slope is steeper than it is during a normal production cycle. This affects the entire baking schedule, with different products occupying different spaces on a variable temperature slope. It's an equation the bakers have to work out every day, but Workman says the bread the oven produces makes it worthwhile. Loaves bake very quickly when the oven is at its ideal temperature; just 20 minutes to produce a thick crust with a good color and moist interior.

The bakery uses a lot of wood, sometimes more than a cord (a load of 4 ft. by 4 ft. by 8 ft. of chopped and stacked foot-long logs) per week. As with his baking ingredients, Workman uses locally sourced wood to fuel the oven. The area is heavily wooded, but the supply chain isn't without its hiccups.

“We go through a lot of suppliers. Eventually, the suppliers' stockpile dwindles, and they start bringing us green wood, and that's not good,” Workman says. “Green wood is difficult to light, it pops and doesn't burn very hot. So when we start to get green wood, we have to find a new supplier.”

A wood-fired brick oven requires extra labor and planning, but Workman believes the oven is an extension of the bakery's persona.

Targeted, upscale product line

All the breads, Danish, croissants and bagels use preferments and are retarded overnight. This eases the production schedule and the slow, cool fermentation increases the products' flavor.

With only a 600-sq.-ft. production area, employees get creative to maximize space. Workman uses heavy duty, TV tray-style tables that can be folded and stored to free workable space in front of the brick oven.

Scones are the best-selling bakery item at Flat Rock, and it sells between 40 and 150 per day, depending on the season. They are an inexpensive accompaniment to the bakery's coffee program, and customers buy them by the box — especially the cranberry apricot variety.

“They are definitely the best scones I've ever had, and they are easy to make. If we start to run out on a busy morning, we can quickly mix more, and they are out of the oven 18 minutes later. Sometimes customers come in looking for a certain flavor, and if we don't have it, we make it while they wait. We really try to go out of our way to keep the customers happy and to sell them the freshest bakery products possible,” Workman says.

Due in part to the population of New York transplants, bagels are also popular. The bakery sells five to seven dozen bagels on busy weekend days during the summer season. That might not sound like much, but for a bakery with 600 ft. of production space, that's a lot of hand-shaped, boiled and brick oven-baked bagels. Filled Danish and croissants combine for sales of as many as 10 dozen per day, again depending on the season. Sticky buns are only offered on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but they are big sellers when available.

Though sweetgoods are popular, Flat Rock distinguishes itself from traditional southern bakeries by focusing on wholesome, organic and natural elements to go along with pure indulgence. All Danish and croissants are hand laminated, using organic flour, organic eggs and high-quality organic dried fruit.

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