The Ojai Post

Bobbi trained and worked as both an architect and a pastry chef prior to coming to Ojai. Her first summer internship as a chef was making pastry at the Four Seasons in Boston. She has been making pastry ever since. She moved to Ojai from Boston in August 2004 opening the Knead Baking Company, three years later. She still works as a part time pastry chef at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles when not making her own works of art in her commercial kitchen at the corner of Fox Street and E. Ojai Ave.

Her daughter Rachel has been her partner from the start of “Knead”. She studied environmental studies at UCLA and brings that into the business by making the company sustainable/environmentally conscious. According to Rachel “We're sourcing as many organic local seasonal ingredients as possible, organic fair trade coffee and tea, using compostable and recyclable paper goods, biodegradable non-toxic cleaning products, natural light to cut down on electricity use, etc.”

My wife, Robin, and I were lucky to wander in to their new place during a soft opening last week. The objective of the opening was to test the customer friendliness of their new digs and to get a feel for their customer’s needs. Rachel served us a buttery Basque cake and rich, tasty coffee. The cake was “to die for”. Really. It had a layer of pastry cream baked in the middle that, blended together with the other fresh ingredients during baking, left a Creme Brullé aftertaste. There are no shortcuts in what Bobbi and Rachel do. Every bite was melt-in-your-mouth good.

In short, the Knead Baking Company has an excellent location in town. Bobbi and Rachel serve beautifully prepared food using local ingredients and they are vegetarian friendly! I’ll come back periodically if for no other reason than to see what new and innovative seasonal “delights” come from their kitchen. I hear they have a new vegetarian flatbread they are bringing out soon. Maybe it will be available this Sunday at the Farmers Market. One can only hope so!