Bakery Review: Craftsman and Wolves (San Francisco, CA)


There are so many great bakeries in the Bay Area like Tartine, Bouchon, and Sandbox, and Craftsman and Wolves is my new favorite.  C & W opened last year, and what I like about it is that almost everything has a modern twist.  They are famous for the “Rebel Within” a sausage and scallion muffin with a soft-boiled egg in the middle, the yolk oozing out as you cut into it.  How did they do that?  There are bold flavors, like a Thai scone with coconut, dried mango, ginger, and green curry, or a peppery smoked cheddar gougere.  There is a decadent “Devil” chocolate cake, with chocolate ganache and bitter chocolate toffee, and a refined and delicate chocolate caramel eclair. The brownie had a layer of delicious, gooey salted caramel.  The blueberry muffin was moist with a hint of lemon. The croissants are on point, filled with proscuitto, tomato jam, and other rotating flavors.  Oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies are done well, especially the valrhona chocolate chip cookie, where it appeared like there was a sheet of chocolate that ran through the middle of the cookie.  They also have a great hot chocolate.  The Banana cube cake is maybe one of the best pastries I have ever eaten.  Basically everything has been truly well crafted and delicious, and I look forward to trying other items on the menu, such as their sandwiches, cakes, and breads.

C & W is located on a very trendy block of Valencia between 18th and 19th in the Mission, right next to the Dandelion Chocolate factory, a small batch artisan chocolate shop, and Mission Cheese, a cheese tasting bar.

Link to Craftsman and Wolves here.  There is a great video of Chef William Werner putting together one of his precise cube cakes here.

Craftsman & Wolves on Urbanspoon
 

13 thoughts on “Bakery Review: Craftsman and Wolves (San Francisco, CA)

    • My guess is that they sous vide cook the egg, then chill it to prevent it from cooking too much more when the rest of the muffin cooks around it. Another mystery – how does the egg stay upright when they pour the batter around it? Unless the batter is really thick or they have some mechanical way to hold it in place. These are the things I was pondering after I ate the Rebel Within (besides the fact that it was delicious). They must have done a lot of recipe testing/development to get it right!

      • So many good questions! Here, April Bloomfield has a scotch egg on the menu at the Breslin. When you cut it open, the yolk runs beautifully and the whites are perfectly set. Not sure how they do it either. Maybe they don’t have to sous vide the egg, maybe they can just soft boil it until the whites are just hard enough to peel it gently?

        Since reading your post, I have seen this the Rebel Within everywhere! I guess a lot of people are wondering the same things.

      • It’s pretty amazing that people in NYC like you know about this muffin from a shop in the Mission in San Francisco from multiple sources. I keep on hearing about something in New York called a cronut…?

      • Oh, yes! The (in)famous cronut! I haven’t had one yet because I can’t be asked to wake up at dawn to stand in line. I also can’t make up my mind as to whether or not the enterprising homeless people standing in line for people for money is horrible or genius.

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