By Charlotte Smith

The menu board at WPA bakery.

I was the first one awake in my house at 7:30 a.m. on a crisp Sunday morning. With the house quiet, I got dressed, tiptoed downstairs, and waited for my friend Molly Woods (‘22) to pick me up. We had an exciting morning ahead of ourselves, as we were headed to WPA Bakery.

Located on the Southside of Richmond, Well-Made Pastry Alliance, better known as WPA Bakery is nestled in between Forest Hill and Westover Hills. Arriving just after 8:00, I was fully expecting it to be packed full of families with small children, people drinking coffee and reading the paper, and of course, the kind of people who you can tell are just regulars. Instead, Woods and I found only one other customer in the cozy neighborhood bakery.  

Featuring a large variety of pastries, cupcakes, cakes, pies, coffees, and breakfast sandwiches, we gazed over our options. We then ordered a blueberry muffin, a slice of coffee cake, two caneles, a piece of chocolate chess pie, and an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich on a biscuit. In between ordering each item, the cashier carefully sliced into the untouched items, put the slices onto plates, and lightly dusted each item with powdered sugar. 

The chocolate chess pie, the blueberry muffin, the caneles, and the crumb cake.

After getting our plates, Woods and I sat in the back of the shop at a small wooden table. We first tried the caneles. A canele is a French dessert that is usually flavored with vanilla and rum and has a crispy, caramelized outside, with a custard-like texture on the inside. Before coming to the bakery, I had no idea what a canele was, and I hadn’t even heard of them until looking at the menu the night before and googling it. My google search of “what is a canele” led me to many blogs and recipes, heightening my expectations. WPA’s canele was underwhelming. The inside had a strong vanilla flavor to it, but the creamy texture of the middle paired with the dryness of the outside didn’t sit right with me, and I wished it was slightly sweeter. Woods and I both agreed that we wouldn’t order this item again.

The caneles.

Next, we tried the chocolate chess pie, which tasted just like a Thanksgiving dessert. The chocolate filling was rich and smooth, and the crust had a shortbread crumble to it. When ordering, I hadn’t looked at the small signs saying which items were gluten-free and vegan, but Woods had, and she noted that although delicious, she could tell that the crust was gluten-free from the crumbly texture. 

We then moved on to the coffee cake, which also happened to be gluten-free. I love coffee cake, and this one was no exception. Swirled with layers of a gooey cinnamon and sugar mixture, the cake was delicious. It had a soft crumb to it and was perfectly moist. Although the cake itself was not heated, the cinnamon swirls were still slightly warm, elevating the flavor of the cake. I think that the coffee cake would have been better if the whole cake was warm, or, better yet, paired with vanilla ice cream, but, nonetheless, I still enjoyed it. 

The blueberry muffin was next on our tasting agenda. We both dove in at the same time and found that the inside of the muffin was filled with a generous amount of fresh blueberries. Woods tasted the muffin and immediately said, “I can tell this is vegan.” When ordering, I was unaware that the muffin was vegan, and never having had a vegan baked good before, I can now say that vegan baked goods don’t cut it for me. The muffin was bland, and instead of being fluffy was dense and bread-like. 

The egg and cheese breakfast sandwich on an exceptional square biscuit.

After the muffin disappointment, our breakfast sandwich was a pleasant surprise. The large egg sat on a square biscuit, which I find to be superior to circular biscuits because you receive more surface area for a buttery, crisp biscuit top. This square biscuit was flawless. It was packed with butter, had defined layers, and was flaky. Woods and I both decided that the biscuit was the best item we had tasted all day. 

I would strongly recommend WPA Bakery to people who maintain a gluten-free or vegan diet, as almost everything we ordered, even the biscuit, was gluten-free. Being neither gluten-free nor vegan, I didn’t note any major changes between “normal” baked goods and the gluten-free baked goods, aside from the muffin. I would definitely say that this bakery is not traditional and more natural, gluten-free, and vegan-focused, something that I had not known prior. Some might even describe it as “granola.”

My morning at WPA Bakery was well spent. Listening to soft early 2000’s music, and feeling like I was in a warm cottage, it was exciting to watch the bakery fill up with neighborhood locals and see the pastries quickly disappear from the display. Although we did not enjoy the muffin or the canele, we decided that we would be venturing back over winter break just for the square biscuit.

All photos by Charlotte Smith.