Flour Play 2025- Cookies, Pies & Buns
Participants checking out the texture and look of yeasted dough for plantain sticky buns from Bodega Bakes. All Photos by Alexx Caceres and Ana Moran for Deep Routes, please don’t use without written permission.
What a full year of programming 2025 was (check out our report here)! And to wrap things up we held our 3rd Annual Flour Play Series in The Bronx. This year we added a session on Sweet + Savory Buns alongside foundational favorites Cookies 101 and Pie Baking 101. Details about each session and photos below.
October 25th 2025 - Cookies 101 (focusing on Sugars + Fats)
We opened the series by diving into the wonderful world of cookies, sugars, and fats. We got how techniques like “creaming” transform sugar and fat into a base for drop cookies, and the other properties these ingredients bring to baked goods outside of their obvious deliciousness. After some demonstrations participants got right into practicing their hand at making chocolate chip, rainbow sprinkle, and sorghum molasses cookies.
November 08th 2025 - Pies (focusing on Flavorings + Spices)
For our 2nd session we dove into the multi-step process that is baking pies from scratch. Pie baking goes back centuries to ancient Egypt where ingredients like regional grains and honey were typical for pies, and has since come a long way to include popular flavors like sweet potato, pumpkin, blueberry, apple, chess, and more depending on the season. During our time together, bakers were shown and practiced how to make a flaky butter crust from scratch, followed by demonstrations of spiced apple and sweet potato fillings.
December 13th 2025 - Sweet + Savory Buns (focusing on Flours and Leaveners)
To close out the series we focused on flours and leaveners via making swirled buns! We started off with discussion of the different types of flour and leaveners used in baking, their properties, and some of their origins. Then we got into the 5 main steps for successful yeasted bread baking and applied those with our bun recipes for the day. Our savory option was a cheesy, spinach swirled bun; while our sweet option was a decadent plantain sticky bun from Bodega Bakes. Participants got to make their own pans of one or both options.
A group photo to close out this years series!
