“We offer to become your pastry chef for hire.”
—Cynthia Walton
Cynthia Walton and Amanda Perreault, the cofounders of Nostalgia Scratch Pastry, set their alarms for 3 a.m. most mornings. By 4:30, they’ve tiptoed out of their respective homes and are carpooling to their rented kitchen at Greylock Works in North Adams, where they’ll begin the day’s baking. Between 7 and 8 a.m., they’re ready to load up the SUV and deliver their pastries—flaky croissants, melt-in-your mouth palmiers, sweet and creamy raspberry cream Danish, among other delectables—to a variety of locations throughout the county.
The two work together seamlessly. Walton tests recipes, does research, and delves into the science of baking. Perreault is all about the dough and the art of lamination—the process by which chilled butter is repeatedly rolled into dough, which is then folded again and again to create flaky, honeycombed layers. The process is facilitated by a dough sheeter, which Walton describes as an “electric rolling pin that can flatten dough down to the millimeter.” She jokes that the sheeter is their “third employee” and an essential one at that.
Childhood friends who grew up in Dalton, Walton and Perreault both started out as chefs, but they found their footing as partners when they worked together as pastry chefs for several years under the tutelage of Peter Platt at Old Inn on the Green in New Marlborough. “Amanda taught me a lot about baking,” says Walton. “When I started, I hated it. Everything was so sticky and the measurements were so precise.” But she came to embrace the precision and loved the end result.
Near the onset of Covid, in June 2020, Walton and Perreault decided they needed a change and signed on with Brian Alberg, who had recently opened The Break Room at Greylock Works. “ We helped with their original pastry program, and we both also cooked breakfast on the line,” Walton recalls. Additionally, they delivered their pastries to wholesale clients such as Marjoram & Roux and Farm Country Soup in Great Barrington.
When the two decided they were ready to start their own business in 2023, they drew upon the lessons they had learned while working in the restaurant industry during Covid. Selling wholesale, rather than directly to consumers, was a business model that made sense and that they thought could survive another pandemic. Plus, the partners felt that even in the best of times, they’d have a tough time attracting enough foot traffic to sell out their inventory every day, a necessity given the short shelf life of their pastries. “We’ve seen a few people open and close bakeries in the Berkshires,” says Walton. “We never want to have a brick-and-mortar place because I don’t think it’s sustainable.” So they embraced the wholesale model and eliminated the risk—and the overhead—of owning a bakery. “We offer to become your pastry chef for hire,” says Walton.
Nostalgia now delivers pastries (fresh, frozen, and ready-to-bake) to clients such as Provisions Williamstown, The Country Store at Jiminy Peak, Dottie’s Coffee Lounge, Blue Vista Motor Lodge, The Porches Inn, Zucchini’s, and Mezze Bistro + Bar, among others. Walton and Perreault are also hoping to book events (they’ve been hired to provide pastries at The Clark Art Institute’s Community Day in July) and are making headway in the local wedding industry as well. “We’ve booked weddings through October,” says Walton. “One of our biggest challenges,” she adds, “is that we will say yes to anything and then figure it out.”
Nostalgia Scratch Pastry
nostalgiascratchpastry.com
