The front room to Foxtail Bakeshop, a new bakery adjacent to The Lot, is tidy and looks as if Wes Anderson had designed the space to its very country-style detail: A turquoise chest of drawers serves as a front counter, three skinny chairs huddle in the corner and cookies wait in glass jars next to an even bigger bell jar encasing the granddaddy of baked goods, a divine chocolate cake stacked five inches high with smooth chocolate and another dollop of chocolate on top.
"I've been told it is like crack cake," quips Nickol Hayden-Cody, the amiable proprietor and baker for Foxtail Bakeshop.
An accomplished baker, Hayden-Cody has worked in New York, London and, recently served in Portland as the Executive Pastry Chef for Papa Haydn, a popular, long-standing restaurant with a coincidentally close, but not same surname. She brings some of that same approachable elegance to her small store, which had been opened just for two days when I walked in.
But Hayden-Cody is not a newcomer to Bend; she has been making specialty wedding cakes and cupcakes for years, under the name Enlightened Patisserie.
"The truth is, though I love the wedding industry dearly, it has always been my dream to have a store front in Bend to serve specialty desserts. I have always wanted to offer these desserts to the community in this type of setting. When the opportunity presented itself to me recently, I knew I was in the right position to jump."
And the name? Originally, it was the title for a game her husband invented for Bend Park & Recreation, and subsequently a nickname for their in utero baby.
"What the name represents to me is family, creativity and playfulness," says Hayden-Cody. "To me, a fox represents a humble creature, and I want to stay that way."
But that may be a tall order. Hayden-Cody's baked goods are divine, and her choices of ingredients exquisite.
For $20, including a tip, I walked out with four different desserts—each which won immediate fans back at the Source office.
A caramel cream brulee served (of course) in a small mason jar was creamy and dubbed "spectacular" by one of the staff. The cheesecake, topped with glazed figs and a fig jam, had a welcomed lightness, not the common heaviness, more a mousse. The "Oregon Love" chiffron cake was a wedge of the region's signature ingredients—marionberry and hazelnut cream. And, finally, the passion fruit honey mascarpone was remarkable, a zingy and unique cake.
Foxtail Bakeshop
735 NW Columbia
Open Wed.–Sun. 10 am–6 pm