Matters of Taste: Family and sweet science make Mozelle’s Downtown Bakery a must-try

AZ Daily Sun, Mountain Living Section, November 2023

Written by Gail G. Collins

“The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.“

Surely, those children had delighted in a day spent baking holiday treats. Whether, they are stock standards, like snickerdoodles, or boozy bars, like maple bourbon squares, or shortbread cutouts, iced and sprinkled, a festive plate of cookies ensures smiles at any age.

Whether you gather as family or friends to bake, follow this recipe for measuring and mixing fun. First, pick a day to spend entirely devoted to bowls of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Mess up the kitchen once, washing and reusing equipment, keeping the oven fired up, letting many hands lighten the load and blasting holiday tunes to energize you.

Choose your recipes beforehand, earmarking doughs that need refrigeration to be whipped up first. Make a detailed grocery list and have all ingredients on hand. Gather containers for treat storage. If baking early in the season, clear freezer space to tuck away labeled goods. Lastly, if time allows, host a bakers’ extravaganza day followed by a decorating day. Celebrate your baking efforts then with coffee or mimosas while the kids create works of edible art.

Andrea Knott, owner of Mozelle’s Downtown Bakery knows a thing or thirty about seasonal goodies. The specialty, scratch bakery opened on Heritage Square in 2016. Their everyday cookies range from chocolate chip, oatmeal walnut and peanut butter to elaborate red velvet, spicy molasses ginger and triple chocolate. Custom cookies can be cut from sugar, shortbread and gingerbread doughs. Pie flavors tempt with bourbon pecan, caramel apple, triple berry, bananas Foster cream, coconut, buttermilk and more.

“We’re an old-fashioned bakery with a little bit of everything,” Knott said. “It’s a baker’s bakery with tons of different pastries and custom cakes—an all-around sweet shop.”

The cakes are best sellers for events, but when customers reach for the cookie jar, brownies and lemon bars top sales.

While bakeries often buy frozen dough to thaw and bake off as fresh goods, Knott stressed, “Everything at Mozelle’s is baked from scratch—every filling, every topping—including homemade croissants. All ingredients are natural, no preservatives—just butter, sugars, eggs and not much else—made in small batches for freshness.”

Knott played in the kitchen from Elementary School on. Then, she added pastry skills at Los Angeles Trade Technical College before joining the military. “That teaches you to put the work in,” said Knott of the disciplined, early mornings required to run a bakery.

Throughout the holidays, Mozelle’s bakes voluminous pies and sprightly cookies. Pumpkin and pecan headline, of course, but vegan and gluten-free options are available upon request.

As far as making mornings merry, nothing beats a hot pastry eaten in candy cane jammies. Knott recommended, “Our take and bake cinnamon rolls are huge sellers and let you shine in your own kitchen.”

Are you invited to a party this season? Surprise your host by picking up a gift box of pastries, cookies or designer favorites, like eclairs, strudel, sticky buns and bear claws.

Mozelle’s Downtown Bakery is a family business, following the happy tradition of too many good cooks in the kitchen and employing three of Knott’s daughters and her mother. Pooling all of the family talent keeps Flagstaff fresh with bakery goods.

Their family kitchen also has a few tips to share. They use only butter, not shortening, for better crumb cookies. For cut-outs, shortbread dough, which calls for more sugar and butter, rolls out better than sugar cookie dough. Roll dough to one-quarter inch or thicker to avoid burned edges or broken cut-outs. As far as high altitude baking, start with wetter batter and add more flour as you go to keep doughs in proper wet-dry proportion. As you bake those tasty goods, the best gift is treasured time together. AZDSun