On Feb. 9, Michelle Sinnott was up all night baking — croissants, danishes and pain suisse. She was preparing for the grand opening of The Flaky Pastry, her cottage bakery specializing in vegan croissants. By sunrise, Sinnott hadn’t slept a wink, and she’d run out of time to bake palmiers.
Despite the hiccup, Sinnott arrived at her stand inside The Frozen Flamingo Market with dozens of pastries on hand. Fifteen minutes before opening, a line stretched out the door. She sold out of croissants in just over an hour.
A long-time hobby baker, Sinnott said her pastry chef journey began with a craving for pain au chocolat. She hadn’t eaten the chocolatey rolls — or any croissants — since adopting a vegan diet over two decades ago. Soon, Sinnott’s weakness for sweet yeasted dough had her baking her way through a primer on vegan french pastries.
Her initial attempts were a little wonky. “My croissants came out more like biscuits,” Sinnott said. But through trial and error, she slowly found success — first with a tofu cream cheese danish. After a summer of practice, her croissants consistently boasted a honeycomb crumb.
Sinnott didn’t plan to make a business out of pastry-making. “I just had an ungodly amount of pastries in my house and I could only hand them off to friends for so long,” she said. Figuring she wasn’t the only vegan in town craving croissants, Sinnott applied for a cottage license and sought a place to set up shop.
Now every Saturday, Sinnott slings croissants, danishes and other baked goods from a pop-up cart at The Frozen Flamingo Market in Spenard, which houses crafts from over a dozen Alaskan vendors. A line regularly forms prior to opening, and she’s sold out nearly every weekend since she launched.
When Sinnott moved to Anchorage ten years ago, she didn’t have high expectations around eating out. After all, “Alaskan” and “vegan” are generally seen as oxymorons. “It’s that stereotype that, ‘Oh, you’re moving to Alaska, there’s not going to be any vegan food,’” Sinnott said.
Despite that stereotype, Anchorage’s vegan food scene has blossomed in the last few years. Sinnott says Anchorage’s growing ecosystem of plant-based businesses, from Preference — Alaska’s first and only fully vegan restaurant — to cottage bakers like The Smiling Moose, inspired her to set up shop. A growing number of annual events, like Anchorage VegFest and the upcoming Anchorage Vegan Food Fest, also cater to plant-based clientele.
Thanks to a warm reception, The Flaky Pastry will expand into markets this summer, including the Sunday Fresh Market at O’Malley. While scaling presents logistical challenges — Sinnott works out of her home kitchen and croissant dough can take 3 to 5 days to prepare — she says the demand has been exciting. “It shows that there’s a desire in our community to have more vegan options.”
Currently, Sinnott is tinkering with new recipes, including a growing list of requests from regulars. While pastry-making now consumes most of her free time, she says the community it’s built has made it worthwhile.
“Post-COVID, I really wanted more community and I was craving that,” Sinnott said. “This has been this fantastic way for me to experience and kind of really embrace and embed myself in the community.”
Kaitlin Armstrong is an Anchorage-based writer and audio producer. She hosts The Alaska Myth, a podcast about the myths that shape how Alaskans view our history and ourselves.