AVENUE BAKERY: TASTY, OLD-SCHOOL PASTRIES.

• Author: Sasich, Chris
• Position: READERS' CHOICE

American Fork -- It's 3:30 in the morning and while most of us are just dreaming of decadent pies and pastries, Bryan Peterson is making them from scratch. Peterson is the owner of AVENUE BAKERY and a steward of the old ways of baking.

"We make everything from scratch," said Peterson. "A lot of people, nowadays, are using shelf-stable stuff; we don't. Everything is real. We do it the old way, like most grandparents and parents used to do back in the day. We're old school."

The holidays are especially demanding for Avenue Bakery, where on top of their usual workload they are busy fulfilling those special orders of holiday favorites we've all come to know, like pumpkin pie. While most of their pies are special order, Avenue Bakery will happily fulfill your pie needs with high-quality ingredients, perfect flaky crusts and made-from-scratch fillings.

"I was a pastry chef for Little America and then for Sundance. I was going to college and working as a pastry chef, and I ended up working for a chef from Switzerland who was just phenomenal. He taught me," said Peterson. "I've been baking for 30 years, so I'm just trying to keep those methods intact. While everyone else is trying to use conditioners and all this stuff to speed their doughs up, we're just keeping our own way. It complicates things a bit, but we think you can definitely...