The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today!
The sun hasn’t yet risen over rural Alma, but Maggie Kraft’s forearms are already marred by oven burns, and her chestnut-brown hair is dusted with flour. The 34-year-old has been buzzing around her 400-square-foot microbakery, Bristlecone Bake Shop, loading a pair of prized Belgian Rofco stone ovens with breads, croissants, cinnamon rolls, and cookies since 4 a.m. On a good day, she’ll walk back through the door to her husband and two sons, Jack, six, and Patrick, three, at 8 p.m. During the busy holiday season, the clock could be nudging 11 p.m.
A modest white flag announces Bristlecone’s presence, wedged between a liquor store and a gym on the blink-and-miss town’s main drag—a surprisingly active thoroughfare between Hoosier Pass and Fairplay, south of Breckenridge.
Kraft began selling her picturesque sourdough boules out of her Alma home in May 2020, starting with word-of-mouth marketing and porch pick ups, then expanding to booths at fairs and festivals. In January 2024, she opened her modest bake shop inside a 100-year-old building on Alma’s Main Street.
With four years of professional bread baking under her belt, the New Jersey native has curated a superhero-strong sourdough starter—a crucial element to her success after setting up shop in the highest incorporated town in North America.
When it comes to baking at 10,578 feet, Kraft says her biggest headache is seasonal temperature fluctuations. “Some winter mornings I come in and it’s 38 degrees in here,” she says. “In the summer, the bakery prep space can be almost 90 degrees. Sourdough needs to be warm and humid. The dry and cold are big challenges.”
Kraft began her journey with naturally leavened baked goods in 2013 after reading artisan bread cookbook Tartine. Today, she uses eastern Colorado’s Grains From the Plains organic wheat berries and stone-milled flour from Cairnspring Mills to shape her sourdough loaves, bagels, and sweet and savory pastries. Kraft’s famous sourdough chocolate chunk cookies call on a precise recipe she’s been polishing since middle school. She baked them in her Colorado College dorm room toaster oven while majoring in history. Now, the latest variation of that crispy-edged dark chocolate cookie is one of her favorite things to bake. “I try to only bake things that I like and enjoy making,” she says. “I mean, who can hate on a well-executed cookie?”
Bristlecone regulars scoop up Kraft’s seasonal fruit danishes (always the first thing to sell out), ham-and-cheddar croissants, and extra-flaky cinnamon rolls made with croissant dough. She loves her locals and often offers them friendly sways toward something new—perhaps an everything bagel constructed with twisted-up croissant dough and a swirling cream cheese crown.
Kraft snags inspiration from farmers’ markets, cookbooks, Instagram, blogs, and customers, shifting with the seasons and showcasing Colorado-grown produce whenever possible. Winter weather will bring a caramelized-onion-and-gruyere danish to the menu alongside seasonal croissants dressed in toasted pecan frangipane, spiced pumpkin butter, and cranberry jam.
“I want people to feel like they’re getting a hug when they’re eating something from Bristlecone,” Kraft says. “It’s such a compliment to me when a customer says ‘I’ve traveled all over the world and your bakery feels like I’m in Europe.’ ”
Bristlecone Bake Shop is located at 15 S. Main St., Alma.
