If you’re headed toward the Augusta area and looking for anything from good coffee and a pastry to full take-home meals you can heat in your oven for dinner, stop by the Flaky Tart Cafe in Winthrop.

The theme — in a word — is “homemade,” and it ranges from baked goods, to soups and chowders, to imaginative sandwich combinations, to those take-home meals, and then there is the variety of other food services the restaurant provides.

Cozy and often busy, the Flaky Tart is located in downtown Winthrop and seats about 20. Restaurant Manager Kim Phinney makes most of the baked goods and prepares the homemade soups and quiche that highlight the menu.

“A lot of the recipes are from my grandmother. I dress them up a little,” said Phinney, who was employed as a cook for a seafood restaurant on Maine’s coast and also helped open several chain restaurants in the Lewiston-Auburn and Bangor areas before coming to work at the Flaky Tart. “Everything is made from scratch. Nothing fancy, just simple.”

Some of their most popular baked goods, according to Phinney, are her homemade cinnamon buns, chocolate whoopee pies with cream cheese frosting, and carrot cake. She said they also sell bagels from Bagel Mania and bread from Pain Acadien in Livermore Falls.

Pain Acadien bread makes “white, multigrain, anadama and cinnamon swirl breads fresh every week, which are delivered to us Friday mornings,” said Phinney. “These breads disappear by Friday afternoon, so you need to come in early or order in advance by calling us Wednesday afternoon.”

All of the Flaky Tart’s soups are made from scratch. “Some of the soups we’ve featured are cream of broccoli, tomato with basil, potato sausage and chicken with rice,” said Phinney.

Sandwich specials are offered weekly, and include teriyaki chicken with avocado, chicken Caesar wrap, and roast beef with provolone cheese and onion.

To go along with the pastries, sandwiches and other homemade food at Flaky Tart, Phinney recommends a coffee that’s roasted locally, including one flavor made just for the restaurant. “We serve Shipwreck Coffee, which is roasted right in Farmingdale,” she said. “Shipwreck Coffee has an amazing bold, rich flavor.”

The most popular blend is Lobstermen’s Blend. Shipwreck also created a flavor just for Flaky Tart called Rambler Roast, with a portion of the sales of Rambler Roast going to area groups, including the local food pantry.

The restaurant is owned by Kim Cognata who worked in the restaurant business for many years with her family in New Jersey. She was living in Winthrop in 2009 when she and another business partner decided to open the Flaky Tart in 2009. While Cognata remains the owner, Phinney has assumed the day-to-day operation of the business.

The restaurant, which is quieter during the winter months, offers a variety of other food-related options.

“We do catering for up to 100 people,” said Phinney. “We cater weddings and simple banquets or in private homes. We make take-out platters too.”

The restaurant offers take-home dinners such as chicken Alfredo, chicken pot pie, chicken parmesan, beef stew and beef burritos. Made right there. “You can just throw them in the oven,” said Phinney.

The Flaky Tart’s premises can be rented for private parties or dinners, and can cater those as well.

Phinney also takes orders — especially during the holidays — for rolls and cakes, and makes cakes for birthdays and other special occasions.

And if that’s not enough, the Flaky Tart occasionally offers special meals, such as its recent five-course Valentine’s Dinner, with a choice of three seating times. An art show was scheduled across the street on the same day. Phinney said they attempt to include other businesses when they have special events to help grow small businesses in the Winthrop area.

Whoopie pies

Servings 6

For the cakes:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup packed light brown sugar

8 tablespoons butter, softened but still cool

1 large egg, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

For the filling:

12 tablespoons butter, softened but still cool (1 1/2 sticks)

1 1/4 cups confectioners sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups marshmallow cream, such as Fluff

Directions:

For the cakes:

Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.

With electric mixer on medium speed, beat sugar and butter in large bowl until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Beat in egg until incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary, then beat in vanilla.

Reduce speed to low and beat in one-third of flour mixture, then half of buttermilk. Repeat with half of remaining flour mixture, then remaining buttermilk, and finally remaining flour mixture. Using rubber spatula, give batter final stir.

Using 1/3-cup measure, scoop 6 mounds of batter onto each baking sheet, spacing mounds about 3 inches apart.

Bake until cakes spring back when pressed, 15 to 18 minutes, switching and rotating pans halfway through baking.

Cool completely on baking sheets, at least 1 hour.

For the filling:

With electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar together until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Beat in vanilla and salt. Beat in marshmallow cream until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Refrigerate filling until slightly firm, about 30 minutes. (Bowl can be wrapped and refrigerated for up to 2 days.)

Dollop 1/3 cup filling onto the flat side of each of 6 cakes. Top each with the flat side of the 6 remaining cakes and gently press until the filling spreads to the edge of each cake.

Whoopie pies can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 3 days.

Memere’s butterscotch bundt cake

1 6-ounce package of butterscotch morsels

2 tablespoons instant coffee

1/4 cup water

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup buttermilk

4 eggs

Preheat to 350 degrees.

Melt one 6-ounce package of butterscotch morsels in a double boiler. Add instant coffee and water

Cream the butter and sugar together; then blend it into the butterscotch mixture

Combine flour, soda and salt , then gradually add it to the creamed mixture by alternating with the buttermilk.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one.

Turn the mixture into a greased and floured bundt pan. Bake for about 60 minutes.

Remove and dust with powdered sugar.

The Flaky Tart Cafe

130 Main St., Suite A1

Winthrop

377-8278

Hours: Tuesday-Friday 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Online at: www.facebook.com/flakytartwinthrop