A self-taught baker, Caitlin Freeman is the resident pastry chef for Blue Bottle Coffee. A longtime owner of the San Francisco cake and sweets shop Miette, Caitlin made a name for herself creating simple and lovely cakes and cupcakes using local and organic ingredients. Inspired to bake by the confectionary paintings of California painter Wayne Thiebaud, Caitlin built a small cake shop in San Francisco's historic Ferry Building and a lovely candy store in San Francisco's Hayes Valley neighborhood. After selling Miette in 2008, she started the pastry program at Blue Bottle, creating small cookies and cakes that pair well with coffee.
Caitlin has earned national media attention for her desserts at the Blue Bottle Cafe in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Creating desserts inspired by art on view in the muesum, she expresses her love of art in her working medium, pastry. Caitlin is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she studied photography. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, James, step-son Dashiell, and two big, sweet dogs.