Vegans Getting Their Sugar Fix at Fiore’s

During a recent brainstorming session on reasons to love Boston, amid all the waxing rhapsodic about our culture, architecture, and sports heroes, there was a shout-out to the Chocolate Bomb cupcake at Fiore’s Bakery in Jamaica Plain. The vegan Chocolate Bomb cupcake. I admit: As a longtime devotee of all things milk, butter, and eggs, I scoffed. Then I stopped by the South Street bakery this weekend for a taste. And I smartened up fast.

Launched in 2005 as a traditional Italian sweet shop, last fall Fiore’s brought in vegan baker Helen Matthews to vary its stock with some treats for J.P.’s vegan contingent. Since then, Matthews reports, demand has driven the bakery to quadruple its animal-product-free output, as even the nonvegans are getting in line for hew rich chocolate-peanut butter tarts, crunchy cookies, and ultramoist brownie bites.

There’s even a recently debuted vegan whoopie pie, as airy and sinful as any egged-up version (I should know—I scarfed two in quick succession).

With a second vegan baker now on board, the lineup is expanding still further, with pizza—topped with Matthews’s cashew-red pepper “cheese” and fresh veggies—now on offer, and sandwiches and wraps soon to come. The staffers wouldn’t cop to the combos they’re planning, as the menu’s in the planning stages, but Matthews was dreaming about perhaps a meaty grilled portobello sandwich with spinach and cashew cheese…stay tuned for updates…