Bountiful South Bay Bakeries

Divine breads, cakes, cookies pastries and more can be found at the terrific bakeries in the South Bay.

(To be published by South Bay Accent magazine.)

In our heart of hearts, scrumptious baked goods usually outrank self control, which has been good news for a slew of talented local bakers feeding our jones for all manner of treats, from naturally leavened breads, Paris-perfect pastries and gasp-inducing custom cakes to many enticing specialties. But let’s be clear: baked goods of all descriptions are in abundance in our region, reflecting our diverse population and tendency to celebrate with something sweet at the drop of a hat — or sombrero or turban or beret.

Just about every goody imaginable can be found in local establishments, like Mexican pan dulce, Japanese cream puffs, Taiwanese mooncakes, Chinese red-bean buns, maja blanca pudding from the Philippines, and those addictive Portuguese donuts called malasadas, not to be outdone by Indian donuts, known as gulab jamun. However, citizens from all backgrounds tend to line up in force to consume European-style desserts and the local supply is more mind boggling than ever. Here we’ll find out about some of the stars producing them and where to find them.

The bakers

Talented baker “Mac” McConnell is turning out wonderful breads and pastries made from grains that are milled on site.

Ground-on-the-premises flour is one of the biggest new food trends and Thomas “Mac” McConnell is one of the most talented baking artisans around, milling close to a ton of regionally grown grains weekly and turning it into wonderfully crusty, flavorful breads and pastries at The Midwife and the Baker in Mountain View. McConnell was a mechanical engineer who fell in love with baking, moving west to become a bread instructor at the San Francisco Baking Institute. His spouse, Jaime,  is a former midwife and he originally sold his creations through her San Francisco midwifery practice back in 2015. Next, the pair took over the former Acme Bread production facility in Mountain View in 2017 and is now having trouble keeping up with demand.  Given the depth of flavor and fantastic textures of his baked goods, it’s easy to see why.

A former lawyer, Tian Mayamin has turned herself into a skilled baker with many fans.

Going natural is often synonymous with tasting great, thus the 100-year-old starter powering the naturally leavened breads produced by Little Sky Bakery has turned a 2017 business experiment into a local hit. A Harvard-trained lawyer, founder Tian Mayimin is an unlikely baker  who began bread baking as a hobby after being gifted the starter but her creations were so good that a literally home-grown bakery was launched in her Menlo Park residence, taking advantage of California’s cottage food law. The deliciousness of her various breads and clambering demand led her to bring on business partner and former Harvard chum Yan Xu, who’s also a self taught baker but an equal craftsman. There are long lines at their booths at several South Bay farmers markets, where multiple fans can’t get enough of their small-batch breads in a surprisingly large variety of guises.

The Mademoiselle Colette bakery cafes were created by France-raised Debora Ferrand.

Having been making pastries for close to 750 years, the French know a thing or two about baking and that’s reflected in the picture-perfect, delicious delicacies lining cases in French pâtisseries throughout that nation. Duplicating the pristine bounty of these pastry shops was the goal of France-raised Debora Ferrand when she opened Mademoiselle Colette, which has locations in Palo Alto, Menlo Park and soon in Redwood City. She started out by doing homework through pastry courses attended domestically and in France to get a good personal grounding, but as her little empire became a hit and grew, she employed an executive chef who came from a renowned Paris bakery.  Using only French butter and painstakingly from-scratch techniques, her pâtisserie-cafes are hugely popular and transport happy locals back to France as they sip imported Mariage Fréres tea and dive into a well-stuffed pain au chocolat.

Asian Box creator Grace Nguyen has branched out into gluten-free baked goods.

The local hero of gluten intolerants is clearly restaurateur Grace Nguyen, a longtime chef and founder of the popular Asian Box fast-casual chain. While she personally has no gluten issues, she knows how to cook and set her goal to make gluten-free baked items that are as good as their wheat-based cousins. Her tiny Gracie Jones GF Bake Shop in South Palo Alto (it’s an old nickname) delivers the goods, reflecting her trial-and-error process in order to overcome the unfortunate taste and texture lapses of most gluten-free offerings. In fact, she’s been so successful that some stellar local restaurants are using her inspired breads and pizza flour. Her itty-bitty store offers a wide assortment of baked goods as well as some remarkable gluten-free banh mi sandwiches, salads and bowls.

Beautiful breads

Mostly made from milled-on-premises flour, the baked goods of Manresa Bread are now found in three locations.

The grind-your-own craze is taken seriously by Manresa Bread, the offshoot of the Michelin three-star restaurant in Los Gatos. Now, about 90% of the flour used is milled on site, grinding primarily regional grain with perfection — clearly the goal for all the delicious baked goods offered. The three South Bay retail bakery locations include a cafe that serves meals as well as offering the renowned breads and pastries, where one shouldn’t miss the sourdough spaetzle or Parmesan churros with romesco. On the sweet end, the chocolate walnut babka and kouign amann have a cult following, as do other yummies like monkey bread, a cinnamon-rich, goey, pull-apart treat. If the petite hazelnut tea cakes appear, grab one immediately.  Even classics like pain au chocolat and croissants are elevated here to an exacting level. To purist fans, Manresa Bread sets a high standard to which everyone else should aspire.

The delicious offerings of The Midwife and the Baker are popular all across the Bay Area.

The other local grain-grinding bakery, The Midwife and the Baker in Mountain View, also demonstrates just how extra-delicious baked goods using freshly milled flours can be. While supporters rave about the breads like an amazing kamut baguette and a tasty “white” bread that’s actually made from 40% whole grain, the pastries have received best-of awards in the region, like the unforgettable double chocolate croissant with sunflower seeds or an out-of-this-world chocolate rye cookie with a molten center. Everything made here is wonderful, like the airy ciabatta with peppers and cheese, the cardamom twist, and other stellar pastries that include scones, danish and various irresistible croissant iterations. Fans can buy these treats at the bakery itself, which is a warehouse space with limited signage, or at various farmers markets, groceries, cafes and coffee shops.

One of the irresistible treats available from Little Sky Bakery is chocolate cherry bread with pecans.

Following the longest lines at various local farmers markets will typically lead to Little Sky Bakery, whose flavorful naturally leavened breads are addictively delicious. The olive rosemary bread has a wonderful tang and contains both green and black olives while the raisin walnut bread is teeming with fruit. Creations like a fine-grained country bread filled with white and black sesame seeds and tasty, purple-hued walnut levain rounds touched with ground blueberries get instant attention from foodies looking for something delightfully new.  Super-moist challah made from that same great starter is paired with several different stuffings that include nutella and pistachio cream. Besides visiting the farmers markets, local customers can sign up to have fresh bread delivered to their door weekly, perhaps justifying a move to Menlo Park.

Perfect Pâtisseries

Very French, the Mademoiselle Colette cafes are a great place to get a taste of Paris.

Getting there earlier in the day is a wise strategy for lovers of the buttery croissants and rich pain au chocolat at one of the Mademoiselle Colette locations, which look like they were magically transported directly from Paris with their white marble counters and pristine interiors. Dilly dally and some of these treats might be sold out. This is the spot to revel in luxuries like kouign amann, mini tarts, flaky pastries, brioche, éclairs and special yummies like the petite merveilleux cake, which pairs meringue, whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Trés French breakfast, brunch and lunch items are also available such as eggs Florentine, croque monsieur, various quiches and more. This is the place to practice your French some afternoon over champagne, cheese and charcuterie.

Picture-perfect confections are made by the French baker team at Maison Alyzee.

Also channeling the Paris vibe is a new pâtisserie in downtown Mountain View that opened last year and has drawn rave reviews. Maison Alyzee is a lovely slice of France with its wicker chairs and chic white interior but it’s the expertly made baked goods that are attracting local Francophiles. This is no surprise given the fact that three experienced French pastry chefs with stellar resumes were hired by the Lyon-born owner and they turn out outstanding versions of croissants, macarons and all the other pastry must-haves, along with specialties such as mille feuille and passiano, a French-Russian creation that fills an airy dome of cake-covered passionfruit mousse with blackberry coulis. Of course, rich French hot chocolate and a variety of cafe items are also served, like quiche Lorraine, salads and a decadent savory creation that pairs foie gras and toast with fig chutney.

Scads of tempting choices are offered to visitors to the Cocola locations.

Addressing the pastry needs of South Bay residents for years, the small local Cocola locations understand eye appeal. The line-up of gorgeous mini tarts, mousse cakes, napoleans, éclairs and more have long made patrons drool, and a large assortment of baked goods is turned out, even if not all of them are available at the four nearby outposts. Absolutely not to be missed is the vanilla tart, which features a crunchy shell, white chocolate and vanilla ganache and vanilla mascarpone cream.  Chocoholics love the three-tier chocolate mousse cake, which feature white, milk and dark layers. Cocola nails mousse in general, so try some of the other offerings like hazelnut or mango mousse — the former is like a creamy Ferrero Rocher truffle. Popular lunch items are also available for those too embarrassed to just chow down on solo sweets.

Cake masters

Patrons drool over the cakes, big and small, made at La Patisserie in Cupertino.

There are tons of pretty-as-a-picture baked goods at La Patisserie but this Cupertino bakery’s big focus area is fancy cakes for all kinds of events. Tortes, mousse cakes, cream cakes, lots of chocolate cakes and more are arrayed on the shelves but for extra wow factor, patrons commission custom cakes in all sizes, shapes and colors. Some of the standout regular cakes include an airy raspberry mousse cake with raspberry filling decorated with white chocolate shards, a Kahlua-enhanced chocolate cake with Irish Cream and Grand Marnier mousse layers coated in ganache and burnt almond cake with Amaretto filling coated in whipped cream. This European-style bakery offers lots of other popular desserts such as tiramisu, crème brûlée and Sacher torte. Grab a cupcake to snack on while perusing the many tasty options.

Scrumptious chocolate cakes are just some of the offerings at Sugar Butter Flour.

The European training shows in the gorgeous and appealing baked goods arrayed at Sugar Butter Flour, a longtime Sunnyvale bakery whose founder was previously executive pastry chef at a Michelin-awarded restaurant. Like the other cake stars included here, this location creates amazing custom cakes that actually taste great, too. However, the terrific bread pudding, memorable carrot cake and people-pleasing cookies are definitely worth a visit.  In the cake department, patrons rave about the wondrous burnt almond cake with caramelized almonds, the lush mango-guava cake and spectacular chocolate Grand Marnier cake surrounded by chocolate tiles. For special dinners, consider picking up some individual desserts that deliver the wow factor, like a mini chocolate hazelnut mousse, tiny green tea cheesecake or small molten chocolate cake.

This remarkable, fully edible version of AT&T Park shows off the artistry of Studio Cake.

For the most special of special occasions, South Bay residents have long turned to Studio Cake in Menlo Park for the custom cake of their dreams.  Imagine a completely consumable cake in the form of a sneaker, complete with scuffed toe, or a cheerful, edible purple elephant cake, or a chessboard cake with edible pieces, or cakes in the form of cars, planes, animals or just about anything else. One particularly mind-bending creation was a realistic depiction of AT&T Park, with banners flying. This artisan workshop turns out square, round, tiered or other formats of cakes but is particularly adept at “cake carving,” which enables about any shape one can imagine to be frosted and eaten. The cake itself is delicious and available in multiple flavors like chocolate decadence, red velvet, gone bananas and sticky apple caramel, while the icing is a house-made fondant based on European white chocolate that not only tastes great but serves as a palette for endless creativity.

Specialists

Multiple flavors of perfectly made macarons are the specialty of Chantal Guillon.

Those traditional French sandwich-like cookies called macarons have become the new cupcake, meaning the trendy treat du jour. Made from an airy meringue with a smear of rich ganache inside, macarons are a taste and texture delight and require more technique than one might imagine to do correctly: one should have a slightly crisp outside shell with soft, chewy interior and just enough rich filling. The local queen of the macaron is Chantal Guillon, a Frenchwoman who now has several locations of her specialty shop in the Bay Area, with the local outpost being in Palo Alto. The flavors are irresistible, such as spot-on Early Gray, crème brûlée, jasmine green tea, salted caramel, strawberry-pepper, raspberry-lychee, Persian rose, pineapple and many more. Some flavors have a little dusting of colored sugar crystals outside that bump up the textural enjoyment. These colorful little mouthfuls are packaged beautifully and also get big love from the recipient when given as gifts.

Challah of all descriptions is made with love at Bernhard Artisan Challah.

Like many ethnic foods that were so good they crossed over to the multitudes, Jewish challah, a traditional, eggy yeast bread touched with sweetness that’s usually braided, has attracted fans well outside the synagogue. Available from high-volume bakeries as well as from small-batch bakers, challah is best when made with love and skill, which is the case at Bernhard Artisan Challah, a small Redwood City specialist operated by Anat Leshem Feldsher. Traditional plain braided challah is just the beginning of her offerings. Made in braids, rounds, loafs, rolls and small addictive knots, this challah addresses both savory and sweet fans, with the former being absolutely delicious when paired with outstanding house-made spreads like fire-roasted eggplant and baba ghanoush. On the sweet end, Feldsher’s challah includes flavors such as nutella, rugelach, maple pecan, halvah & chocolate and more. Pre-orders only.

Addictive, gluten-free baked goods as tasty as their wheat cousins are the specialty of Gracie Jones GF Bake Shop.

For those with actual celiac disease or just a philosophical gluten aversion, Grace Nguyen has been put on a pedestal she richly deserves. The longtime professional chef made a couple of tweaks in order that the menu at her Asian Box restaurants would be gluten free, which wasn’t a huge challenge for Asian cuisine. But developing recipes for her next project — the Gracie Jones GF Bake Shop in Palo Alto — was a whole different thing, taking massive amounts of trial and error so that her breads, cookies, donuts, bagels, pies and more would pass muster. And they do, in spades. For example, fans say her banana chocolate chip muffins beat out regular muffins, hands down, and this is the standard response regarding most of her offerings. Her tiny shop has all kinds of baked goods as well as a few lunch items. Remarkably, she developed a wheat-free recipe for French bread for her yummy banh mi Vietnamese sandwiches and visitors scarf up her lemon bars, brownies, scones and other pastries.