My favorite bakeries (Mexican edition)

What is the most delicious Spanish word I've learned in California?

Panaderia (bakery) it is.

Every time I walk past a Mexican bakery, I can't help but step inside, grab a tray and a pair of tongs, and start piling breads and pastries onto the tray as if I were hypnotized. I can easily spend half an hour checking out the selections and deciding what to get. The low prices certainly don't help. Since I am often the only non-Latino in the store and unable to speak Spanish, I have more than once attracted interesting gazes from the cashier and other customers alike.

I knew almost nothing about Mexican baking before moving to the Bay area. My only exposure had been a type of sweet bun called "Mexican bun" commonly found in bakeries in Hong Kong. I had no idea how the Mexican bun was introduced to Hong Kong, but it does resemble the pan dulce (sweet bun) that I see in Mexican bakeries. Talk about cultural amalgamation!

I love pan dulces for similar reasons I like Asian buns - most are soft and not too sweet. But pan dulces are denser and more filling than their Asian counterparts because of their heavy use of eggs and margarine. After eating a couple of these goodies, I hardly have room for anything else for the rest of the day or even the next morning. They are diet busters for sure, I don't even want to think about the amount of carbs and fats (trans, hydrogenated, all the bad stuff) they contain.

(Forgive my limited Spanish)

Two pan dulces (the one with the sugar coating should be called concha, which literally means shell) and a flat cookie sprinkled with sesame seeds

Cuerno (croissant), Mexican cheesecake slice, another pan dulce sprinkled with sugar

This sounds incredible to me too, but I've sampled more than a dozen of Mexican bakeries from the Peninsula, San Francisco's Mission District, all the way to Oakland in the East Bay. My favorites: Panaderia Hernandez in South San Francisco and La Flor De Michoacan in San Mateo near where I live. I've bought from both bakeries enough times that the cashiers can probably recognize me.

My favorite panaderia -  Panaderia Hernandez in South San Francisco

Panaderia Hernandez's overflowing pastry case

Both bakeries offer incredible selections of freshly baked pan dulces, cakes, and cookies. Their pan dulces are just right with their sweetness and richness, so you don't need to wash them down with water/tea/coffee. They are also not too dry - I learned from a book that this can easily be a problem due to the high proportion of yeast in the dough.

Most important, the vast majority of their pan dulces do not seem to contain lard. I still cannot spot it all the time, but as a vegetarian I try to avoid it, and I am really put off by its smell.

If I had to pick the better among the two, it would be Panaderia Hernandez. Their pastries have a more delicate taste, likely because they are made from better ingredients (you don't get the off-taste). Their sizes are HUGE, but strangely enough they are cheaper too, even though the bakery is inside an upscale-ish Mexican supermarket. Too bad it's at an out-of-the-way location, but I continue to plan trips just to visit it!

Bay area mooncake showdown

Writing this blog often has given me many excuses to eat more sweets than I should. Case in point: my mooncake tastings for the Mid Autumn Festival.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am pretty impressed by the caliber of Asian bakeries in Oakland. I had been waiting in earnest for their mooncakes to come out because mooncakes, of all Chinese baked goods, often showcase the best of a baker's skills. I know little about how mooncakes are made, but the vast majority of mooncakes I had before tasted flatly sweet or had too much oil in them, and it's really hard to run into a really good one. (Note: I am referring to Cantonese-style mooncakes that are round-shaped, have a thin, golden-brown baked shell, and usually filled with sweet lotus seed paste, but there are many other variations.)

For my test, I tasted mooncakes from 5 bakeries in the Bay area: Sheng Kee in San Mateo, Napoleon Super Bakery, Big Dish (actually more like a restaurant than bakery), Ruby King, and Delicieuse Princesse in Oakland's Chinatown. I don't like the egg yolk that is traditionally part of the mooncake filling, so the ones I picked were all egg yolk-free. Partly because of this, they were cheaper ranging from $2 for a mini mooncake to $4.5 for a regular-sized one. Each mooncake had a different flavor - the fillings range from lotus seed paste, red (adzuki) bean paste, purple yam, coconut, to black sesame paste.

Here's the verdict:

BEST - Delicieuse Princesse's coconut mooncake ($4.5). Although it is also the most expensive, you get your money's worth because you can SEE the shredded coconut filling and actually TASTE it. The filling has texture and is not blended with disproportionate amounts of sugar and oil. I may be partial to anything that contains coconut, but Delicieuse Princesse's pastries rarely miss the mark. My only complaint: the shell was a bit dry.

Ruby King's red bean paste mooncake and Delicieuse Princesse's coconut mooncake

SECOND PLACE - Ruby King's red bean paste ($3.25) and lotus seed paste ($3.75) mooncakes. With their moist, shiny outer shell and sweet, dense filling, they are what you expect from a decent mooncake. Bonus point to Ruby King for incorporating walnut pieces into the filling to provide some contrast.

Ruby King Bakery in Oakland's Chinatown

ABOVE AVERAGE - Big Dish's black sesame paste mooncake ($3.25) and Sheng Kee's date paste and tea-infused chestnut paste mooncakes ($2 each for a mini version). Both bakeries should be applauded for their unconventional flavors. But Big Dish's is too greasy, while Sheng Kee's don't taste fresh enough. Given Sheng Kee is one of the largest Asian bakery chains in the Bay area, it probably mass produced its mooncake months before. You can't hide this from a discerning palate though. When you think about it, $2 for a mini-mooncake is quite pricey too.

(Clockwise from top left) Sheng Kee's date paste mooncake, tea-infused chestnut paste mooncake, and two bonus treats: slice of Swiss roll and sponge cake sandwich

LOSER - Napoleon Super Bakery's purple yam mooncake ($3). This is surprising because its pastries are normally quite good. The problem with this mooncake is that the filling hardly tastes of yam; instead I feel like I am putting a lump of sugar and grease into my mouth. I hope it didn't add coloring to the filling! Other than purple yam, Napoleon has many other interesting flavors including kumquat and mango, but I didn't get to try them.

Big Dish's black sesame paste mooncake and Napoleon Super Bakery's purple yam mooncake, and a fish-shaped pastry to symbolize abundance

Well, now you know how many mooncakes I ate during this Mid Autumn Festival...

My favorite bakeries (Asian edition)

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I'm addicted to all sorts of baked goods. One category of baked goods I had missed since living in the US was Hong Kong-style pastries - until I moved to the Bay area.

By Hong Kong-style pastries I don't mean dim-sums like steamed buns, but oven-baked breads and cakes with a unique Asian flair. Hong Kong-style pastries tend to be softer, lighter, and the sweet treats are less sugary than their Western counterparts. They often have Asian fillings such as coconut, red bean, or taro paste. You'll know better what I'm talking about with the picture below.

So imagine how psyched I was when I discovered DOZENS of Hong Kong-style bakeries in San Francisco's and Oakland's Chinatowns. It's almost like finding a spring in the middle of a desert (okay I am exaggerating, but consider this: whenever I visited New York from Washington, DC, I always took a trip to Chinatown to satisfy my craving for these pastries).

After quite a bit of testing, I want to share two of my favorite Asian bakeries, both in Oakland - Wonder Food Bakery and Delicieuse Princesse Bakery. There are a couple ones I like in San Francisco too, but because the San Francisco Chinatown is more tourist-centric, they are often pricier.

A Hong Kong native would feel instantly comfortable as soon as he steps into Wonder Food Bakery. All the old favorites - cocktail buns (soft buns filled with coconut paste), pineapple buns (buns with a crusty sugary topping that resembles a pineapple's exterior), paper-lined sponge cakes, egg custard tarts, etc. are in ample supply. Also available are fancier buns with fillings, mooncakes, traditional Chinese pastries (such as flaky pastry filled with winter melon paste), cookies, and many more. Prices are at the lower end compared to other Asian bakeries, making its pastries a great bargain.

(Clockwise from top left) Wonder Food Bakery's pineapple bun with red bean paste filling, paper-lined sponge cake, cocktail bun, pineapple bun with custard filling, shredded coconut bun, and egg custard tart

I like its pineapple bun (with or without filling) the most. The bun is sturdy enough to keep the "pineapple" topping in place. The size of the bun and amount of topping are well-balanced. The bun is soft but still chewy. The topping is crusty but not too dry.

Just from its name, Delicieuse Princesse Bakery sounds more up-market, and it is. Located on the periphery of Oakland's Chinatown, it's a Chinese-Vietnamese bakery with some European influence thrown into the mix. It makes most standard Hong Kong-style pastries, though in a slightly more sophisticated way. Think twisted coconut or red bean paste buns rather than the usual round ones. It also sells French and Vietnamese pastries like croissants and bánh mì.

Cakes are probably its strongest suit. A while back I bought an angel food cake from it to make my British summer pudding, then I got a chestnut cake for a farewell party for a co-worker. Both cakes hit all the right notes of a great Asian cake - light, spongy, and slightly sweet. As is the case with most Asian layered cakes, the chestnut cake was coated with fresh whipped cream instead of buttercream. I'd love to try Princesse's other layered cakes with flavors ranging from durian to tres leches.

Delicieuse Princesse Bakery exterior

Note: A big thank you to my friends who forwarded different versions of "100 (Chinese) Vegetarian Dishes" to me recently. I am still going through the recipes and there are tons of great ideas! I promise I will feature some of them in a future post.

Simple faux oyster sauce from home

Oyster sauce - thick, black-brown, savory with a hint of sweetness - is a must-have in Chinese cooking. Made from oyster extract, it's off-limits for vegetarians. Although vegetarian oyster sauce is now widely available, I am reluctant to stock it because of the artificial ingredients and preservatives usually added to it. Fortunately, after some experimentation, I've discovered an easy substitute with an eerily similar flavor that I can make at home.

I am embarrassed to call it out here because it's so simple: just mix tamari/soy sauce and molasses together!

Molasses's flavor is intense so you want to use it judiciously; otherwise the sauce will end up too sweet. Not many recipes feature molasses, so it's a great way to use up any leftover molasses from the all the gingerbread baking in the winter months.

Hearty bok-choy, tofu, mushroom stir-fry

The dish that features my faux oyster sauce today is a straightforward stir-fry of bok-choy, sliced tofu, carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and dried kombu. After heating all ingredients in oil laced with ginger for a couple of minutes, I seasoned the dish with a sauce made from my oyster sauce, toasted sesame oil, water, and a little bit of cornstarch. Like other stir-fries it's a homey, hearty dish, best served with a bowl of steamed rice.

As a dessert fanatic, I cannot resist sneaking in a treat I made recently to round up this post. These date-nut squares are from (again and again) Isa's Vegan with a Vengeance, my stand-by vegan cookbook. Made by layering chopped boiled dates and walnuts on a shortbread crust, these squares are rich, sweet, crunchy, and salty at the same time. They also contain no added sugar since the dates provide the sweetness. If not because I last made a coconut dessert, adding shredded coconut to the topping would be an interesting variation to try.

Sweet, crunchy, buttery date-nut squares

A sweet, decadent end to summer

This summer went by in a snap. It wasn't long ago when I welcomed summer with an end-of-winter cake. Before summer's official end, I had decided to indulge myself for the last time. So I made an over-the-top, decadent vegan coconut cake over Labor Day weekend.

Decadent, vegan coconut layered cake

As a coconut devotee, I love coconut cake. Unfortunately, most coconut cakes in the market are laden with thick, fatty buttercream frosting, of which I am hardly a fan. Vegan cakes provide a healthier alternative since the frosting is often made from silken tofu instead of dairy products. So I jumped at Canadian vegan cookbook author Dreena Burton's Coconut Cake recipe in her Eat, Drink & Be Vegan cookbook when I saw it.

Since I don't have a blender, it's difficult to make smooth, tofu-based frosting. That's why I was excited to pick up Nasoya's new Silken Creations, a pre-blended tofu dessert starter, from the grocery store. It's in pudding form originally, so I mixed some Earth Balance margarine into it to make it more spreadable as the frosting for the cake.

The cake turned out to be moist and flavorful although I cut down on the sugar and fat in the recipe significantly. The fragrant shredded coconut that I bought from Whole Foods really made a difference. I cut the cake into slices and stacked them one on another to form a three-layered cake. The tofu frosting, however, ended up being too runny. I spread some of it between the layers and poured the rest over the cake like a glaze. I didn't add any sugar to the frosting because the tofu already has it, but it was still way too sweet for me.

Next time when I make this cake, I'd either leave out the frosting or make it from scratch so I can control the sugar content. My attempt at layering the cake definitely made it look more sophisticated and less homespun though, so presentation does matter!

Bonus great find: I also bought Shady Maple Farms' Organic Stroopwafels (Dutch-style wafer cookies) with maple-flavored filling when I was at Whole Foods. They were exquisitely made and tasted amazing! Couldn't restrain myself from finishing them all at once...

Shady Maple Farms' Stroopwafels from Canada

Crunchy, chewy, and delicately sweet - all in one bite