Cupcake entreprenuers featured in the New York Times

Elizabeth Olson profiles cupcake entrepreneurs in this New York Times article.

Bakery hunting deal for today only: Platine Bakery cookies on Groupon!

If you have not yet had the chance to try Platine Bakery in Culver City, today's deal on Groupon offers that $12 will buy you $25 worth of Jamie Cantor's much buzzed about cookies! 

Porto's named by The Great American Bakery Hunt as best reason to hang out in Burbank/Glendale on your day off

Recently I visited Porto's Bakery, a family-owned bakery cafe establishment and the best reason I can think of to trek to Burbank (or Glendale) on your day off. Porto's has over 35 years of business under their belt, and this becomes crystal clear while ordering: an incredible diversity of fresh pastries line the cases, and the staff impressively runs the place like a well-oiled machine. I'm warned by Porto's regulars that one must have a system before walking into this bakery. It's a little like stepping into a bakery theme park: there are multiple lines for ordering, a limitless amount of desserts to choose from, and then complicating your decision is the Latin America-influenced cafe menu. Pastries I nibbled on included the spinach and feta croissant, the Refugiado (also known as their signature guava and cheese pastry), the Cheese roll, and a strawberry and cheese croissant. Naturally, I couldn't leave without getting my savory on, so I sampled a meat pie and a potato ball as well. What's particularly unbelievable about Porto's is that everything is so fresh, and yet, there's an incredible amount of volume in their bakery cases.

What makes me love this bakery even more is the fact that it has a neighborhood history. There's something really exciting about seeing a bakery business in action that has roots in the community, one that has grown from a family's original vision into a bustling success with two locations.

For more fun facts about Porto's, including a description of the 24-hour preparation process that goes into making their traditional Cuban crackers, read the Frequently Asked Questions on the Porto's website. It was impossible to sample everything in one visit, so watch out for more Porto's posts to come!

A farmer's market for every day!

Check out this handy dandy map of Los Angeles Farmer's Markets, courtesy of the LA Times.

Just discovered Hygge Bakery, a Danish bakery in downtown Los Angeles!

My heart is racing a little bit faster after just discovering Hygge Bakery, a Danish bakery in downtown Los Angeles. Several years ago, I studied abroad in Denmark and immediately fell in serious love with their bakeries. And to make my separation from the country even more difficult, I lived with a Danish family whose matriarch was a baker. To this day, I still keep in touch with her, and frequently have daydreams about the creations that came from her oven. It was a pretty blissful existence: even with the chilly weather, how could one ever complain knowing that at the end of the train commute from Copenhagen (school) to Roskilde (home), freshly baked homemade cinnamon rolls awaited you at the kitchen table?

Now a resident of Los Angeles, I've tried to keep the Danish culture in my life by going to Scandinavian events, including the Annual Scandinavian film festival that happens in Beverly Hills each year. But my heart always aches a little bit, to be back in Denmark, and to get another taste of the culture I fell in love with.

I won't get a chance to get to downtown to try Hygge until after the Thanksgiving holiday. But the idea of a bakery named Hygge already resonates with this bakery hunter: Hygge, Danes will tell you, is something we can't necessarily translate into American terminology, but a concept that is a huge part of Danish culture. Some web writers out there have taken a stab at the definition, so if you're curious to read about Hygge, check out this link at The Hygge House website, some musings over at The Danish Web, or if you'd like the Hygge 101 version, this travel article encourages you to "Hygge it out in Denmark." Better yet, just go to Denmark and enjoy the breathtaking baked goods and hygge for yourself.

Evil spammers force the Great American Bakery Hunt to enable comment moderation

Hey folks, while I'd rather be writing about bakeries than comment moderation, just a quick note about a matter of blog business:

After a series of unfortunate spam incidents in my Comments section, I am forced to enable comment moderation as well as word verification for all comments left on The Great American Bakery Hunt. I apologize in advance to all well-meaning commentators who will now have to take at least 30 extra seconds of their lives they will never get back to fully execute a sincere blog comment.

Thanks for understanding!

Can someone please remind me again why I'm not in Paris right now?

This recent New York Times travel article by Tony Perrottet documents a modern man's hunt through Paris as he tries to follow in the footsteps of Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimrod de la Reynière. Grimrod was a 19th century aristocrat famous in food history circles for his Almanachs des Gourmands: culinary guides to the city of light that reveal meals of Paris past.

Perrotet managed to reach Stohrer, a bakery and culinary destination still in business long after Grimrod's time.

Next time I'm in Paris, I'm going to Stohrer and ordering Le Baba Au Rhum, in honor of an old language teacher from the South of France who once described this to me as her favorite French dessert. (While I may not always remember every conjugation, I can usually tell you the favorite dessert of my French teachers.)

Salted caramel bar addiction

For the record, I could write an entire blog devoted to Huckleberry's salted caramel bar. Ranked #1 by The Great American Bakery Hunt as addictions you should keep through the New Year.

Here's to the holidays!

It seems to be a law of the universe that every food blogger loves the simple apple tart recipe of Alice Waters. I baked up this little number to share at the first annual pie swap day taking place at work this week, an event which yielded a surprising number of homemade pies. I took the liberty of making a tart, though technically it was pie-swap and not tart-swap day.

Did I mention that pie swap day also involved a large, precariously wrapped, fresh-out-of-the-oven turkey which a coworker and I transported via dolly from Whole Foods to our office, complete with the bird's juices leaking everywhere throughout the streets of downtown Santa Monica? (See the beginning of our journey, below, pre-juice leakage disaster.) Here's to the holidays!

Some whoopie pies, straight from Philly!

Thanks to Lindsay, Philadelphia representative of The Great American Bakery Hunt, for sending us some whoopie pies, straight from Philly to LA! You're a gem, and we hope the east is treating you well.

Finding a whole lot of good in Echo Park

If you're in the Echo Park neighborhood, you can do something good, read something good, and eat something good all within a few minutes. (But beware, returns on purchases made at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart must be made BEFORE date of purchase.)

The studio apartment baking adventure continues

Thanks yet again to Mark Bittman for another great recipe. Tonight, I used his simple and quick "Fastest Yeast Bread" recipe to churn out a freshly baked loaf post-work. Not only was it a delicious midnight snack, but my entire apartment now smells like a bread factory. (Turns out, this is a pretty appealing phenomenon.) Who needs scented candles when I have flour, yeast, salt, water and olive oil?

More LA bakery hunting to come soon! Until then, just call me your average non-profit worker by day, yeast bread scientist/blogger by night.

A sure Sunday treat in the form of baked goods and indie rock

If you're interested in nibbling on some baked goods while seeing a jolly band, stop by the Sunday Hollywood Farmer's Market. Ideally, you'll also spring for one of Vera's Tamales (with the green salsa) before stopping at the edge of the market to appreciate the sounds of The Petrojvic Blasting Company. If you're not a fan yet, they'll probably charm you once you see them play the drums with their feet and sing strong and proud over the inevitable traffic and fire engine cacophony of Hollywood. It's as sure a Sunday treat as you'll ever find.

When the weather turns cold, ginger-apple upside-down cake is the answer

I'll be making this as soon as possible: ginger-apple upside-down cake.

Baking for safety and survival in West LA

If you're a blogger who's also a jogger and currently living in Santa Monica, you've probably resigned yourself to tinkering around with google analytics tonight instead of taking your daily post-work run.

The Great American Bakery Hunt has deemed current conditions unsafe for blogging joggers in West LA, and our reasons are twofold: Not only do the palm trees that line our usually serene streets appear precariously ready to snap in half, but there's so much debris in the air that anyone outdoors should be wearing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-style protective eyewear.

If you're the kind of person who thinks they can tough it, learn from our mistakes at The Great American Bakery Hunt now and save the money on eye drops and patches later (although the latter is well-timed for Halloween.)

Plus, the weather's awful, so come inside and bake.

Teacake Bakeshop's 335-mile journey

Thanks to bakery hunter Lisa, who traveled on a 335-mile expedition to deliver some goodies from the Teacake Bakeshop for us to enjoy. She has done this on more than one occasion, but what is always amazing is that the treats arrive intact: cupcakes without so much as a lick of frosting missing, cookies without even a nibble stolen during the long journey down the 5 freeway. Does Lisa buy a separate stash of treats to snack on to protect the common good, or does she just have an unusual amount of willpower when it comes to delicious desserts in her passenger seat? We may never know. In any case, we tip our bakery hunting hat off to Lisa!


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hope in the form of a cheese danish hypothesis

Few things are better than enjoying a meal with others who passionately appreciate great food. During one of many entertaining culinary conversations at tonight's sushi meal, one diner at the table concluded that you could make a life's work out of hunting the perfect cheese danish. Here at The Great American Bakery Hunt, we couldn't agree more. The perfect cheese danish should demand our respect. But perhaps, for you, it's a different taste you're searching for: maybe you've spent your whole life seeking out that perfect pie crust you remember your aunt making, or perhaps you're hoping for a reunion with that elusive Irish soda bread recipe that defined your childhood?

This search brings us to the most challenging part of being a true bakery hunter: Nostalgia can play funny tricks on the food enthusiast's mind. It's difficult for the average, modern bakery to measure up to our taste buds-- which are hopeful, yet biased with the flavors of family ovens past. We're still so deeply in love with food memories of our pasts that we may be setting ourselves up for disappointment (otherwise known as rebound meals.)

Meanwhile, we're in a race against time where all great food traditions and recipes are at risk of being forgotten. We may run around as consumers trying to find the perfect taste, texture, and combination of ingredients, but we don't always work hard enough to fight for the food traditions that matter most to us by creating them ourselves. (Which means I'd better learn my grandmother's gumbo recipe before I do anything else.) Otherwise, I'll face the doom of rebound recipes that will never truly satisfy.

Tonight, it seemed a noteworthy blessing that I was surrounded by people who consider obtaining cheese danish in its perfect form a legitimate pursuit. And that, my friends, is what The Great American Bakery Hunt is all about. So bake, cook, eat what inspires you the most, and believe that cheese danish perfection is in the realm of the possible-- even if it means you have to make it yourself.

The New School of Cooking lures vulnerable bakery bloggers with a yeast breads class

I am seriously considering an $85 yeast breads baking class (I can't afford) at the New School of Cooking in Culver City. How can they advertise yeast bread education and expect me to stay away? Thoughts?

a stormy Santa Monica invites baking opportunities

To bake or not to bake? That is the question.

The Santa Monica "winter" is approaching, and the first storms have rain-shy Californians flocking inside. After the last rain over our usually sunshine-bathed land, the local beach path was desolate. Usually home to so many outdoorsy folk, it was barren of rollerbladers, joggers, and cyclists.

In cities like Seattle, people may go about their business as usual on a rainy day. But in California, rain can mean having a usually bustling city all to yourself. Thus, bringing The Great American Bakery Hunt to this question: as stormy weather patterns rise, does baking also increase? I can't imagine where these outdoor exercise fiends escape to when the sky turns gloomy, but I'd like to think they use inclement weather as an excuse to indulge in a little home cooking.

One thing is for certain: The Santa Monica Farmer's market on Arizona experiences slower than normal sales on these rainy days-- so it's a great time to get a potential deal and support your friendly, local farmers. If you can get past getting a little damp, it may be the perfect time to buy that exotic ingredient you've been eying every Wednesday.

Friday night date with butter pecan cupcakes

After a truly epic Friday happy hour, I went directly to the grocery store and purchased the necessary ingredients to make some butter pecan cupcakes.

Included in my purchase was the 18-egg "Family Pak", which holds the promise of many baking experiments to come. While I'm clearly not buying 18 eggs for a family, the cashier asks no questions and probably just assumes I'm a single woman who eats an excessive amount of eggs. (In addition to my baking aspirations, I was probably subconsciously influenced by watching the morning news, where CBS announced earlier that it was National Egg Day.)

Most importantly, sometimes you just need a Friday when you can come home, enjoy a night free of social obligations, and make your entire studio apartment smell like a combination of dark brown sugar and vanilla.