Strolling into The Chocolate Maven Bakery & Café appears to be like and smells like what it have to be prefer to go by way of heaven’s gate — if heaven is a wonderland of buttery croissants, fudgy brownies, and decadently frosted cupcakes. Glass instances are stocked with a plethora of traditional muffins, from chocolate buttercream to tres leches. Tables and counters are lined in grab-and-go choices. Want a scone? How a couple of pumpkin pie?
On a go to with Pasatiempo to speak about vacation desserts just a few days earlier than Thanksgiving, Chocolate Maven proprietor Dharm (pronounced Dad-uhm) Andrew Segal provides sturdy espresso and a pattern of his triple-chocolate Bundt cake. We sit in a eating space with a view by way of a glass wall into an industrial-looking manufacturing room, the place a baker rolls a 12-foot-long sleeve of dough into cinnamon rolls.
“It is a chocolate cake with chocolate chunks in it and darkish chocolate ganache on prime, which is our signature,” says Segal, 62, earlier than taking a chunk of cake. “Chocolate is at all times successful. Individuals love chocolate whether or not it’s Hanukkah, Christmas, or different traditions. It’s winter; it’s solstice. You need that cozy factor.”
The Bundt is thick and moist, virtually brownie-like. The ganache has a consistency form of like frosting and form of like fudge. It provides each moisture and depth of taste, however it’s the mushy chocolate chunks studded all through the cake that make this a dessert you may request in your deathbed meal. A special type of restaurant may even name it Dying by Chocolate, an statement that prompts a broad grin from Segal.
“I name it Life by Chocolate,” he says.
In terms of treats for the vacations, Segal believes the simplicity of the triple chocolate Bundt cake is all that’s wanted to impress friends. For one thing slightly bit uncommon, nevertheless, he suggests their inexperienced chile apple pie. “It’s a traditional that’s bought slightly warmth,” he says. Chocolate Maven additionally sells butter cookies for Hanukkah formed like menorahs and Stars of David. Within the coming weeks, they’ll have their common menu of muffins adorned with holly berries and sweet canes, however their most conventional seasonal providing is a Bûche de Noël, often known as a Xmas log, which is fashionable in lots of European international locations.
“It appears to be like like a log you set in your hearth, however it’s manufactured from chocolate,” Segal says. “It’s whipped cream rolled in a sponge cake and lined in our identical signature ganache.”
Segal says if he needed to suggest one distinctive Chocolate Maven merchandise to take to a Christmas Eve gathering, it might be the chocolate raspberry torte. “Belgian chocolate cake, ganache, and a crushed raspberry filling made with recent raspberries. I feel that’s our greatest cake.”
At Revolution Bakery there’s nothing so fancy happening. “I don’t have time to brighten muffins,” says proprietor Dionne Christian. “Except it’s a sloppy layer cake. I’d make you a sloppy layer cake. I’m a manufacturing baker. I wish to make 500 muffins, not stand round making one cake look good.”
Revolution Bakery’s gingerbread crinkle cookies
Christian, 49, runs her tiny, gluten-free bakery as a walk-up enterprise within the Design Middle. She makes what she is aware of she will be able to promote every day, and on a current go to close to her 2 p.m. closing-time, the rolling pastry carts have been empty. Within the mornings, they’re stuffed with breads and different baked items. “Savory and candy,” she says. “Quiche. Spanakopita. Oreo-cookie brownies. Sandwiches to go.”
It’s two days earlier than Thanksgiving, and like each different baker on the town, Christian is exhausted from fulfilling lots of of customized orders. However she livens on the prospect of the Christmas rush. “I really like making holiday-specific gadgets. I really like making stollen. I do an orange panettone and one which has candied fruits, like a fruit cake. I do gingersnap cookies, that are spherical. I may simply flip them into gingerbread males, however I don’t have time for that. I don’t adorn my cookies. My skills are in style and texture.”
Gluten-free cookies may be disappointingly mushy, however Christian says that she has achieved crispiness at Revolution. “I don’t wish to promote you something that’s not just like the factor I’m imitating, she says. “I would like you to be deceived.” She makes use of white and brown rice flours, in addition to sorghum, quinoa, coconut, millet, and some others. “I make my very own blends for every little thing. I don’t use an all-purpose flour or every little thing would have the identical style and texture.”
Christian’s vacation choices additionally embody candy potato pie, pumpkin pie, and apple crumble with cranberry. However savory delights are an alternative choice, particularly for breakfasts with out-of-town friends. “My vacation concept is to make savory herb twists with lemon, paying homage to European laminated pastries. Actually good for household brunches.”
Dulce Capital house owners Armando and Molly Martinez use Armando’s household recipes to arrange a few of Santa Fe’s most conventional Christmas fare. Regardless of being identified for cupcakes and different candy treats, Dulce’s Christmas-specific recipes veer savory. For breakfast, they provide 6-inch and 10-inch quiches made with potatoes, bacon, inexperienced chile, inexperienced onion, and cheddar and jack cheeses. Armando, 32, grew up on the dish and has been perfecting it on his personal for a lot of years. In addition they make tamales — crimson chile with pork and vegetarian inexperienced chile with zucchini.
“They’re conventional New Mexican tamales, like those you’d make at residence on a weekend along with your mother and your grandma, if you sit on the desk and gossip,” says Molly, 27. “We’re not mass-producing with large equipment. We’re those again there rolling them, tying them collectively on each ends. They’re made with love.”
The one non-traditional facet of Dulce’s tamales is that they’re made with vegetable shortening relatively than lard. “I used to be very reluctant to vary it. I didn’t wish to,” Armando says. “However we didn’t wish to cook dinner with lard within the facility, and after I tasted the tamales with vegetable shortening, they tasted precisely the identical as they do with lard.”
Their biscochito recipe comes from Armando’s grandmother, although the lard has been swapped for butter within the anise-flavored sugar cookies.
“They’ve a crunchy exterior and good chewy inside,” Molly says by way of a yawn. The bakery is additional heat from so many days of Thanksgiving baking, and Molly’s eyelids droop.
Dulce Capital’s pumpkin roll
Though they’re closed for the day, persons are nonetheless knocking on the door to choose up their customized orders — the identical conventional pies that the Martinezes will make for Christmas, together with pecan, apple, and pumpkin. Their common muffins and cupcakes might be themed with vacation colours and designs. Requested for his or her most Christmassy dessert to take to a vacation gathering, Armando and Molly agree on the pumpkin roll, which is a pumpkin spice cake rolled with cream cheese frosting and dusted with powdered sugar.
“It’s my household recipe,” Armando says.
Chocolate Maven, Revolution Bakery, and Dulce Capital all supply counter service, however vacation orders ought to be positioned by way of their web sites. Chocolate Maven provides strong gluten-free and vegan choices, and most gadgets at Revolution are or may be made vegan. Dulce has some gluten-free choices, in addition to a vegetarian model of their quiche.
“Nobody desires to cook dinner on Christmas morning,” Armando says concerning the enchantment of quiche. “They simply wish to heat one thing up.”
In that case, there are at all times cinnamon rolls. All three bakeries make them — and promote lots of each week, it doesn’t matter what vacation is on the horizon.
