bake - June 2018 - 34
a sister location called B. On The Go, a neighborhood eatery in San Francisco serving slow roasted meats and vegetables on house-made breads. "I am usually baking all day until the shop closes. We bake Kouign Amann, almond croissants, cookies and cakes all day," she says. The menu at b. patisserie features a wide variety of creative pastries, ranging from her Vanilla Cassis Cake (vanilla mascarpone, sable breton, cassis ganache, chiffon cake and vanilla glacage) to the Yuzu Lemon Tart (yuzu custard, lemon cream and lemon confit). What she enjoys perhaps most of all is seeing people come into her bakery and leave happy because they really enjoyed the pastries. "I also love seeing all the regulars that come in to see us, every day and every weekend. It is the best feeling to have when people really enjoy your pastries after all the work we put into it." Rising popularity For those who don't know of kouign amann, it is a type of viennoiserie that originated in Brittany, France. It is truly a taste of heaven for the palate. For this reason, this delicate pastry is rapidly gaining popularity at innovative retail bakeries across the country. In Kansas City, Ibis Bakery/Messenger Café makes fresh milled kouign amann with local grains. In Philadelphia, Cake Life Bake Shop mixes up the seasonal ingredients with flavorful variations such as baklava kouign amann (honey and cardamom-spiked nut filling with pistachios and walnuts) or apple kouign amann (with spiced apple compote filling). In Minneapolis, Spoon and Stable executive pastry chef Diane Yang has built her reputation as one of the city's dessert masters - and she bakes a fantastic kouign amann. Yang is also pastry chef at Bellecour, a sister restaurant that has its own fabulous bakery, where they sell kouign amann and a tasty new creation called kouign amann twists. These subtly sweet and crispy twists are made with just eight ingredients: flour, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, yeast, butter and malt. Accordingly, her dessert menu hits a range of tones, textures, and flavors to be that enduring final impression, with a delicate balance of sweet with sour, savory, bitter, and salty. 34 < MON 2018 | bakemag.com