All posts tagged: pastries

Spiced pastries and flatbreads are draws at L.A.’s next great bakery

Spiced pastries and flatbreads are draws at L.A.’s next great bakery

Published by Sam Flores

Breads of many shapes sit in a row on the front counter at three-week-old Kouzeh Bakery, on display behind glass. My eye goes first to a thin disc propped up on a wooden stand. From several feet away, its sandy color and moonscape surface bring to mind a 13th century copper astrolabe that I fixated on at the also-just-opened David Geffen Galleries at LACMA less than a mile away. Why Kouzeh is L.A.’s next great bakery Up close, I read that it was latir, a leavened flatbread that originated in Yazd, a central desert province in Iran that once connected the ancient Spice and Silk Roads. Every baker seasons theirs differently. Pastry chef Sahar Shomali, Kouzeh’s owner, sprinkles her version with black and white sesame seeds, cumin and fresh dill. Soon, I’d be ripping into its crisped edges and softer, pebbled center. Next to the latir is ghelefi, a mounded loaf filled with turmeric-stained mashed potatoes and baked in a pan until the top is crackly. Fenugreek and caraway seeds, fragrant and crunchy, crown plush …

New Pasadena bakeries for pastries and gluten-free and vegan desserts

New Pasadena bakeries for pastries and gluten-free and vegan desserts

Published by Sam Flores

I’m going to introduce you to your new favorite chocolate chip cookie. It’s a sizable bronze round with big boulders of semisweet chocolate buried into the surface. The center is soft and chewy, with a lavish brown butter flavor that carries notes of toffee. It’s surrounded in a halo of crisp, golden cookie and finished with a sprinkling of salt. The cookie can go toe to toe with the one you make at home, and whatever other cookie you love around town. “We had a cookie, but it didn’t work because it was too gluten-free tasting,” says owner Leah Di Bernardo. “I tasked Helen Cho, our lead baker, with using brown butter to make the cookie, and she did.” Di Bernardo and her daughter, Gigi, run the Pasadena bakery, where the cookie, and everything else at the restaurant, is gluten-free. In the bakery case, you’ll find tender, cheesy biscuits made with almond flour, decadent doughnuts topped with passion fruit, mini Basque cheesecakes with almond and coconut flour crust and wedges of vegetable frittata. Di Bernardo …

Best Armenian bakeries in L.A. for traditional pastries and bread

Best Armenian bakeries in L.A. for traditional pastries and bread

Published by Sam Flores

In fall 2022, an ancient bakery estimated to be roughly 3,000 years old was unearthed in Metsamor, Armenia. The remains of 3.5 tons of wheat flour and several furnaces were found, leading archaeologists to believe that it once served as a mass production site. The discovery highlights the historic and sacred role that baking and bread represent in Armenia. In 2014, Armenia’s lavash was recognized as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. As Armenians migrated to and resettled in different parts of the world, traditions around pastry and bread making were preserved through family recipes, alongside bakeries that served as beloved touchstones for their newfound communities. The first Armenian bakeries in Los Angeles were founded in the 1980s when Armenians from Lebanon fled civil war. They opened businesses in North Hollywood and Glendale, specializing in lahmajoon, spicy cheese beureks, mantee and baklavas to continue the legacy their forefathers began centuries ago. Kristel Arabian, chef and founder of Kitchen Culture Recruiting Agency, whose family was among those immigrants from Lebanon, recalls how tiny shops grew to …