With fall upon us, local bakers take to their ovens to fashion love letters to what many call a baker’s favorite season. Here, seven bakers share their creations along with the memories and flavors that drive them.
SWEET LUCY’S PIES
Owner/baker Lindsey Lawing
SWEET POTATO PIE
“Sweet potato is all about nostalgia for me. My grandmother loved sweet potato casserole and sweet potato pie. It’s an ingredient that holds a lot of memories and a lot of love. It has this sweet-savory aspect to it, this warm side.” Lawing sources locally from Fort Worth’s Cowtown Farmers Market. She roasts the sweet potatoes with butter, purees them with cream, local Pendery’s spices—fresh nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom (her favorite), ginger—and vanilla bean paste, folds them into a flaky crust, and voilà.
3520 Blue Bonnet Circle
Fort Worth
sweetlucyspies.com
BRESNAN BREAD AND PASTRY
Owners/bakers Jenna and Matt Bresnan
ROASTED CARROT DANISH
with labneh filling, fresh herbs, and tahini sauce
“We love to use our Danish dough as a vehicle for sweet and savory seasonal ingredients. Thinking of the pastry as the base and a vessel for any and all flavor combinations really changed our perspective on what could be done seasonally. We roast the carrots with our house-made za’atar spice, and the end result is a great balance of sweet, salty, acidic, spicy, and herbaceous.”
301 E. Louisiana St., Ste. B
McKinney
bresnanbreadandpastry.com
GIRL WITH FLOUR
Pop Tart Spotlight
Owner/baker Erika Lam Radtke
“Fall is my favorite season, and I’ve spent much of my life both on the West Coast and in the Northeast where fall is synonymous with apple orchards and real pumpkin patches, where you go to where the fruit is actually grown. Because our pop tarts are some of our most popular items, we find that it’s a great way to help educate our customers about seasonality T get them excited about it.” Girl With Flour via IG: @girlwithflour
SPICED KABOCHA POP TART WITH BUTTERMILK GLAZE AND SALTED PUMPKIN SEED PRALINE
“This is probably one of the biggest things our customers look forward to in the fall. It starts with picking the right kabocha pumpkins as they come into season—the really sweet ones, as opposed to the starchy. We prefer kabocha to sugar pie pumpkins because the flavor is richer. We bake them low and slow, until they’re deeply orange, and combine them with traditional pumpkin spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, allspice. The richness of the filling is offset by the tart buttermilk glaze and the nutty praline. It is inspired by the pumpkin pie that I make for my family every Thanksgiving, and it’s so gratifying that we’ve had customers call it ‘Thanksgiving in the palm of your hand!’”
APPLE POP TART WITH CHAI SPICE GLAZE
“I have wonderful memories of picking apples off the trees, as a child with my parents and as a parent taking my own children. There is always a pie shop nearby, with hot apple cider and freshly baked apple pie. Making an apple pop tart is a way to channel those warm, happy feelings. For the glaze, sweet apples pair well with warm spices [and] I really like the complexity of masala chai. The cardamom, anise, clove, black pepper— which we grind fresh—and ginger round out the cinnamon and you add the fragrance of the black tea leaves. It makes me think of curling up with a good, thick book and a cup of chai on a rainy day.”
BODEGA SOUTH MAIN
PUMPKIN PIE
Owner/baker Tasha Monticure
“Of all the fancy fusion fall desserts we make, from pumpkin crème brulée to pear-cardamom muffns, my idea of perfection is the classic pumpkin pie. Flaky, buttery crust with just a touch of saltiness; filling that isn’t too thick or too runny, and spiced just right! This was one of my first childhood food memories, and I remember being amazed. Back then, my great aunt Nonnie used lard in her crust, and quite frankly I love a lard crust pie. Most of the time I make an all-butter crust. Freshground spices really make a difference. I like my pie served room temp or cold. There just isn’t anything more delightful to the senses than the smell and taste coupled with a cup of coffee or cold glass of milk.”
203 S. Main St.
Fort Worth
bodegasouthmain.com
LEILA BAKERY & CAFE
VANILLA PEAR KOUIGN AMANN
Owner/baker Kelly Ball
“When I was first teaching myself to make croissants and attempted the kouign amann, I was surprised that they are not traditionally a filled pastry. It seemed like such a perfect vessel to stuff with even more goodness. I was experimenting with these in the fall—a baker’s favorite season—at a time of year when growers were bringing pears to Good Local Markets, where I was a vendor. I did not grow up with any baked goods that incorporated pears, but it seemed like something worth trying. These market pears were a smaller, firmer variety than you find in grocery stores, so I roasted them in a bit of oil and pinch of salt to soften them up. The vanilla pastry cream was the final touch to really put this pastry over the top.”
6041 Oram St.
Dallas
leilabakery.com
KULUNTU BAKERY
PEAR-ALMOND-ROOIBOS GALETTE
Founder/baker Stephanie Leichtle-Chalklen
“We use pears, and that’s a nice fall fruit, but it’s also a little bit different from the apples and pumpkins we see. Rooibos adds a sweet, honeyed, almost floral note, and that works well with the pears atop a smear of rooibosinfused almond cream, which balances it out with a nice nuttiness. The free-form galette is elegant and rustic and gives you the flakiness you want in a pie crust.”
Order at kuluntubakery.org
(Pick ups at 1201 Haines Ave., Dallas)
EMPIRE BAKING COMPANY
Grandma V’s Apple Honey Cake
APPLE HONEY CAKE
Executive pastry chef Liz Bliss
“For as long as I can remember, my favorite fall ingredient has been apples. Tree-ripened apples signaled the end of summer on my grandparents’ Missouri farm if the season was early, and the smell of applesauce, apple butter, compote, cake, and pie filled their farmhouse on our return for Thanksgiving. A visit to the musty cellar with my cousins was rewarded with fresh apples, crisp and tart, smuggled up the stairs, bundled in skirts and shirts as we ran out the kitchen door before my Grandma Virginia could call us back. Our holiday afternoons were spent around the kitchen table, the grandkids lined up with peelers, graters, and knives for the eldest, giant bowls of apples set in the middle, while Grandma and the aunts simmered pots and baked desserts. My favorite is Grandma V’s flavorful Honey Apple Cake, made with freshly grated apples and honey from her neighbor’s farm. It’s a delightful cake warm out of the oven, but even better in a day or two as the flavors really have time to develop. I’ve served it with local honey, honeyed whipped cream, a sprinkle of powdered sugar, a side of apple compote, or plain as it is—and it’s always delicious!”
5450 West Lovers Lane, Ste. 132
Dallas
empirebaking.com
EVE HILL-AGNUS teaches English and journalism and is a freelance writer based in Dallas. She earned degrees in English and Education from Stanford University. Her work has appeared in the Dallas Morning News, D Magazine, and the journal Food, Culture & Society. She remains a contributing Food & Wine columnist for the Los Altos Town Crier, the Bay-Area newspaper where she stumbled into journalism by writing food articles during grad school. Her French-American background and childhood spent in France fuel her enduring love for French food and its history. She is also obsessed with goats and cheese.
