The Greatest New Bakeries in Puerto Rico Are Creating New Traditions

Tender, doughy pan sobao is ubiquitous in Puerto Rico. The favored candy bread is offered in nearly each bakery, grocery store, and nook colmadito. Even some gasoline stations promote beforehand frozen loaves in heated show instances. Locals use it for the whole lot: toast, sandwiches, a plain slice skewered on the finish of a rooster pincho to take in drippings. It’s as Puerto Rican as lechón asado, mofongo, or pasteles.

Pan sobao is iconic, not solely as a result of it’s widespread and has deep roots within the island’s Spanish baking traditions, but in addition as a result of it’s symbolic of the whole lot that went fallacious with Puerto Rico’s industrial baking system.

“The frequent pan sobao expertise at present is enriched, bleached flour combined with vegetable shortening, tons of sugar, tons of leavening brokers so the bread grows shortly. It’s typically underbaked so that you just get that doughy texture inside,” says Diego San Miguel, who opened Panoteca San Miguel in 2021 within the Río Piedras neighborhood of San Juan. “So many individuals eat it, however nobody is questioning the strategies. No one says, ‘Hey, this isn’t achieved proper.’”

In 2016, San Miguel began making bread in a second-hand pizza oven from a small ghost kitchen in Cupey, becoming a member of a technology of impressed Puerto Rican bakers who’ve begun providing an alternative choice to the bread factories: sourdoughs, nation loaves, pastries with precise contemporary lotions and native fruit. Whereas this would possibly simply seem to be the belated arrival of baking tendencies from the U.S., Puerto Rican bakers face distinctive challenges sourcing components and battling lingering cultural stigmas — however they’ve additionally developed new baking traditions reflecting the island’s personal foodways.

Joseph Lopez Hidalgo

Joseph Lopez Hidalgo

Wheat arrived in Puerto Rico with Spanish colonizers within the early sixteenth century. Over time, Spanish bakers settled across the island, constructing brick ovens and baking breads and candy buns from numerous areas of Spain. A couple of panaderías nonetheless bake with these authentic brick ovens at present, and it’s frequent to discover a bakery in each city sq. promoting variations of criollo bread (pan de agua), sweets comparable to quesitos, and naturally, pan sobao.

With the industrialization of meals manufacturing within the Nineteen Forties and ’50s, Puerto Ricans started consuming extra processed meals alongside different U.S. shoppers. Bread baking become an industrial process with out emphasis on components or fermentation, whereas pastries have been assembled with pre-made mixes and lotions. Bakeries modified conventional recipes within the title of well being, however typically made issues worse; by the Seventies, pork lard, a key ingredient in pan sobao, was condemned as unhealthy, nevertheless it was substituted with hydrogenated vegetable shortening fully stripped of dietary worth. Puerto Ricans grew accustomed to insipid tornillos with dense pastry cream and breads that stayed mushy for days.

Rafael Ruiz Mederos

The nascent motion to counter these legacies started with María Isabel Laborde. In 2000, she left Puerto Rico to coach as a baker within the Dominican Republic; upon her return, she noticed her breads weren’t turning out the identical because of the addition of different components comparable to potassium bromate in flour milled in Puerto Rico. The inorganic chemical compound is a identified carcinogen, causes gastrointestinal points, and is banned in lots of nations world wide, however remains to be used within the U.S. and Puerto Rico to enhance dough. She began talking up about this type of chemical additive and promoting sourdough bread made with natural flour.

Different bakers adopted, nevertheless it’s been an uphill battle. Puerto Ricans might love their bread, however most individuals haven’t been a lot eager about the way it was baked. In keeping with lawyer-turned-baker Carlos Ruiz, many shoppers prioritized comfort over high quality when he opened El Horno de Pane within the Hato Rey district of San Juan in 2016.

“Folks would arrive at 3 p.m. and say, ‘Oh, you don’t have something left!’ as a result of they’re used to going to bakeries that at all times have a stocked show,” says. “Folks would get offended with me, to the purpose of insulting me: ‘You don’t know what you’re doing! How is it attainable that there’s nothing left right now?’ As a result of the whole lot is made contemporary day by day, from scratch.”

“Right here in Puerto Rico, if you say you’re a bread baker individuals look down on you,” says San Miguel, who started his profession at Panadería Morales in Gurabo, the place he skilled the commercial strategy to baking. It wasn’t till he spent a 12 months working in France that he witnessed seasoned bakers who proudly devoted their lives to their craft.

Rafael Ruiz Mederos

Looking for instruction exterior of Puerto Rico has confirmed essential to most of the island’s finest modern bakers, together with Ruiz and José Rodriguez, who began Levain Artisan Breads in 2009 after finishing the bread program on the Worldwide Culinary Heart in New York. He has since opened bakeries in Aguadilla and Santurce, all whereas taking baking workshops across the globe.

These experiences overseas have come to outline bakers’ choices. San Miguel experiments with ethereal Italian maritozzi, Rodriguez has develop into identified for his croissants, and Ruiz lists almond croissants and kouign amanns amongst his finest sellers. The impression is even clearer for Lucía Merino. As a younger pastry cook dinner in Miami, Merino educated with a grasp pastry chef who impressed her to pursue patisserie. After working in Spain and Dallas, she returned residence to focus on her ardour, which incorporates laminated dough and pate au choux, at Lucía Patisserie, a bakery impressed by French strategies within the Miramar neighborhood of San Juan. (Notice: Lucía Merino is the sister of Camila Merino, who has additionally labored at Lucía Patisserie.)

Although bakers’ hearts lie in French boulangeries and Italian pasticcerias, they should take care of sourcing components in Puerto Rico. As a commonwealth of america, Puerto Rico imports over 80 % of its meals. As a result of Marine Service provider Act of 1920, also referred to as the Jones Act, items should be delivered to the island on U.S. flagged ships, inflicting hefty markups and limiting provide.

When she got down to bake bread commercially, Laborde tried ineffectively to get an area Daybreak Meals gross sales rep to convey King Arthur’s natural flours to the island.

“I feel the woman didn’t like me from the get-go. She stored saying that flour goes dangerous shortly and is pricey, that no person would purchase it,” Laborde says. “I instructed her I’d purchase the complete pallet. Perhaps she didn’t imagine me.”

Laborde personally employed a courier out of Florida to ship King Arthur from North Carolina. It made the premium uncooked materials much more expensive, nevertheless it laid the groundwork for Rodriguez, who satisfied the identical rep to import King Arthur just a few years later. (The flour was essential for the sourdough pizza retailers that subsequently popped up throughout the capital, proving Laborde proper about demand.)

Rafael Ruiz Mederos

However reasonable successes haven’t quelled anxiousness. When Russia invaded Ukraine, wheat turned dearer and bakers seen a dip in high quality. At one level, Ruiz paid $290 to ship a $100 bag of flour to Puerto Rico. The identical unbromated flour that kicked off Puerto Rico’s neo-baking wave has additionally develop into laborious to get; shipments can get delayed or promote out shortly.

Different components are simply as finicky. On multiple event, Ruiz has been all the way down to his final field of European butter, joking nervously that he was “near urgent the panic button.” Merino additionally struggles to get components like nuts and chocolate, and her delicate pastries don’t reply properly to sudden disruptions in ingredient provide.

“We plan our weekly menu and order components meant for our manufacturing, however then some objects by no means make it or the standard isn’t what it must be,” she says. “It may be very worrying.”

The restrictions have pressured bakers to get inventive. When he couldn’t get his arms on European-style butter, Rodriguez did his finest to imitate it, processing the native selection to scale back its water and enhance its fats share (although he finally switched to butter ordered straight from France — through New Jersey — because of inconsistencies within the selfmade model).

The group at Lucía Patisserie had extra success making their very own hazelnut praline once they couldn’t supply it. In addition they choose to make their very own variations of pricy components comparable to vanilla extract.

Although bakers might bemoan their lack of entry to European components, they’ve additionally discovered to have a good time the bounty in their very own yard. Native eggs are sometimes considerably dearer than imported choices, however one native egg sometimes yields the equal of 1.5 to 2 U.S. eggs, and bakers desire their high quality. Panoteca San Miguel showcases native fruits comparable to pomarrosa and passionfruit in pastries. When a pleasant neighbor in Aguadilla donated his whole crop of contemporary guayabas, the Levain group made jam and mixed it with native queso fresco for a danish that flew off the show case.

“Any pastry we make with contemporary native fruit sells very properly,” says Merino. She works with farmers to supply limes, ginger, hibiscus, and watermelon for juices; herbs, eggplant, and squash for savory galettes; passionfruit for macarons; mango for tarts, and extra. For Thanksgiving, Lucía Patisserie processed over 400 kilos of native pumpkins for pies.

“It’s our duty to point out [farmers] there’s demand for his or her merchandise and we’re keen to pay them what they want if we need to see a change in our island’s reliance on imports,” she provides.

Johan Villafañe Lopez

Johan Villafañe Lopez

The identical European strategies and pastries that proved essential as inspiration for bakers may flip off some prospects, who might really feel intimidated at first by unfamiliar merchandise, Rodriguez says. So incorporating acquainted flavors has additionally confirmed key to successful over apprehensive locals.

“Our prospects will at all times buy pastries that style like [Puerto Rican] classics,” Merino says. Past utilizing native fruits in pastries, she sells a Croixito, a croissant-based pastry impressed by a standard quesito, and a well-liked hand pie crammed with picadillo and candy plantain. Currently, she’s been experimenting with crispy puff pastry to convey different bakery staples to life, comparable to napoleons and pastelillos.

Utilizing Puerto Rico’s personal flavors isn’t only a savvy enterprise resolution. It’s additionally half of a bigger push to create an area, self-sustaining baking tradition stuffed with satisfaction for Puerto Rico’s personal traditions. “The Puerto Rican breads have gotten a nasty rep and are typically thought-about inferior to European breads, however they aren’t. The issue is the tactic and the components,” San Miguel says.

Pioneering bakers needed to journey the world to study their craft, however they’d like that to vary for the subsequent technology, in order that training isn’t restricted to these with the means to review overseas. Rodriguez has been internet hosting baking workshops all through Puerto Rico, and he and Laborde have each regarded into opening everlasting baking faculties.

“Folks rely on these breads now,” says Laborde, who frequently sells out her loaves at her restaurant, Peace n Loaf, in her hometown, the central mountain pueblo of Cayey. “That’s why we’d like extra bakers.”

Their persistence is paying off. Bakeries are grateful their craft has been embraced by a rising native fan base, in addition to Puerto Ricans within the diaspora and overseas guests. And a youthful technology of bakers are opening their very own inventive micro-bakeries, comparable to Mugi Pan, a micro-bakery impressed by Japanese and French strategies.

San Miguel even revived the beleaguered pan sobao with native natural lard, eggs, and honey.

“It was unbelievable. It tasted similar to the pan sobao we all know,” he says, “nevertheless it was achieved proper.”

Camila Merino is a contract author from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and has labored in meals and repair for nearly 10 years.

Johan Villafañe Lopez