Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake,” but she might have added, “cookies, tarts, brioche and donuts too.” Of course, if 18th century Paris had Satura Cakes, the populace might not have revolted.
Satura, a Japanese-owned bakery of artistically inspired pastries and other toothsome delights, opened its second store in June on University Avenue in Palo Alto. The Los Altos location, where baking for both stores takes place, had opened six months earlier.
The two locations are inaugural outlets for the innovative company. Two more bakeries are slated to open in Hawaii this fall. The name Satura, not Japanese at all, derives from an ancient Roman sweet cake.
Satura’s founder, Hironobu Tamaki, has teamed with famed Japanese pastry chef Masahito Motohashi to start a U.S. bakery operation that combines the best of European pastry technique with the Japanese eye to meticulous preparation and presentation.
While many of our bakeries offer cakes, few bakers specialize in them. In Europe and Japan, cake making has risen to a fine art. Satura has introduced cakes that are elegant, delicate, beautiful to the eye and delicious to eat. Motohashi sent his top pastry chef, Seung Ho Jung, to launch the operation.
The Hina cake ($7 a slice) is a gorgeous arc of chocolate cream layered with chocolate mousse and embedded with hazelnuts, caramel, passion fruit and mango.
The Yuna cake ($4.95 a slice) is bittersweet chocolate sponge cake with layers of ganache (chocolate and heavy cream) and two kinds of milk chocolate.
Mont Blanc ($4.95 a slice) is not the traditional French fluffy mound of sweetness. Here, it is a flat cake of Japanese confit chestnuts (cooked pureed chestnuts, sugar and water) tucked inside a subtle layer of Kyoto chestnut paste under a scrumptious blend of pastry and whipped cream.
A wedding-cake specialist is available to help design the perfect nuptial showpiece. All too often, wedding cakes look inviting but taste like icing on cardboard. Satura makes cakes from eggs, butter, sugar (often organic), wheat flour, olive oil and fresh dairy products. Hydrogenated oils, sweeteners, bakery premixes and artificial ingredients are never used, the Satura folks say.
There are tables and chairs for indoor eating, and sweets can be boxed for take-home. Most cakes and tarts are sold by the slice. Larger cakes are made to order, so calling ahead is advisable.
Besides cakes, the stores offer a variety of pastries, tarts and fancy coffees.
For breakfast, there are artistically rendered Danish pastries flavored with orange, apricot or cherry ($2.80). Brioche donuts ($2) are puffs the size of baseballs made from soy milk and fried in olive oil. The cream puffs ($3) are so light they almost need tethering to the plate. The tantalizing French toast ($3.50) is a slab of house-made focaccia baked with maple syrup.
At first glance, the Palo Alto store looks rather sparsely merchandised. But every shelf, every tier of cabinet and glass apothecary reveals a mouthwatering delicacy. The marshmallows are fabulous, nine to a package for $4. The bag I purchased had pineapple-, lemon- and strawberry-flavored puffs.
There are tiny packaged butter cookies ($2) — mocha, plain butter, strawberry and green-tea flavors — and madeleines flavored with honey ($2). Rows of cellophane-wrapped Florentine cookies ($2), flat and crispy, sit in baskets while galettes, butter cookies with rum, and dacquoises, soft meringues filled with peanut cream ($2 each), line the glass countertop.
The brightly lit cabinets, though, are where the treasures lie. The colors, textures and shapes of the luscious tarts and cakes ignite the salivary glands. The problem is choosing. The tarts are jewel-like, with glistening fruits the color of rubies, emeralds, opals, garnets and yellow and orange diamonds.
Several Satura pastries ranked with the more unusual bakery products I have tasted in our area.
The caramelized banana tart ($3.95 a slice) was marzipan-crusted, filled with almond cream and topped with toasted slivered almonds. It reminded me of a chilled Bananas Foster. The fruit tart ($3.95 a slice) was studded with fresh berries and bound with organic brown sugar and pastry cream atop an almond paste crust. It was bold and refreshing.
Perhaps the most remarkable item I tried was the green-tea roll ($4.95 a slice). The tea roll resembled an old-fashioned ice cream roll in which chocolate sponge cake was layered with vanilla ice cream, then rolled and sliced. Remember how a cross-section resembled a pinwheel of chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream?
The green-tea roll is its worthy, sophisticated successor. The light green sponge cake was made with Matcha (specially picked, stronger-flavored) green-tea powder. The cake was wrapped around chestnut butter cream with Japanese confit chestnut in the center. The tea roll was subtle and delicate.
I also enjoyed the Satura strawberry shortcake ($3.95), a four-inch-high square of white sponge cake layered with cream and strawberries. It was feather-light, sweet (but not overly so) and held together nicely as I forked away at its towering edges.
Other cakes that day were caramel mocha, Valrhona chocolate, classic chocolate and a fabulous light pumpkin cheesecake. The menu at Satura is a moving target, with additions and deletions occurring regularly and evolving with the seasonality of fruits and nuts.
Not sweet enough? Satura also packages fruit sauces and dessert toppings that will brighten pancakes, crepes, waffles and ice cream. Green tea jam, pink grapefruit sauce and mango pineapple toppings caught my eye. Prices range from $10 to $12 per jar.
When I heard there was another new bakery in the area, I instinctively rolled my eyes. We are already blessed with myriad great bakeries. But Satura’s pastries are innovative, sophisticated and artistic.
Satura Cakes
www.saturacakes.com
320 University Ave., Palo Alto
(650) 326-3393
Hours:
Sun.-Thurs. 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
Fri.-Sat. 10 a.m.-11 p.m.
200 Main St., Los Altos
(650) 948-3300
Hours:
Daily 8 a.m.-8 p.m.
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