Shortbreads

At three-month-old Süti & Co., chef Andrea Uzarowski serves buttery shortbreads (pictured above) with a side of serenity. The Boulder shop is modeled after bakeries in her homeland of Denmark, where hygge—the practice of creating ambiences that promote coziness and warmth—is a way of life. Süti (named after a sweet treat following a meal) reflects that philosophy. Inside the airy, white-walled cottage, leather chairs and puffy-pillow-lined seats are arranged around small tables to invite visitors to engage in conversation or reflection over hand-cut cookies and cinnamon-scented chai, rather than looking at their devices. air a carafe of cinnamon-scented chai with the Anna, a sandwich of lemon zest shortbread and raspberry jam dedicated to Uzarowski’s daughter.

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Cookies

Whether you prefer your cookies big and gooey or crumbly and frosted, the following iterations are good to the last crumb.

Classics

The Dirty Islander
Online
Last April, Isla and Alexander Thomas started selling New York–style cookies (inspired by Isla’s stint as a college student in the Big Apple) at local farmers’ markets and online. Chocolate-chip devotees shouldn’t miss the Mum, I’m Preggo—an oversize, cakelike monstrosity studded with gooey chunks of European chocolate. As part of its zero-waste mission, the bakery donates all leftovers to people experiencing homelessness.

Stroopwafels

Colorado Stroopwafels
Online
When Yolande Schmitz moved from Amsterdam to the Front Range in 2018, she missed the fresh-made, syrup-filled waffle cookies synonymous with the Netherlands. To satiate her cravings, she baked her own. Schmitz’s crisp, delicate exterior layers are made with mostly local ingredients and give way to a caramelly molasses interior. Hot tip: Warm the treats by resting them atop a cup of coffee.

Lunettes

Trompeau Bakery
Englewood
Trompeau has been treating Denverites to traditional French goûters (late afternoon snacks) for more than 20 years, and among the lineup of comforting baguettes and brioches, lunettes—two shortbread cookies nestled around a layer of raspberry jam—are a beloved indulgence. With a name that means eyeglasses, each lunette has two flower-shaped cutouts that give diners a peek into the interior.

Seasonal Shortbread

Victory Love & Cookies
West Highland
Kristy Greenwood Bortz found purpose in baking after being diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and now crafts decadent cookies out of the kitchen at Denver Bread Company (which she owns with her husband, Greg Bortz). Her melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookies are seasonally inspired, and creations include lavender-cherry and thyme-, lemon-, and black-pepper-infused bites.

Biscotti

Dolce Sicilia Italian Bakery
Wheat Ridge
The menu at this 19-year-old pastry palace includes espresso-kissed tiramisu, tricolor rainbow cookies, and pistachio-encrusted cannoli. But don’t miss the more than half-dozen flavors of biscotti, including chocolate and hazelnut, gingerbread, and our go-to, cinnamon almond. The sturdy, ready-to-dunk biscuits are studded with nuts and scented with warm baking spices. 

Tea Cookies

Gateaux Bakery
Golden Triangle
At Gateaux—which has stocked its cases with fondant-shrouded cakes, glossy fruit tarts, and other beautifully decorated goodies since 1999—tea cookies are a canvas for the changing seasons. For Christmas and Hanukkah, look for Santas, trees, and dreidels, all of which come dressed in the bakery’s hand-piped secret-recipe icing.

Iced Cranberry & Oat Cookies

The Urban Cookie
Cheesman Park
Baker Denon Moore’s dried-fruit-bejeweled, frosting-drizzled wonders are so popular they earned her Cake Crumbs Bakery an appearance on a holiday episode of the Today Show in 2015. Although Moore sold that Park Hill eatery in 2017, she added the crowd-pleaser to her lineup at nearly two-year-old Urban Cookie, where she now sells a variety of big, chewy beauties influenced by nostalgic flavors.

Make It at Home:

Urban Cookie’s Oat and Cranberry Recipe

Yields about 24, one-ounce cookies
1¼ cup all-purpose flour (bleached or unbleached)
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
¾ cup dried cranberries (sweetened or natural)
¼ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. Saigon cinnamon
½ cup softened butter ( room temp)
2/3 cup brown sugar (not packed)
¾ cup pure cane cugar
1 egg
½ tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat a convection oven to 325˚ or a conventional oven to 350˚.
2. Combine the flour, oats, cranberries, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a mixing bowl using a hand mixer, cream together the sugars and butter until light and fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl, add the egg, and mix again until fully incorporated and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla. Slowly add the flour/oats mixture until just incorporated (be sure not to over mix).
3. Scoop the cookies with a one-ounce scoop/melon baller or tablespoon onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place in the freezer until set (a couple hours) or for up to three months.
4. When you’re ready to bake them, place the frozen cookies far enough apart from each other so there’s room for them to double in size (12 per sheet is best). Bake for eight to 12 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges.
5. Cool on the cookie sheet for several minutes after removing them from the oven.
6. Drizzle with your favorite vanilla buttercream or royal icing (or don’t—they are perfectly delicious without).

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Bagels

Upgrade your slice-and-schmear routine with these crave-worthy versions, courtesy of Mile High City bakers who are elevating and embellishing the breakfast standby.

Jewish Bagel

At 37-year-old Zaidy’s Deli & Bakery, a haunt off South Holly Street for latkes, blintzes, and challah French toast, co-owners Beth Ginsberg and Joel and Max Appel (who recently bought the business from founder Gerard Rudofsky) offer traditional Jewish bagels in eight flavors, including onion and pumpernickel. Every day, up to 300 of the circular indulgences are shaped, boiled, and baked to yield the style’s signature thick crust and dense texture. Order the lox melt—which features cream cheese, lox, onion, tomato, capers, and melted pepper jack cheese—on your favored variety.

Turkish Simit

Marla Celik’s three-year-old Istanbul Café & Bakery is a Washington Virginia Vale staple for specialties such as Turkish baklava and coffee. But Celik also makes three types of bagels from her homeland, including the simit, a take that’s lighter than its New York–style counterparts. The hand-size rings are composed of two strands of twisted dough and baked to golden brown for a crispy exterior with a toothsome center; sides of soft feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives make for a perfect savory counterbalance.

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Rolls

Ana Fanakra’s custard-stuffed skoleboller (translation: school rolls) are a quintessential Norwegian treat for pastry lovers of all ages.

Norwegian-born Ana Fanakra comes from a long line of bakers: Her mother and grandmothers passed down their recipes through the generations, and her father would wake up early to make cinnamon rolls. But it wasn’t until she lost her human resources job during the pandemic that her family’s treat-making expertise became the foundation for Ana’s Norwegian Bakeri in Centennial. Sandwiched between two auto service shops, the eatery’s troll-adorned sign is the only indicator of what’s found within: a brightly lit, teal-accented bakery furnished with Norwegian flags and display cases full of tempting comforts.

Fanakra’s father’s four-inch-tall cinnamon rolls are a staple, but it’s the skoleboller—a name that references the frequency with which they are included in school children’s lunches—that keep us coming back. “People would make them at home for celebrations,” says Fanakra, who immigrated to the United States for college in 1999. The lightly sweet, cardamom-zinged bread is oh-so-soft and has a hollowed-out center that holds a pool of yellow vanilla custard. A topping of icing and flaky coconut adds a tropical aroma and a bit of crunch. “The perfect bite is a mix of all of that,” she says, a feat best achieved by tearing off a bit of the outer bun for scooping out the decadent creamy filling.

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Pastries

You don’t have to book a flight to savor Hong Kong–style egg tarts, Sicilian cannoli, or Mexican sweet breads. Find them—and other staples from across the world—at nine Denver-area bakeries offering true senses of place.

France
In Parker, La Baguette de Normandy chef-owner Michael Dupont crafts French specialties from his home country. The Paris-Brest, named for the 131-year-old long-distance bicycle race between those two cities, is a wheel-shaped indulgence made of two layers of pâte à choux pastry dough sandwiched around a whipped praline crème mousseline (vanilla buttercream mixed with praline paste).

United States
In true melting pot fashion, Thoa Nguyen combines Asian fusion ingredients with French and American techniques at Bánh & Butter Bakery Café in Aurora. To make her ube cupcake, Nguyen adds simple syrup and purple yam in extract and powder form to a pound cake batter and then crests each moist, deeply flavorful base with lavender-hued chantilly cream.

Turkey
Middle Eastern– and Mediterranean-influenced appetizers, entrées, and desserts—like honey-soaked baklava—have long drawn diners to fast-casual Jerusalem Restaurant in the University neighborhood. Finish your meal with a pistachio bird’s nest, whose toasted nuts are nestled in a ring of phyllo dough that’s glazed with butter and lemon simple syrup.

China
Inside tiny, no-frills Celestial Bakery in South Federal Boulevard’s Far East Center, the counter is loaded with Chinese goodies, including shatteringly crisp jian dui (sesame balls) and golden youtiao (fried dough strips). Don’t miss the egg tarts: puddles of smooth, sun-colored custard cradled by mini puff pastry shells and presented in cupcake wrappers.

Mexico
From Panaderia Contreras’ orange-fronted mercado in the heart of Westwood, bakers prepare Mexican delicacies of all shapes and sizes. Although tres leches cakes and churros are readily available, a self-serve glass case of pan dulce offers treats for all palates. Indulge in a pastel-hued concha: The briochelike bread is patterned to resemble a seashell and showered with a cookie crumble.

Italy
Stop into Englewood’s Gallo Italian Supper Club and Bakery on South Broadway for some of Denver’s best cannoli, shaped by the masterful hands of Sicilian-born baker and co-owner Gaspare Licata. The tubes of crisp fried pastry dough are piped with a combination of creamy ricotta and come in versions such as classic vanilla, chocolate, and green-tinted pistachio.

Ethiopia
Aurora’s HiRa Cafe & Patisserie is a love letter to the cafes of Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, where chef-owner Hiwot Solomon learned about the postcolonial tradition of sliced cake with coffee. Enjoy a mug of single-origin Ethiopian java with a square of the Black Forest, whose thin sheets of chocolate sponge are layered with cherry-liqueur-infused whipped cream and decorated with delicate curls of shaved chocolate.

Argentina
Maria Empanada, which has locations in Highland, Platt Park, and Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace, makes plump turnovers for every meal of the day. Most of the pastries are savory, but the sweet Banatella—packed with a medley of Nutella, bananas, and chocolate—is wonderful accompanied by a cup of the restaurant’s yerba mate, an herbaceous tea popular in South America.

Vietnam
In 1980, the Huynh family transformed the Mile High City sandwich scene with the debut of banh mi hot spot Vinh Xuong Bakery, which now has outposts in the Far East Center and on West Alameda Avenue in Valverde. The eateries also offer an array of Vietnamese desserts such as banh da lon, a steamed, delightfully sticky cake composed of yellow and green layers made with tapioca starch, coconut milk, pandan, and mung bean paste.

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Cupcakes

“Everything about me is packaged into this branding,” says Not Yo Mama’s Cupcakes (NYMC) owner Angelia Han. “Everything” includes her love of street dancing and hip-hop, her appreciation for global flavors, and her upbringing in Guam as the daughter of Korean immigrants. “It’s so special to me that I get to actually share my creations with the world as a minority Asian American,” she says. Han started her business in Kona, Hawaii, in 2019, but relaunched in the Mile High City in late 2020 after moving to Colorado to be closer to family. We caught up with Han to find out why her colorful creations, such as the It’s A Pandanmic—a cream-cheese-frosting-finished cake made with pandan extract (a tropical plant with an earthy vanilla flavor) stuffed with house-made coconut pudding—are so delectable.

5280: What’s the creative process behind your playfully named treats?
Angelia Han: I like to take nostalgic flavors from childhood snacks and things like that and re-create them with more Asian flair. One of my top flavors, Cookiesz N Bae, is ube with black sesame and Oreo, so it’s like my take on an Asian cookies and cream.

How do you keep them so moist?
We actually freeze our cupcakes immediately after we bake and decorate them so that they retain the moisture. Our frosting is made with a whipped cream base instead of a buttercream.

What makes NYMC stand out?
If you go to the grocery store or an American bakery, the sweets are very sweet because they’re Western desserts—so I wanted to offer an alternative. I let customers who have never tried our cupcakes know that they’re not going to be anywhere near as sweet as any cupcake they’ve had.

Why do you keep baking?
I believe my cupcakes will help bridge barriers and facilitate connections at the table because the brand and everything within it is cross-cultural. My favorite reactions from people who try our cupcakes are: Oh, we have that in our culture, too. Or, This is something I had back home or when I was a kid.

Find Han’s pop-up schedule on her Instagram page, @_notyomamascupcakes.

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Bread

A guide to enjoying Poulette Bakeshop’s showstopping croissant loaf at every meal.

Pastry pros Carolyn Nugent and Alen Ramos are a resourceful pair. Case in point: The husband-and-wife team, who own one-year-old Poulette Bakeshop in Parker, collect and save the leftover trimmings from their French-butter-enriched European breakfast pastry dough. Most people throw that in the trash,” Nugent says. Then they bake the would-be discards into loaves, which are the equivalent of 10 croissants each. This by-the-meal guide will ensure you use up the pillowy, flaky stunners before they go stale.

Breakfast:
Cut the bread into hefty slices to griddle into French toast, a dish Nugent recommends finishing with caramelized apples and toasted pecans; whipped crème fraiche and pumpkin or apple butter; or Nutella, roasted hazelnuts, and candied oranges. “Slices should be thick, around 1.5 inches, for maximum custard absorption,” she says.

Lunch:
Generous slabs are an excellent foundation for tartines: open-faced sandwiches loaded with sweet and savory accoutrements, from ham, cheese, and béchamel sauce to almond butter and fresh berries. Says Nugent: “The easiest slam dunk is avocado toast.”

Dinner:
Brown squares in the oven to make croutons for salads or transform them into the ultimate holiday side. “What would really be over the top,” Nugent says, “would be to make stuffing with some really great stock, onions, celery, and herbs.”

Dessert:
At Poulette, Nugent and Ramos sell bread pudding made with cubed bread, which is soaked in a mixture of cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. “We put dark chocolate [chunks] in ours, but you could do cranberries, pistachios, or roasted apples,” she says. “Bake it low and slow.”

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Pie

Whip up a coconut cream pie with the help of Shamane’s Bakery & Cafe.

For Thanksgiving weekend alone, the 19-year-old Boulder store produces more than 1,000 crusted beauties—starring apple caramel crumble, pecan, and other sweet fillings—as well as galettes and savory varieties. Cream-laden options such as chocolate mousse and Key lime are perennial favorites, owner-baker Shamane Simons says, but lately, more customers have been gravitating toward the coconut cream. Use her recipe below to craft your own.

Coconut Cream Pie

Yields two 9-inch pies
2 cups 100 percent coconut milk
4 oz. granulated sugar
1½ oz. cornstarch
1 egg yolk
1 whole egg
1 oz. butter (optional)
29-inch pie crusts*
1½ cups fresh whipping cream
3 Tbs. powdered sugar
½ tsp. vanilla
¾ cup toasted shredded coconut

To make the custard:

1. Whisk coconut milk, sugar, and cornstarch in a saucepan. Cook over low to medium heat, whisking frequently, until the mixture is just about to simmer.
2. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolk and whole egg in a medium-size bowl. When the milk thickens slightly (about 10 to 15 minutes), gently pour the mixture over the eggs while whisking continuously until combined. Return the custard to the saucepan.
3. Whisk the custard over medium heat until bubbly and thickened (stir continuously to ensure it doesn’t cook onto the bottom of the pan).
4. Strain the filling over a wide, shallow bowl and whisk in butter. Cover with parchment paper or plastic wrap and chill for 24 hours.

To assemble the pies:

1. Bake the pie crusts. Let cool.
2. Whisk the coconut custard slightly until smooth and fill the pie shells to just under the rim.
3. Whip the fresh cream until soft peaks form. Add powdered sugar and vanilla (you can also use the innards of half a vanilla bean) and continue whipping until nearly stiff peaks form. Pipe cream on top of the custard and sprinkle with toasted coconut. Let everything chill for at least two hours before serving.

Bonus: Simon’s Sweet Pie Crust

Yields two pie crusts
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
4–6 oz. room temperature butter
2 eggs
1 egg yolk

1. In a mixer with a paddle attachment, combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Add butter and mix until slightly combined. Add eggs and mix until a dough forms. Wrap and chill for at least three hours.
2. Roll the dough into 10-inch circles (they should be about 1/16-inch thick). Center the crusts on your pie pans and gently press into the interiors to remove air bubbles. Leave a little overhang and trim the dough around the edges. Chill for one hour.
3. Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork or docker to prevent air bubbles (Simons recommends docking diagonal lines to make a flower pattern in the pan). Bake at 350˚ until deep golden brown. Cool.

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Croissants & More

Talented carb-slingers on the Front Range are churning out colorful croissants, sustainably sourced sourdough, and cheesy rolls. Here, a by-the-numbers snapshot of the scene.

300: Acres of regenerative farmland in Colorado supported by Dry Storage. At the company’s grain mill in Boulder, pros transform batches of sustainably grown heirloom wheat purchased from local growers into flour for businesses—including Dry Storage’s own Arapahoe Avenue bakery, which produces thick-crusted sourdough baguettes—in the state and beyond.

5: Brightly striped varieties of filled croissants available from space-themed Black Box Bakery in LoDo. The colors of the pastries, available for delivery and at pop-ups, are often a clue to what’s inside: The strawberry, for instance, is streaked with layers of red dough that hint at its jammy center.

40: Minutes each yellow-tinted turmeric loaf spends cooking in the Funky Flame’s mobile, wood-fired oven at the corner of 44th Avenue and Zuni Street in Sunnyside. Chef-owner Allison Declercq Steiner seasons each boule with roasted garlic and adds a thick coating of black sesame seeds for a dramatic finish.

2,750: Pounds of French butter used to laminate the croissants Hearth sold during the 2022 farmers’ market season. In September, owner and head baker Matt Quinlisk debuted a bakery and coffeeshop in Curtis Park, where he makes multiple riffs on the pastry, including a spiral-shaped pinwheel laced with green chiles and cheddar cheese.

8 a.m.: Time of day Babette’s Pizza & Pane in Longmont puts out sheet pans of gorgeously blistered pizza (along with a parade of almond croissants, fruit Danishes, and other goodies). The Roman-style pies use a sourdough crust to yield an airy, crispy-bottomed base for toppings such as sausage, acorn squash, and fennel pollen.

2019: The year that Shawn Bergin—who worked at a pizzeria during high school and honed his dough-whispering skills with the help of YouTube and Instagram—decided to quit his gig in marketing and sales to pursue baking full time. Now, fans wait in line for up to an hour at his Bakery Four in Berkeley for boxes of cinnamon-and-sugar-dusted morning buns and other naturally leavened sourdough marvels.

$15: Cost of a 60-minute tour of Rebel Bread, Zach Martinucci’s bakery and bread school on South Broadway. During the events, guests get a peek at the production facility—where more than 72,000 loaves, including rectangles of olive rosemary ciabtta, are baked annually for area restaurants, including Whittier’s Point Easy and LoDo’s Stoic and Genuine, and retail sale—and leave with their own sourdough starter.

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Cheesecake

Matt Dulin is smitten with cheesecake—and after tasting his Basque version at GetRight’s, you will be, too.

As a teenager, Matt Dulin was so crazy about cheesecake that he wrote a lyrical ode to the dessert. “My friend and I had a rap group called Hot Sauce and Cheese,” says Dulin, the owner of GetRight’s, a new bakery, houseplant nursery, and event space in Wheat Ridge. The duo broke up, but Dulin’s obsession endured. Cheesecake—particularly a caramelized, crustless style called Basque—is still one of his favorite sweets. So, naturally, he added the specialty to the rotating lineup at GetRight’s, which (after regularly selling out of pop-up and delivery goods since 2020) is set to debut a storefront in early 2023.

The secret to Dulin’s Basque cheesecakes—which feature the usual cream cheese, egg, sugar, flour, salt, and heavy cream—is that he removes them from the oven a few minutes early, while the centers are still jiggly. (Leaving them in longer results in a grainier, New York–style texture.) “This ensures a very creamy, luscious, and custardy interior,” he says. Pick up your own at GetRight’s, where Dulin will also stock other love-song-worthy treats, including pain au chocolat, canelé de Bordeaux (rum-forward custard cake), and citrus tarts.

Make It At Home:

GetRight’s Basque Cheesecake

The night before you plan to make your cheesecake, let the cream cheese sit at room temperature to soften, which will make it easier to whisk the cream cheese to a smooth consistency when mixing the batter.

Yields one cheesecake

35 oz. (1,000 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
1¾ cups (400 grams) granulated sugar
1 Tbs. (10 grams) flour
1 tsp. (3 grams) fine ground sea salt
6 (about 350 grams) large eggs
1 cup (200 grams) heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 425°.
2. Place cream cheese into bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium high speed until smooth, creamy, and glossy with no lumps. Stop the mixer before adding the next ingredients.
3. Add sugar, flour, and sea salt to the bowl and continue to mix until the cream cheese is light and fluffy (this indicates that the sugar has dissolved into the batter).
4. With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time. Wait until each egg is mixed fully into the batter before adding the next. After the eggs are fully mixed in, slowly pour in the cream and blend everything until it’s the same smooth consistency throughout.
5. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula and stir the mixture manually or using the mixer to ensure there are no lumps.
6. Line an eight-inch cake pan with a sheet of parchment paper that covers the entirety of the pan and comes up above the pan by about two inches on each side. Spray the paper with the non-stick cooking spray, then lightly sprinkle the granulated sugar evenly over the paper.
7. Add the cheesecake batter to the prepared cake pan (it might come all the way to the top). Lightly tap the bowl on the countertop to level and remove any air bubbles.
8. Bake on the middle rack for 18 minutes. After that time, the cake should begin to brown on top but needs to be broiled for another five to six minutes to reach the final caramelized look and taste. Check each minute after 18; the color goes from nicely toasted to burnt very quickly. Also be sure to watch the parchment paper and make sure it doesn’t get too close to the heating element or it may catch fire.
9. The cake should be removed from the oven when the top has just set around the first one inch nearest to the sides of the pan, but the center will still look very loose and jiggly. This ensures a very creamy, luscious, and custardy interior. If you want a more New York–style cheesecake texture, bake for four minutes longer.
10. Let the cake sit at room temperature until cool to touch, then refrigerate overnight.
11. Remove the cake from the refrigerator about an hour before serving. This will soften the cake texture, ensure center is super creamy, and bring out the aromas of the caramelized sugars on the edges. Use a sharp chef knife dipped in hot water and wiped clean to cut each slice. Serve with fresh whipped cream and seasonal fruit for any occasion year-round.

Email Matt@goodygetright.com with any questions or further assistance on dialing in the cooking process of the cheesecake. 

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Cake

At House of Bread, the Torosyan family fosters connection over bites from Armenia and beyond, including yojik, a custard-layered cake.

When Jack and Mary Torosyan moved to California from Armenia in 1990, they quickly connected with other immigrants at West Coast bakeries. But in 2009, when they relocated their family to Colorado, they found a less-established Armenian community. To fill the void, they opened their own place for people to gather. House of Bread, the Front Range’s only Armenian bakery, is a humble strip-mall eatery where the Torosyans have prepared family recipes (Turkish coffee, Soviet-era pastries, Armenian lunch fare) since late 2020.

“Half [of our customers] have prior knowledge of [our food], whether it was something that they had when they were traveling or something they always had when they were living in their home countries,” says Allan, the Torosyans’ 23-year-old son. One such delight is the yojik, an apple-size cake named after the Russian word for porcupine. The oven-baked specialty is layered with house-made vanilla custard and covered in a crust of spiky cake crumbs that resembles its namesake creature—making for a head-turning dish that’s sure to serve as a conversation starter, no matter who’s sitting at the next table over.