A look at signature items from local bakeries in and around the Tahoe Basin
Whether you’re team savory or team sweet, bakers in and around the Lake Tahoe Basin are rising to the occasion by crafting some truly unique offerings.
The Place: Sugar Pine Cakery & Café
The Item: Cinnamon Rolls
When the signature item is also the very first thing that is done (early) in the morning, you know there’s some dedication in place. Along with their morning buns, the cinnamon roll is one of the most popular items at Sugar Pine Cakery.
The process starts out with hot water, yeast and sugar getting nice and frothy before the addition of eggs, vanilla, flour, and butter to make the dough. Once it proofs, it gets rolled out and filled with schmear before a second proofing and then into the oven before coming out and getting frosted. In all, the process takes about three hours but what you get is well worth the wait – perfectly gooey and loaded with flavor, this is one of the best ways to start out your day in Tahoe.
Ham and Swiss croissants, doughnuts, cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and scones are just a few of the other items that are being prepared daily. Oh, and when you have someone nicknamed “The Scone Whisperer” on staff, pretty sure that means it’s an auto order every time you walk in the door.
If you’re into breads, then you also have an option for a truly unique item that’s also sold at New Moon Natural Foods in Tahoe City and Truckee. Their seed bread is made from a golden flax meal base and sprouted seeds that are baked right in. In addition to that bread, you also have options like grandma used to bake in banana bread, zucchini bread, chocolate beet bread, lemon poppy bread and seasonal offerings like pumpkin bread.
After starting the bakery in a farmer’s market and slowly adding in days as demand became higher, the bakery now pumps out about two to three dozen of every item daily – which essentially means it’s a 24-hour operation.
And if you’re looking for something on the go to line your pockets while you’re up on the mountain this winter, they are also making their own granola with ingredients like dried fruits, oats, coconut, pecans, almonds, vanilla, and coconut oil.
The Site: sugarpinecakery.com
The Place: Sierra Bakehouse
The Item: Croissants
If a bakery is only open to the public one day a week – like in the case of Sierra Bakehouse – you better be certain to get in line early or your favorite item might be gone. Although, with as many items as this bakery is producing each week, even if your favorite item is sold out, you’re bound to find another option just as delicious.
To give you an idea of how much volume the bakery is doing, on a busy sales day anywhere from 300 to 350 loaves of bread, 200 to 250 croissants, 250 scones, 200 macaroons, 180 bars and cookies – and those are only the staples.
While it’s hard to choose a favorite, we can at least whittle it down to the general item of croissants. The dough for their croissants is a sourdough that is fermented overnight in the refrigerator and then ran through a laminating machine that makes “books” of croissants which folds in about 850 grams of butter. After a four-time process of folding and resting over the course of a full day, the dough is ready – yes, it is a long process, and yes, the results are worth it.
Whether it’s savory options like heirloom tomatoes with a goat cheese bottom and pesto on top or their classic chocolate, which is made with Valrhona chocolate from France, there is an option for whatever type of mood you are in – and they are always experimenting with new flavors.
One of the main things that the bakery focuses on is good quality (and organic) ingredients – something they say helps when it comes to digestion on items like sourdough bread, which might typically scare away folks who are gluten conscious. Giving care to items like replacing sugar with applesauce can get pre-digested by the sourdough and better all-around on the stomach.
The Site: sierrabakehouse.com
The Place: Tahoe Bagel Company
The Item: Bagels
OK, so it shouldn’t be some big secret that bagels are the signature item at a place called Tahoe Bagel Company. But what might be a secret, is just which bagels are the top seller – and it’s not a clear-cut number one. In fact, it is a tie between three: Plain, Everything, and Jalapeno Cheddar.
Stared by two brothers from New Jersey who missed having those east coast bagels, their signature recipe for bagel dough cannot be found on the internet. Unique to their process which took months to fine tune, it also accounts for the elevation in Tahoe to help ensure they hold up.
On a busy summer day, Tahoe Bagel Company can crank out anywhere from 800 to 1,000 bagels a day, so it’s not a surprise that their bagel making process is essentially a 24-hour gig. Batches are made during the day so that they can ferment overnight. Then, at 4 a.m. in the morning, the first to arrive cools the bagels for the day and adds toppings or dips them in seed. They are baked throughout the day so they are fresh to order and new batches for the following day are integrated into the routine.
In addition to their best-sellers, the egg everything bagel offers up a twist that has fresh eggs added to enrich the dough and makes everything a little lighter and chewier.
And the bagels aren’t just for breakfast, either. Each flavor (if still available) can be had as a sandwich for lunch. And these aren’t just regular old sandwiches – they get awfully creative. Like a bagel with a crab cake and cream cheese that tastes like hollandaise to mimic a crab benedict. My personal favorite is the Reubenowitz, which is a New York deli-style offering that is piled high with corned beef, pastrami and turkey with melted Swiss.
In addition to getting creative with their slate of bagels and pastries, they are also putting together unique cream cheese flavors such as their jalapeno popper cream cheese with includes roasted jalapenos, bacon, cheddar, and ranch seasoning folded into the cream cheese. They’ve even been known to get a little spicy with a hot Cheetos flavored cream cheese.
Regardless of flavors, you can always count on freshness. They never use preservatives or dough stabilizers, so each offering is meant to be enjoyed as soon as possible (or within a day or two). And with two locations and possibly a third on the way, there are plenty of ways to get your bagel fix.
The Site: tahoebagelco.com
The Place: Tahoe House Bakery & Gourmet
The Item: Nussgipfel
When a bakery has been in business for 56 years, and 48 of those by a couple who both came to Tahoe from Switzerland, you know you’re bound to get items on the menu that are Swiss. Case in point: the Nussgipfel. Don’t worry if you can’t pronounce it – your belly doesn’t know the difference and once you taste it, you’re not going to care, anyway.
Made with ultra flaky puff pastry, it is essentially a Swiss almond and hazelnut croissant stuffed with a ground up filling of almonds and hazelnuts and a touch of egg to help bind everything together. It’s rolled out like a cookie dough before being cut into triangles and the filling laid out, wrapped, and baked. The flavor is very hazelnut forward and if you’re trying to find an American comparison, a bear claw is about the closest thing it comes to. Traditional in other European countries like Germany and Austria, this version is very Swiss and people who come into the bakery from Switzerland mention that it reminds them of home.
If hazelnut isn’t quite your flavor of the day, then perhaps their Swiss Almond Horn is right up your alley. More along the lines of an almond biscotti that’s not as hard and dipped in chocolate, it gives you all the crunchy exterior and almond flavor textures on the outside, with a pillowy soft and chewy inside. And when you get that bite mixed with the chocolate coating, it’s just about the best bite you can ask for to go along with one of their Swiss coffees in the morning – and they’re also gluten free.
Of course, not everything at the bakery are Swiss staples. There are plenty of other items that they are also known for – such as their scones. Bacon cheddar, blueberry orange, cranberry orange, apple cinnamon, and chocolate have all been options at one point or another and you can always expect new flavors to pop up at any time.
Breads, cookies, muffins, grab and go breakfast burritos, even chicken pot pies, among a slew of many other options, are fun items that customers have come to enjoy over the years – and will continue to enjoy in the years to come.
The Site: tahoe-house.com
The Place: Tahoe Bread Company
The Item: Sourdough Bread
Often when a business starts, it starts off with an item that is their bread and butter. In this case it literally is the bread – sourdough to be specific. But, if you think you’ve had all types of sourdough, you need to do yourself a favor and try the sourdough coming from the oven at Tahoe Bread Company.
Perhaps the thing that sets them apart is that they are milling their own organic flour, which is sourced from a local farmer, and they do not use any commercial yeast.
If you know anything about sourdough preparation it all stems from a “starter” dough that gets fed and evolves over time and in the case of Tahoe Bread Company, it’s the seed to almost everything they are making. This starter (nicknamed California Stone Ground) is their basic sourdough starter and when it comes time to make the bread, it gets an addition of freshly milled flour. Other variations get additions of whole wheat or rice flour, depending on what type of bread is being made.
Once the doughs are made, they ferment at room temperature, get a few turns, then shaped and put in the fridge until ready to bake fresh the day of the sale.
On a busy day, about 108 sourdough loaves are baked, along with baguettes, focaccia, and cookies. But, depending on the week, other specialty items might pop up, such as croissants, danishes, scones, or whole wheat cake slices. One of the more popular items on the menu are oatmeal-peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies made from 100% whole wheat.
There is also a conscious effort to replace sugar whenever possible with items like maple syrup or replacing butter with olive oil to keep things as natural as possible – and even tasting better.
Without a traditional brick and mortar storefront, Tahoe Bread Company relies mostly on weekly orders cultivated from their email list as well as various pop-up events around the north shore.
The Site: tahoebreadcompany.com
The Place: Tahoe Cakes by Grace
The Item: Strawberry Cheesecake Layer Cake
Under new ownership in January of 2024, Chef Caitlin Thomson blends her culinary school experience with four years of art school to create items that are rustic and impressionistic with a focus that is first and foremost on quality.
One of her favorite things to do is decorate cakes, so it’s easy to see why this cake is one of their signature items. All their preparations are a little less sweet – more European style – so if you think this cake might land on being overly sweet, think again. With layers of strawberry cake and cream cheese frosting it is dusted on the outside with graham cracker crumbs before getting topped with fresh strawberries.
And cakes are not the only thing they are preparing. With about two-thirds of the volume on the sweeter side and a third dedicated to savory, they are dishing out items like fresh bread, breakfast pastries, and desserts along with big party spreads for upwards of 300 people – not to mention options that are gluten free and vegan. In fact, their focaccia bread is available for purchase at nearby Grass Roots Natural Food Store.
No matter the product, top-tier ingredients are a must with a lot of their flavorings being gelato flavors from Italy that get unique preparations or using high quality flour like King Arthur.
In a busy month the bakery can handle anywhere from 40 – 60 birthday cakes plus eight to 12 weddings – so high volume is not an issue and quality is never sacrificed. Customers can place their special orders through their website or by calling them direct.
The Site: tahoecakesbygrace.com