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The holiday rush demands support on many fronts. With a broken refrigerator that generated multiple repair attempts over five weeks, we had a hectic season. I was unable to prepare traditional fried foods like latkes (potato pancakes) or sufyganot (donuts) or for our annual Hanukkah gathering.
While idly scrolling through Instagram the night before the guests arrived, I saw a post from Patisserie by Simone with a Hanukkah tag for a half-dozen malasadas, a special Hawaiian-Portuguese style filled donuts. The fried treats featured six tempting flavors—crème brulée, Pistachio raspberry, triple chocolate, mixed berry and pear, blueberry custard and lemon meringue. I sat up and preordered.
Good thing I ordered ahead. At noon the next day on my first visit to the Livermore shop, only a few cookies occupied the case. At the party, I put dibs on the pistachio malasada. We ended up with sticky fingers and full tummies.
I patiently waited three weeks to try other pastries. For the first time since the shop opened in February, 2024, owner-head chef Simone Baltzelle vacationed with her family.
The line outside awaiting the reopening on January 18th was eight deep. When I arrived at 10:00 a.m., all 20 seats were taken, and the wait line remained steady.
The display was full except for the almond croissants which were in the oven. I was on a mission to try the pistachio croissant, made like the others in the French style with rich European butter, shaped straight rather than curved, and chubby in the middle due to the copious creamy fillings.
Baltzelle designed the shop’s decor. In the large back facing the counter, Baltzelle set up a play palace with a kid-sized kitchen, books and toys. She self-painted the play area wall with a scene that she labeled “La Petite Patisserie.”
I spoke with Katie Belena from Livermore who had eaten a banana crème brulée Danish pastry while chatting with her friend and keeping an eye on her sons. “I finally got a free Saturday morning to try out the patisserie. I bought malasadas for my husband, but my four-year-old son Sebastian wanted to eat the coconut-chocolate one. In reality, he only wanted to lick the sugar off the top,” said Belena.
Baltzelle offers a variety of pastries, cookies, cakes and bread. The most popular pastry, noted Baltzelle, is almond croissants. Malasadas are stuffed with rotating flavors. Cruffins are a hybrid of croissants and muffins.
The second most popular item is kouign aman. A specialty from Brittany in the northwest corner of France, the name means “cake butter” in the Breton language and is also spelled kouign amann. Like croissants, the thin layers of dough are alternated with layers of butter. But to make kouign aman, pronounced “kween a-mahn,” sugar is blended into the butter, which imparts a caramelized note to the dough when cooked.
Kouign aman are having a moment in the Tri-Valley. After my recent trip to the patisserie, I stopped at Pleasanton Farmer’s Market and spied kouign aman displayed for the first time at my favorite bakery. Philz Coffee in City Center Bishop Ranch, San Ramon, with a planned shop in Pleasanton, stocks traditional kouig aman with an occasional special promotion flavor.
You may think the patisserie aims for your sweet tooth. Yet Baltzelle also creates delicious savory dishes. A winter quiche features delicata squash with shallots, kale and Gruyère cheese. Savory Danish such as miso mushroom are sold. I ordered the ricotta and egg Danish with house made chili oil. I also brought home a Blueberry Earl Grey kouign aman, a pistachio croissant and an individual gateaux (cake) to share.
Before the art of pastry-making, Baltzelle’s creative interest was music. At age nine she learned to play the piano and continued at the collegiate level. She also studied under scholarship for two years with Dale Tsang Hall, a nationally and internationally renowned concert pianist and instructor. She taught piano to adults and children for 10 years before marrying and starting a family.
During the early pandemic, Baltzelle began making pastry at home. She briefly gave away her creations through the local Facebook Buy Nothing page. With positive feedback, she decided to gain baking experience. At first, she took jobs locally.
Her career was jump-started while working for a year with Simon Pacary, a French pastry chef at Mademoiselle Colette restaurant. Pacary was no ordinary French chef. In 2021 he was awarded a Michelin Passion Dessert award while at La Table de Franck Putelat near Toulouse. Soon after, he moved to the Bay Area. Under Pacary’s tutelage, she learned the fine art of making French style pastry.
After working in other restaurants and welcoming her third daughter, Baltzelle began baking pastries at home and selling them locally from home in 2023. With the help of a GoFund campaign, she took over the lease of the former Dan Good Cookies shop, got the keys on Dec. 31, 2023, and spent five weeks cleaning, degreasing, acquiring additional equipment, decorating and training helpers.
Baltzelle’s perfectionism is evinced by the precision of preparation and decoration of her pastry. As she explained, “The same practice of repetition, perfection, and sharing beauty and moments of awe in piano playing is something I pursue in the kitchen now.”
As for her reflections as a first-time owner-chef of a professional pastry kitchen, Baltzelle said, “Every month I try to improve the pastries. I have added more seasonal ingredients, fine-tuned the recipes and created new items. I plan on offering more eight-inch cakes.”
She now orders seasonal produce from Happy Acre Farm in Sunol. After noting on social media that Cured Fish restaurant in Livermore used beautiful, edible flowers for garnish, she called the owners about their provenance. The farm now delivers to her shop, too. After the initial contact, she collaborated with the Cured Fish owners to sell her cookies.
The business is also expanding to City Center Bishop Ranch in San Ramon. Gio Gelati will sell Baltzelle’s almond croissants and cookies starting January 25th.
Baltzelle acknowledged that running the shop day-to-day can feel overwhelming. I asked her how she manages her wearing so many hats including the pink, kitchen baseball cap.
“It’s not what you know, but who you know. This is the first time I’ve led a team of three bakers. Since I change the menu frequently, communication, training and delegation are essential. Croissants are challenging to make. If the temperature and humidity are not ideal as you roll the layers, you end up with greasy, soggy croissants,” said Baltzelle.
The chef partly established the play area for her three daughters to use while she wraps up her workday. Eight-year-old Zoe likes to help her mom prepare croissants. Her local family helps with the children, and her husband manages all administrative tasks in addition to his work at Stanford Health Care.
Fair warning: The individual cakes are dangerous. After refrigerating my chocolate-caramel gateaux overnight, I took a bite and wanted to eat the whole thing for breakfast. Given the rich, delicious texture, I portion-controlled myself to two bites at a time.
As I waited for my pastries, I spoke to another first-time customer. She said her friend recommended the shop but forgot to warn her to come on a weekday and not Saturday. Beware, too, that just in time to ruin healthy eating resolutions, Valentines Day will soon arrive with the temptation of Simone Baltzelle’s pastries like shiny, mirror glazed mousse cakes, St. Honoré heart cakes, special tarts and macaroons.
