Dallas-area bakery noted for amazing croissants hosts one-day pop-up

Croissant fanatics need to clear their schedule for June 29, the day that Carrollton-based bakery La Casita Bakeshop is holding its latest pop-up.

La Casita is a bakery that supplies restaurants and coffee shops, such as Cultivar Coffee and Tribal Cafe, with croissants, cruffins, muffins, scones, and other pastries.

Maricsa Trejo and her boyfriend and partner, Alex Henderson, founded the bakery in 2017, choosing to go the wholesale route rather than opening a retail operation. But every so often, they host a pop-up with a special menu of treats not usually found at their dozen-plus partners.

The pop-up on June 29 is at Parks Coffee at 1421 MacArthur Dr., in Carrollton, where they'll be ready at 9 am with churro cruffins, pear-walnut tarts, Mexican street corn tarts, squash blossom tarts, croissant loaves, and more.

Trejo, who is 28, started out as a cook, but grew weary of the male centricity in most kitchens and branched off into pastry.

She worked with the talented Lucia Moreno, former pastry chef at Oak Dallas, who moved to Puerto Rico to open her own shop, then went to work with acclaimed pastry chefs in New York and bakers in Portland, Oregon.

She and Henderson returned to Dallas and worked with Misti Norris at Small Brewpub; after Norris left, they broke off on their own.

Now they rent out a commercial kitchen where they produce cinnamon rolls, muffins, and cruffins — a cross between a croissant and a muffin — in flavors such as dulce de leche. They also do a treat called a bostock, like a cross between a croissant and toast — everything is a cross between a croissant and something — topped with cream and fruit.

They go in at midnight and work all night, then make their deliveries in the morning to shops with which they share an independent spirit and aspiration for greatness, including Cultivar Coffee, Overeasy at the Statler Dallas hotel, Tribal Cafe, The Merchant, Parks Coffee, Mokah Coffee, Brewed, Shayna's Place, Black and Bitter Coffee, Stupid Good Coffee, Mudhen Dallas, Communion at Work Play, and Rosalind Coffee in Garland.

It's just the two of them, which means that the quality surpasses what you might find at a bigger operation. Their croissants are a flaky wonder, whether plain, chocolate, almond, or an "everything" croissant, which has all of the savory salty seeds you'd find on an "everything" bagel.

Trejo's own tastes run toward tropical combinations like guava and cheese, but what sells most briskly in Dallas are cruffins.

"We started doing cruffins at our pop-up — it wasn't going to be my main focus — but people come out for them," she says. "We make ours a little taller than what others are doing, and that makes them stand out."

Down the road, they may expand with retail hours. For now, their hands are full with their perfect little machine that lets them turn out perfect croissants.