An exciting new bakery-cafe has opened in the faraway land of Frisco. Called Tulla Patisserie & Cafe, it's doing first-rate baked goods including croissants and cutting-edge sourdough breads.
There are butter croissants, chocolate almond croissants, pistachio raspberry croissants, and croissants with ham and Gruyere cheese.
There are also cinnamon pull-aparts, French turnovers aka chausson, chocolate muffins, lemon poundcake, and bacon-cheddar scones.
There are quiches: ham and Jarlsberg, bacon and cheddar, and spinach and feta.
There are cakes: carrot cake, opera cake, grasshopper mousse, cherry ruby mousse, and lemon berry chiffon. There are macarons in a variety of flavors. There are cookies: chocolate chip, double chocolate, snickerdoodle, and peanut butter. There are lemon tarts and chocolate caramel tarts.
They also have a cafe component where they do sandwiches such as roast beef and cheddar, ham and Swiss, and turkey and bacon, and soup such as roasted tomato.
Owner Jennifer Bezdek left her job at a Fortune 500 company to submerge herself in the world of yeast and dough, with two years of training that included study at a prestigious baking school in San Francisco.
"I went to the San Francisco Baking Institute," Bezdek says. "They focus specifically on bread and the techniques I needed to learn."
Her bread is a thing to behold. She makes French baguettes and the classic French sourdough bread called campagne daily. She does challah but only on Fridays. And on weekends, there is ciabatta bread and a unique chocolate sourdough.
"Our sourdough is San Francisco-style, but not the sourdough that's a trademark of Boudin Sourdough Bakery," she says. "We do the style popularized at Tartine, the legendary San Francisco bakery from Chad Robertson. He's paved the way for what a lot of serious bakeries are doing these days."
The key word: "hydration."
"It's a dough that's more wet, with a high degree of hydration," she says. "It results in bread that has a good hard crust and a moist center. Some people might mistake the bread for looking burned, but it's really just a caramelized exterior, that holds a lot of moisture on the inside. It makes for delicious bread."
Tulla's only shortcoming is its classic bakery hours: Tuesday-Fridays 6:30 am-3 pm, Saturdays 7:30 am-3 pm, and Sundays 8 am-2 pm. You can't have everything.
