Notable Edible - Andrea's Kitchen
In the pristine, sparkling white kitchen of her home’s walkout level, Andrea Pinto works her magic. Four years ago, she built the house with a full floor of production space for the loaves of braided sweet bread and rolls, top-selling Cape Cod Granola, and Sweetbloom Confections – biscotti, chocolate chip cookies and the tiny shortbread guava-filled cookie bites-that Pinto says they can’t keep on the shelves.
In 1986, Pinto came to Cape Cod from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, first rooming with a family friend and former Brazilian neighbor. She lived in Hyannis for 17 years, where she started making cakes for family and friends, and enjoyed it so much that in 2012 she enrolled in the Boston-based Le Cordon Bleu. She commuted from the Cape five days a week for two years. She never missed an opportunity to take extra practicums, even if it meant going to Chicago – for sugar flower construction by Collette Peters – or Washington DC for pulled sugar art by Chef Ewald Notter.
A year ago, Pinto’s daughter, Carolina Aquino, moved back to Cape Cod from Los Angeles to revitalize their marketing and lead the recent rebranding. Aquino has a degree in marketing from Emerson and had been working in television production, but felt it was time to come back east and work in the family business. Three generations now work together, as Andrea Pinto’s mother, Policina Pinto, joined them doing delivery and sales and is a dynamo, according to her daughter.
“Working together has its ups and downs. I feel fortunate to be able to come back and help my mom build the business that she loves so much,” Aquino said, and added, “I used to get texts and photos all the time from her, ‘Look how the yeast is growing!’, ‘Look how beautiful the bread is!’. She really loves her work.” Pinto concurred, “I love my work. I am happy when I bake and see the faces of those who enjoy my cooking. So lucky to do this.” The sweet bread and rolls, drizzled with condensed milk and dusted with either coconut or cinnamon sugar, are called rosca in Portuguese, which loosely translates as spiral or coil, as the braiding mimics turning a screw. The sweet rolls are available in the same flavors, but with a middle where all the sticky goodness collects.
The two flavors of organic granola are honey nut – which includes cashews, coconut, and my favorite, Brazil nuts – and cranberry almond. Both have just the right amount of sweetness. The guava bites, known as casadinhos in Brazil, are the perfect treat, made with sweet guava paste nestled between two tiny buttery cookies. They are slightly larger than a thumbnail…so you can have a lot of them!
Different assortments of the products are carried by Friends’ Marketplace in Orleans; Just Like You and Gone Acai in Hyannis; Fancy’s Market and Gone Chocolate in Osterville; and Lambert’s Fruit, BlueFit Gym and Love at the Table in Centerville. The sweet breads, which would make an amazing French toast for your next brunch, are available by special order and at Fancy’s and Lambert’s Fruit Market mid-spring through the fall.
Andrea’s Kitchen
508-364-3254
andreaskitchencapecod.com
@andreaskitchen
