Pastel Bakery plans grand opening

Delicious treats made with whole, natural ingredients are on display for customers at Pastel Bakery.

Pastel Bakery plans grand opening

Walk in the door of Pastel Bakery, 12205 Scripps Poway Parkway, and you will get the feeling the owner is a perfectionist even before you sample any of the fresh-baked goods.

It’s a modern store featuring black and pink walls, some with murals, combined artfully with displays of old-fashioned rolling pins, glass jars and fine china. It’s not an easy look to pull off, but owner Joann Leo has done it tastefully.

Pastel Bakery offers a selection of fresh-baked cakes, cake by the slice, pastries, cookies, custom cakes and bread loaves, but it also carries some sandwiches and salads.

“The cakes are a specialty,” Leo said. In fact, one of the cakes was featured prominently in the recent June 12 episode of “My Super Sweet Sixteen” on MTV. That episode of the show centered around Scripps Ranch resident Jana Mauricio-Lee who had a debut party at the Hotel Coronado, but it also displayed a three-layer cake created by Pastel Bakery.

“We are equally proud of everything. I don’t sell anything at the bakery that my family and I don’t love,” Leo said.

Don’t expect the goods from Pastel Bakery to be created using any preservatives, fat-free ingredients, substitutes or artificial sweeteners.

“We believe in cooking with whole ingredients. We truly stand behind good products. We don’t do anything weird to it,” she said. “It’s just as if you’re cooking at home, how your grandmother did it. Just multiply by several batches. But we do start with good products.”

In fact, Leo purchases fresh ingredients from local vendors as much as possible. Her strawberries come from Carlsbad and Ramona, and she gets her eggs from Ramona. Her dairy products come from within the state.

The bakery’s ingredients for cupcakes are an example of the whole products used in their baking. “We do cupcakes with either butter cream, cream cheese icing or chocolate ganache,” Leo explained.

Pastel Bakery is beautifully decorated and good china is used for in-house servings.

The bakery can handle any order for catering, birthday parties or weddings. Most of the cakes are decorated by Leo’s decorating staff under her watchful eye. She has a pastry chef on-site.

“The bigger cakes, they start it and I basically finish,” she said.

Leo said she has always had a passion for baking.

“I have been baking a little after I could start walking,” she laughed. “I’ve always had a love for food.”

Leo and her family have resided in Scripps Ranch for 17 years. She has two children, a son who attends Miramar Ranch Elementary School and a daughter who was just promoted from Marshall Middle School and will be a high school freshman in the fall. Leo stated that her bakery provided 1,000 slices of cake for Marshall Middle School’s promotion ceremony, a portion of which was donated by the bakery.

She said she felt there was a void in the community because it didn’t have a bakery before, so she started one.

“I think what sets us apart is that we serve in the community that we live in, so our accountability is to the Nth degree,” Leo explained. “So, we really can’t mess up and we are very proud of our products on account of the people who eat our products are our neighbors, literally our neighbors.”

Pastel Bakery has been open for nine weeks, but Leo is planning a big grand opening for Saturday, June 24. The bakery will be open all day, but from noon to 2 p.m. it will offer free samples, discounts and a cake decorating station for children. Live music will be provided by Lisa Campbell. The public is invited.

Pastel Bakery is open Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is closed on Sundays. Visit pastelbakerysd.com.