Stained Wheat

For some reason, I never visit the best pop-up bakers until they're just about to close. (See Love for Butter.) On Fridays through Sundays, Stained Wheat provides some of the baked goods for Academic Coffee, a café in downtown San Jose that also offers pastries from local favorites like The Midwife and the Baker and Stan's Donuts. Unfortunately, April 24 will be the last day to get Stained Wheat's baked goods, according to a recent Instagram post.I'd been planning to try Stained Wheat out for a while but hadn't had the chance, so I jumped on my first opportunity. I preordered the night before on academicpantry.com because I knew they would have limited stock each day. Everything I got was so tasty, even though it was all room temp, as Academic Coffee doesn't have an option to rewarm your baked goods. (I asked the staff and they said they don't have an oven, unfortunately.)If you get a chance to try Stained Wheat this or next weekend, please do so before you lose the chance for good! Here's what I recommend:Pesto focaccia - 5/5Everyone raves about this, and for good reason. Perfect blend of flavor from the pesto and mozzarella, and a perfect blend of soft and chewy. I read about the history of the pesto focaccia on the baker's IG - https://www.instagram.com/p/CTGG9pEppOM/ - and it honestly made it even more perfect. Very sad this one's going away.Cinnamon roll - 5/5This is Swedish style (think Swedish cardamom buns), so don't expect it to be like the Cinnabon buns. I love anything with cinnamon, but this really blew me out of the water. There was a nice chew on the surface, but the inside was pillowy soft. The flavor and crunch from the cinnamon sugar was also spot-on -- enough so that every bite had some, but not overpoweringly sweet.Miso banana bread mini loaf - 5/5Banana bread is hard to mess up, and this one was quite outstanding. Very moist and with a unique flavor due to the miso and the roasted rice bits (iri genmai) on top.These two are good but not necessarily must-buys:Lemon madeleine - 4.5/5The texture is perfect, and I like that they rise up super high. The glaze is a nice touch as well. In comparison to the first three pastries, though, this one just isn't quite as mind blowing.Chocolate chip cookie - 4/5I've tried a lot of cookies baked with Valrhona chocolate and Maldon sea salt. This one is tasty but just doesn't stand out. At $3, though, definitely more affordable than some of the gourmet cookies from local bakers in the area!

Stained Wheat is the bakery inside of Academic Coffee - and while I LOVE Academic Coffee shop (highly recommend the Pandan Latte and the Honey Jasmine Latte) the bakery itself deserves a review of it's own.When I stopped by this past weekend I tried the Cinnamon Bun, a Madeline Cookie, the chocolate orange dorayaki pancake, and then the Matcha Milk Jam.Each was damn delicious is their own right.The Cinnamon Roll / Bun is the TASTIEST thing. It literally tastes like a mashed up cinnamon sugar pretzel from the mall, but better. The dough was soft but study (it had a bite unlike some soft pretzels / cinnamon rolls) so you actually feel like you're eating something and it fills you up. It was perfect amount of sugar / cinnamon and butter. YUM. -- Perfect choice for when you're actually hungry, but want something sweet.The Madeline cookie was out of this world. WAAAAY better than those ones you can get at Costco, lol. They have the texture of something between a cupcake and a cookie.... like a slightly more dense cupcake I guess? There was a light but ever present taste of lemon that was subtle and refreshing. -- Perfect choice if you want something sweet and refreshing, but not terribly hungry.The Chocolate / Orange Dorayaki was a new try for me. I've never had a dessert like this before. I could smell the orange quite a bit in the pancakes but surprisingly the flavor was not as strong. The chocolate, however, was full force and TASTY. I really like how this pastry played with textures -- the breaded pancakes with the smooth chocolate moose was scrumptious.-- Perfect choice is you want to try something new.FINALLY... THE MATCHA MILK JAM. STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND RUB THAT STUFF ON EVERYTHING. Holy moly. I'm not someone who EVER orders Matcha tea, so I genuinely didn't know what to expect, but WOW. My bf wants to just eat it as pudding, lol. I genuinely don't know how to describe it. It has the texture of like a thick pudding, definitely has that earthy / buttery / roasted flavor of matcha (I wish I could describe this better... literally tasting it as I type, haha) but a good amount of sweetness. I was surprised how buttery it tasted on a piece of bread and how it melted into the crevices. Highly recommend!