Latino bakeries create sweet temptations

Flour, butter, sugar, eggs. It's amazing the treats bakers can whip up from such simple ingredients.

Across Chicago and the suburbs, there are plenty of Latino bakeries whose sweet aromas waft into the streets at all hours of the day and night. Most boast a steady stream of loyal customers who purchase specialties like sweet bread, budin and chicharrones de guayaba for their families' tables.

Let's take a look at four bakeries in the area with products typical of Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

Azteca Bakery

Mexican

located inside Village Fresh Market

350 Lake Marian Road, Carpentersville

(847) 586-5272

Other locations: Belvidere, Bolingbrook, Elgin, Mount Prospect, Streamwood

This small business chain in the suburbs offers Mexican sweet specialties ranging from cakes to pastries and flans.

The key to a successful bakery is consistency, said owner Alfredo Sanchez, of Elgin, a native of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Sanchez first bought a bakery that was about to close in Bartlett in 1999, and spent the next three years learning the business and getting to know his market. Over the years he opened several locations, the latest one in Carpentersville this past April.

Customers need to be impressed with the quality, but also must be able to find their favorite products, he said "You have to deliver the product consistently, even if at times it means sacrificing on costs," he said.

Azteca Bakery's most popular products are corn cake (pan de elote), cheese cake (pan de queso) and pudding cake (budin), along with the tres leches pastries and cakes, he said.

Markello's Bakery

Guatemalan and Mexican

3520 W. Lawrence Ave., Chicago

(773) 539-4

This small but busy bakery on Chicago's Northwest Side carries a wide variety of Mexican and Guatemalan pastries and breads, but its owners are Greek.

The secret to running a good business? High-quality ingredients, and good rapport with customers, said owner Steve Markellos, whose father, Markellos Res, first opened the bakery at a different location in 1975.

"You have to be here for your customers no matter how successful you are. And of course, you don't have customers unless you have good proucts," Steve Markellos said.

Among its Guatemalan specialties are Guatemalan bread, with a sugar and butter filling; quesadillas (not to be confused with Mexican quesadillas), a type of sweet bread made with rice and wheat flour and sprinkled with sesame seeds; and empanadas de achiote (anatto), whose main ingredient the bakery imports directly from Guatemala, Markellos said.

Mekatos Bakery

Colombian

5423 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago

(773) 784-5181

The bakery-cum-cafe in Chicago's Northwest Side is a family venture that opened in 2000, and adopted its current name two years later. "Mekato" is a term used in Colombia to describe both salty and sweet snacks, said co-owner Viviana Bohorquez, whose brother runs a sister bakery in Milwaukee.

A good bakery offers high-quality products that taste great, while always being mindful of treating its customers well, Bohorquez said. "Doing your job with love is essential," she said.

Among the bakery's most popular offerings are the chicharron de guayaba, a pastry filled with the tropical fruit guava and glazed with egg and sugar, and the "mil hojas" (thousand leaves), a pastry filled with cream and glazed with sweetened condensed milk.

The bakery also offers a wide range of salty baked goods, like pandebono, or cheese bread with corn; almojabana, or cheese bread with starch; and pandeyuca, or cassava and cheese bread.

Café Colao

Puerto Rican

2638 W. Division St., Chicago

(773) 276-1780

This cozy café with outdoor seating has been a staple of Humboldt Park, Chicago's Puerto Rican neighborhood, for about 25 years. The current owners bought it two years ago, said manager Elisa Ortiz.

The café serves about 20 kinds of homemade pastries, about half of them typical Puerto Rican fares like the "quesito," a pastry filled with cream cheese and glazed with apricot, and the "guayaba y queso," a sweet pastry filled with guayaba and cream cheese, also with an apricot glaze.

Customers keep coming back to the café because they can count on finding the old-fashioned feel of being back home in Puerto Rico, Ortiz said.

"They come for the love, and the company and the communication. They order the (Puerto Rican) coffee and guayaba y queso, and it's like being home," she said.