I dream of a bakery menu

9 treats that belong in a climate-era bakery

A bell tinkles overhead as you step inside the door, and the aromas hit you like a down-comforter-become-air: warm pastries, bubbling fruit, and butter. It is a Tuesday morning—easily the most cursed morning of the week—but you decided to stop at your neighborhood’s climate-friendly bakery, so suddenly, against all odds, you are glad to be awake.

When you think about eating sustainably, maybe your mind jumps first to an image of your dinner plate because of climate villain #1: red meat. But our food system is so much vaster and sweeter than dinner alone, and every part of it needs to be a gastronomic knockout if it’s going to lead us by our nose toward a resilient, climate-friendly diet. Enter: the bakers and pastry chefs already busy dreaming up desserts for the climate era. 

I spend a lot of time scrolling through baked goods on Instagram, assembling climate-era dessert menus in my mind, so I thought I’d start sharing them. We begin this month with the delights you might find at a climate-era bakery, from a bouncy plant-based banana cake to macarons made with traditional native flavors. Read on to drool over nine treats that could send us spiraling toward a more resilient food system and a more survivable Tuesday.

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All the photos below, arranged from most breakfasty to most desserty, are reprinted with the permission of the kind, friendly, fabulous chefs and bakers who took them.

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Caramelized sesame banana buckwheat scones

Shot through with nutty-tropical bites, these scones by @saltedrye are a ~wow~ use of buckwheat—a seed masquerading as a grain that researchers have found can withstand hella drought. Talk about a green flag.

Whole grain croissants

Like the other pastries at @Seylou Bakery in Washington, D.C., these whole-grain croissants are made with grains from Mid-Atlantic farms, supporting a regional food economy that can make our food system more resilient to climate events. Also, they slap.

Winging-it lemon polenta cake with blackberry glaze

This loaf cake gets its magenta glaze from upcycled blackberries @toomanyforks had leftover after making a pie. Winging it with what you have on-hand can create addicting results—and cut food waste.

Vegan kek pisang (banana cake)

@tumblinbumblincrumblincookie’s vegan kek pisang, or banana cake, has a floof factor people forget is possible for vegan baked goods. Click for the bounce shot. 

Mulberry pie

Chef Alan Vargo says this mulberry pie “might be the best berry pie I’ve ever made.” Mulberries may not be a frequent guest on dessert menus, but they’re one of the easiest native fruits to forage for free in big American cities. (Search for them near you on fallingfruit.org.)

Honeysuckle tarts

These beauties are a pastry invitation to manage edible invasive species by, well, snarfing them. In Georgia, for baker and recipe developer Alisha Hidalgo (@abh75), “eat your invasives” means making honeysuckle panna cotta tartlets. 

Rye devil’s food cake

A slice of @Bayousaintcake’s rye devil’s food cake is a reminder that layer cakes can embrace grains beyond bread flour (which makes up 90-95% of the wheat grown worldwide), leaning into the biodiversity that could make our food system more resilient to climate change. 

The-whole-lemon citrus jellies

@Aromecassis’s wiggly, jiggly citrus jellies served in their shells lit the internet on fire. You heard her: to throw away the lemon peel is to discard the wonkiest, sexiest bowl that’s ever graced a tablecloth.

Blue corn macarons

These blue corn macarons by @wildbearies, filled with toasted wild-rice marshmallow and lemon curd, preserve native foodways in a crispy-soft, sweet bite. The blue corn also gives them pastry’s rarest color.