NOW SERVING: Petite Madeline bakery

By LAURA GROCH - Staff Writer | Wednesday, November 12, 2008 10:49 PM PST ∞

WHAT: Petite Madeline bakery

WHERE: 3776 Mission Ave., Suite 137, Oceanside (Stater Bros. shopping center)

HOURS: 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday

PHONE: (760) 722-1222

San Francisco, you're no longer the only sourdough in town ---- Oceanside now has a sourdough it can call its own.

The loaf is the creation of Christine Loyola, owner of the Petite Madeline bakery in Oceanside, which opened in May.

"It's one of my artisan breads," said Loyola, who said she cultivated local yeasts to create it. "It's our own lactobacillus; I grew it here. It has an interesting flavor profile. Most sourdough breads are too sharp, but ours favors the lactic acid, a sweeter acid."

The Oceanside sourdough costs $2.95 for an 11-ounce batard, a loaf that's shorter and wider than the more familiar baguette. It's just one of the creative desserts, breads, cakes and pastries Loyola creates at the bakery, which her brother, Peter, helps run. With a spacious patio out front that's filled on weekend mornings and an espresso bar inside to accompany the pastries, the bakery is definitely filling a niche.

"We had a soft opening on a rainy day," Christine Loyola said. "We got slammed."

The Loyolas are originally from Berkeley. When Peter Loyola moved to Oceanside 20 years ago, Christine visited and had a craving for a croissant one day. "I had to go to Encinitas, to Del Mar ---- the closest French bakery was in Carlsbad."

She remembered that gap years later, when she finally was ready to open her own bakery.

Christine Loyola has a business degree, and her original field was investment research ---- at least until the stock market started wobbling in 2000. "I got severance, and it paid for culinary school" at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, she said.

She trained on what she calls "the savory side" ---- more as a cook than a baker. "I really wanted to immerse myself in the savory side," she said, "but I'm a petite Asian woman. I definitely was challenged on the cooking line." Many burns later, she said, "I definitely have my promotion stripes, I tell you."

She was fortunate to get an "externship" with the famed Chez Panisse restaurant. "I loved it," Loyola said. "The focus was on quality ingredients, sustainable agriculture ---- their whole food philosophy was just, wow. They were very focused on tasting, flavor profiling and seeking out premium ingredients. That became my philosophy, too."

From 2001 to 2005, she worked with various Bay Area caterers, and then a French bakery. But by 2006, she said, "it was time to get a real job. I had to venture outside." Thus the move to Oceanside.

Loyola worked as pastry chef at the La Costa Glen retirement community, and then as a sous chef at the Carlsbad by the Sea retirement community. Meanwhile, she was creating her business plan, and finally found the property on Mission, in the Stater Bros. shopping center.

Her brother, Peter, used to manage retail stores. "He knows how to dress windows," Christine Loyola said. Now he runs the front of the bakery while she and several other bakers create different and delectable goodies.

Among them are a variation on the traditional French baguette that Loyola calls a "rustic" baguette: It's flatter, with "more crust than crumb." She also has a caramelized onion and walnut bread, a spinach-feta loaf and a challah bread made with oil instead of butter. And she keeps a touch of "the savory side" with pastries such as a spinach-feta croissant and a ham and gruyere croissant, both made with bechamel sauce.

But let's hear about the desserts, which run about $4.25 each: "I've got at least 10 desserts in the pastry case," Loyola said. "I specialize in individual servings. One is a 3-inch personal cake with different layers. Like the Triple Mousse Chocolate: It's a thin layer of chocolate cake, then milk chocolate, white and dark chocolates, plus ganache."

Other creations range from the Double Citrus Tower ---- lemon curd, white chocolate mousse and lime curd ---- to the Chocolate Pyramid, which is filled with chocolate ganache. Napoleons are made with chocolate ganache and raspberry filling instead of the customary creme patisserie (pastry cream).

The chocolate eclairs are sliced lengthwise and slathered with the creme patisserie, "like a sandwich," Loyola said. "It makes them 3 inches tall." On a recent afternoon, the shop was offering a trio of rum balls in different flavors, including pineapple coconut and rocky road.

Another specialty is the "all-day bun," a tender swirl of croissant dough transformed into a cinnamon roll. "People were asking for it all day, so we called it our 'all-day bun,' " she said. "I also do brioche (a French breakfast roll) and quick breads, like a pumpkin-sherry bread," which runs about $10 for a 1-pound loaf.

The bakery also makes tarts, custom cakes and tiny petit fours, and for Thanksgiving, Loyola is considering offering pies. Eventually, she said, she'll start a lunchtime menu of soups, sandwiches and quiche.

And attention, children: Loyola hands out "mini madeleines," small versions of the classic French soft cookie for which her bakery is named (though she spells it like the name of the heroine in the Ludwig Bemelmans children's books).

"I want children to get to know what good baking is all about," Loyola said of the free cookies for children. "Our pastries are not cloyingly sweet. We're judicious with the sugar. We want the flavor to shine."