Pan Dulce Time!

It is that time of year. The time in which you have to decide which pan dulce you like the most!

Each year we have come out on the usual lists of the best pan dulces, but who really needs a list when you can just try them yourself? Now for those of you who love variety, we have 5 different flavors to choose from:

Chocottone - We take our moist dough and fill it with semi-sweet chocolate chunks. If you are a chocolate lover, this one is for you.

Nocciolatto - We take our Chocottone recipe and add roasted hazelnuts!

Dulce de Leche - Super moist panettone with actual chunks of dulce de leche in the dough, decorated with chocolate on top and more dulce de leche.

Traditional - For those of you who just want the classical pan dulce of your childhood. We add glazed fruits, raisins and some dried fruits as well.

Inolvidable - Unforgettable in English. This is our star panettone. We add almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, walnuts, raisins and candied orange peel all nestled in a moist dough made with orange blossom water and malt.

So, which one will be your holiday favorite?

YoQueVos Likes Sugar & Spice too

And we also like them right back!

I am really liking all of these Top 10 lists that we are being included into!

This holiday season we were published in La Nación, Clarin, Elle, Viva, Joy Magazine, The Urban Grocer, BAFoodies, The Landing Pad, and we even made it to a hard cover book by Narda Lepes.


Now we made it to YoQueVos, which by the way I really, really love how they manage to find so many unique stores, gifts, foods, entertainment, etc.

Amongst all of their unique finds they included us in their list of the best gifts of 2010!


And to top it off, there newsletters normally come with discounts.

Do yourself a favor and sign up. You won´t regret it.

Los 10 Pan Dulces Más Ricos / Top Ten Pan Dulces Buenos Aires

We made another Pan Dulce list again! This time Carolina Aguirre of Planeta Joy gave us some Top Ten List love and La Nación also published the article.

This is not the first time we have shown up on a Top 10 list.

Just last night I stayed up 'till 5am working at the Dot Shopping mall.

We were there actually supervising more than anything else.

We hired a window dresser to help out our new shop at the Dot Shopping mall. It came out fantastic! It was like opening a new store only one month into having a new store already.

I so wanted to take pictures, but the shopping mall turns the lights off and the pictures would not come out nice at all.

This would be my round about way of saying that you could also get our frequently Top Ten mentioned Pan Dulce there as well.

Now, I just need to take a nap.

2007 - Bacanal Top 8 Pan Dulces
2009 - Oh La Lá Top 5 Pan Dulces
2009 - Joy Top 10 Pan Dulces


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Este año volvimos a las listas de los mejores Pan Dulces! Este año fue de la mano de Carolina Aguirre de la revista Joy. Nos incluyó entre los 10 mejores pan dulces!

Esto no fue la primera vez que nos han incluido en este tipo de listas.

Justo anoche estuvimos trabajando sobre nuestro nuevo local en el Dot hasta las 5 horas de la mañana. El local quedó muy lindo y no lo pude creer, pero fue como recibir un local nuevo, solamente un mes después de haber abierto un local nuevo.

Me hubiera gustado tomar fotos, pero el shopping apaga la mayoría de las luces y las fotos no salían bien con tan poca luz.

Básicamente estoy tratando de avivarlos de que los pan dulces también se pueden conseguir en el Dot.

Ahora necesito dormir un poco.

Muchas gracias Carolina!  Thank you Carolina!

Ruta del Pan Dulce de Revista Joy

link to full article - Link a articulo original

El más equilibrado: SUGAR AND SPICE

Junto con el de Plaza Mayor, es el que mejor relación precio calidad tiene en el mercado. Para quienes no quieren gastar cien pesos en un pan dulce ni clavarse con uno de quince espantoso del supermercado, Sugar and Spice hizo un pan dulce que está justito en el medio. Es quizás la mejor masa de todo el ranking, de sabor muy natural, con la cantidad justa de frutas secas, naranjitas y pasas, pero además con una cubierta crocante y  pasta de almendras inolvidable. Se consigue por $40 el grande en su local de Guatemala 5419 (Palermo) o en supermercados, por un precio parecido.

Pan Dulce on My Mind

This is the time of the year that I am busiest, stressed out, and would have been pulling my hair out by now, but that was last year´s trick.

Patricia Gilmore is this year´s Pan Dulce Angel. She, and 18 volunteers, went around the city and gave any homeless person they could find an edible hug (a.k.a. Pan Dulce). I donated some pan dulces to her idea and you could read more about that by clicking here. She promises to organize this thing better next year. She could possibly have a database that would be valuable to the city... just thinking out loud.

This year we participated with Girl´s Night Out and we raffled off 5 Pan Dulces de Tus Sueños. There were also many other things raffled off and it turned out to be a very fun night. The weather was very nice, drinking champagne, surrounded by women. Too bad I forgot the camera at home.

Yo Que Voz, also participated and they have a promotion going on with our cookies as well.

Oh, La La (the picture above was taken from the magazine) just placed us among the top 5 pan dulces this year. You won´t find it in the link I provided though; it´s only in their printed magazine.

So far, we are on track to selling almost three times as many Pan Dulces this year as we did last year, and that is a great way to wrap up this holiday season.

Radio Reminder - Pan Dulce (Panettone)

Mañana me van a entrevistar en la radio en el programa de Adalberto Rossi "Cátedra
Avícola y Agropecuaria" am750 entre las 7 y 8 horas de la mañana. El tema sera sobre el Pan Dulce.

Obviamente voy a hablar sobre el Pan Dulce de Tus Sueños.

********English*********

I am going to be on the radio again. What, you haven´t heard me on the radio?

I can´t blame you. I haven´t mentioned it before. I have been pretty bad about that so from now on I am going to try to let everyone in on those little events before hand.

Tomorrow, between 7am and 8am Argentina time, I will be interviewed on a show called "Cátedra
Avícola y Agropecuaria" on am750. The topic is going to be Pan Dulce (Panettone).

Obviously I am going to talk about the Panettone of Your Dreams.

Pan Dulce de Tus Sueños / Panettone of Your Dreams

Cuando decidimos hacer pan dulce no queríamos hacer uno más de lo que ya estaba en el mercado. Haber iniciado en el mundo de los pan dulces me dí cuenta que yo no era el único a quien la mayoría de los pan dulces no gustaban.

Me encontraba con más personas que me declaraban su disgusto por la fruta abrillantada por ejemplo, o que no les gusta el pan dulce seco y otros a quien sí les gusta el pan dulce seco.

Nuestro pan dulce esta hecho para mi, porque a mi me gusta un pan dulce con frutas secas como avellanas, almendras, nueces, castañas de caju, cascara de naranja y pasas de uva maceradas en coñac.

Este año decidimos dejar a ustedes decidir que ingredientes irán en su pan dulce, el *pan dulce de tus sueños.

* Por favor tomen nota de los ingredientes disponibles en el cuadro al inicio de esta nota.

El costo del pan dulce de tus sueños es de $65 pesos (x 1 kg).

• El pedido requiere una seña de 50% del valor con un anticipo de 7 a 10 días.
• Con su compra de su pan dulce puede recibir un descuento de 10% sobre el resto de los productos en nuestro local.
• Si piden un pan dulce sin ingredientes pueden descontar $10 pesos del precio.
• Si piden el pan dulce con estuche esmerilado por favor agregar $10 pesos al precio.

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When we started making panettone, we did not want to make just another panettone that would get lost in the shuffle. We wanted to make one different from what was already out there. I soon met others that felt the same way I did about the majority of the panettones in Argentina.

They would tell me that they really disliked the candied fruit or how many of them where dry and some people actually preferred the dry ones.

Our panettone is made for me basically. I like my panettone chock full of hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, cashews, candied orange peel, and Cognac soaked raisins.

But this year we have decided to let you have a say as to how to make your panettone. You tell us what ingredients to make it with and we will make the *panettone of your dreams.

* Please note the available ingredients in the logo above.

The price of the panettone of your dreams is $65 pesos (1 kg).

• To place your order for your Panettone you need to leave a deposit of 50% of the value of the panettone and give us 7 to 10 days to have it ready for you.
• With your purchase of this panettone you can also get a 10% discount off your purchase of any other products in our store.
• If you order a panettone with no ingredients then you can subtract $10 pesos from the price.
• If you want the special plastic see through case then please add $10 pesos to the price.

Regalos Corporativos / Corporate Gifts 2008

Last year we were in a rush to try to get the new gifts out in time, but we didn´t make it. By the time we had finally settled on the format, the box, the variety, it was too late to place orders for the boxes.

So we have been sitting on these ideas, pictures, etc. for almost a year now.

What do you think?



Last year our Pan Dulce (Panettone) was included in an article in Bacanal and they not only put us on their short list of best Pan Dulces (Panettones), but we were the only one that was shelf stable on that list. The other Panettones were from specialty bakeries, and local famous cheffs.

Bacanal Loves Pan Dulce (Panettone)

This is the end of the Panettone (Pan Dulce) season for us. When we started Sugar & Spice, the idea was to bring to the market what was missing. We did not want to make alfajores for example because you can get one in every corner. We made one exception and that was Pan Dulce (Panettone).

Most Panettone in Argentina is made with candied fruit and I just do not like it. I know it´s a matter of taste--to each his own. However, there were so few options for those of us who only liked the more noble inclusions like hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, and walnuts laced with orange peel and raisins soaked in cognac. Now it looks like there is some competition in the market place.

Bacanal went through the trouble of selecting their top 8 "most delicious and original" offerings and Sugar & Spice was among those chosen. We are rubbing elbows with the likes of Jean Paul Bondoux (Alvear Palace Hotel), Plaza Mayor, Beatriz Chomnalez (Ceasar Park Hotel), Las Violetas, etc.

If you click on the picture below you will be taken to the scanned images of the full article in this month´s Bacanal.

Growing a Forest

The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'

John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

I was just thinking about how growing this business is kind of like growing a forest from scratch. I am still in the process of planting trees and the first few rows are starting to show promise. Meanwhile I have to keep planting while taking care of those promising saplings. But while I am waiting for those small sapling to grow I am going to try planting some bigger more advanced in age trees.

So what are some of those new trees like that are taking up so much of my time?

Jumbo supermarket is a new client of ours. They have our brand in their three top stores. They refer to them as their three P´s; Palermo, Pilar and, uh ...Unicenter. Okay, the word play is supposed to be location, location, location but you know I didn´t think this stuff up. I am just repeating what has been told to me. The pound cakes have been literally flying off the shelves. We actually had stock-outs (sold out) of these products. Everything else has been doing good. I mean it is selling, it´s just not selling out. This is mostly due to them underestimating how the pound cakes were going to perform. This coming weekend we are going to be sampling at the three stores (Thursday at the Palermo store and Sunday at both the Unicenter and Pilar stores -tentatively).

Exporting possibilities: We just finished participating in the first Alimentaria Mercosur Expo at La Rural. The expo was great because they had rounds of meetings set up with supermarket chains from other countries. These meetings were prearranged ahead of time so basically I got a chance to present my products to people that already expressed an interest in seeing them. I had to do my bit of homework and read up on them and their respective countries i.e. Peru, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Uruguay and Venezuela. We also had a booth set up so that also took a big chunk out of my day.

Now I am running around and arranging meetings with some of those people. Just this week I have to fly off to Uruguay and Chile. Next week I need to fly to Cordoba as a result of this expo as well. Falabella Chile already has our products in two of their stores: Parque Arauco & La Dehesa. I am going over there to meet some of the people at the stores, hopefully do a little training, and talk about how the sales are doing, and see what we could do to improve those numbers, if they need improving.

And to top this off I am doing all of this during November. Just in case you are not in the baking industry, November and December are absolutely crazy for us. This is Pan Dulce (Panettone) season and we make, what I believe to be, the best Pan Dulce on the planet. When I first came to Argentina I was not a big Pan Dulce person. I started trying out the various Pan Dulce offerings here. I tried just about all of them and I realized that there was one trait that just about all of them shared. They all were made with candied fruit. I hate candied fruit.

We make ours with almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, plump juicy raisins and glacé orange peel. Okay, that last one is actually a candied fruit, but one thing is a candied orange peel and something entirely different is a varied colored piece of fruit that you can´t discern a taste from. Anyway, the nuts and fruits are immersed in cognac and we top the whole thing off with a crunchy almond topping.

Last year Falabella ran out of it with one whole week left until Christmas. This time they are ordering a few more and Jumbo is also going to offer them as well. One little guy getting into the Pan Dulce game for us is LeShop.

Hopefully, one day, I will be able to see the trees for the forest and the forest for the trees.