Mad Vegan Gives the Panadería a Plant-Based Update

 

By Anna Mindess

Taya Marroquin grew up in Bakersfield with a Mexican father and a Salvadoran mother. She fondly remembers trips to Los Angeles, where her grandmother would take her to the local panaderías. Enchanted by the cookies covered in a rainbow of sprinkles, she soon found her way to the kitchen.

“I started baking when I was about seven years old,” says Marroquin, who is now 29. “I even took a baking class to learn how to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch. I’ve always had a sweet tooth, but I gained inspiration from my favorite baking and cooking shows that my family and I used to watch together.”

When Marroquin was 21, she made a decision that would shock her family.

“I found myself questioning the way that we were getting our products from animals,” she says. “I was always a huge animal lover and very outspoken. That led me to explore becoming a vegetarian, but in Bakersfield, it was almost impossible due to a lack of options. Coming from my culture, everything we eat is meat centered. My grandma was heartbroken.”

When Marroquin and her husband, Zadden Pimentel, moved from Bakersfield to Oakland in 2020, Taya was pleased that the Bay Area’s resources would enable her to go vegan. She also realized that she might start her own vegan panadería. The challenge would be finding replacements for essential ingredients like butter, milk, and eggs. That’s how Mad Vegan Collective came to be.

The “mad” in the name Mad Vegan, as Marroquin explains, is “a slang intensifier to describe something really good.” And “collective” refers to how her customers serve like a collective advisory board, directing which favorites should be on the rotating all-vegan menu.

The word “mad” also paints a picture of the young entrepreneur as a vegan mad scientist, figuring out how to recreate the flavors and textures of classic Mexican sweets through trial and error. She succeeded mightily with her conchas (shell-shaped Mexican sweet breads topped with crumbly sugar topping), spiral-shaped novias, and polvorones (shortbread sugar cookies).

It was an easy transition from butter to a plant-based spread made from avocado oil. For eggs, one might assume she would utilize the widely recognized egg substitute aquafaba (the liquid from cooking or canning chickpeas), and she agrees that for frostings, it whips up nice and light. But she discovered a clever go-to for doughs: “Starchy vegetables, like sweet potatoes and Yukon Gold potatoes, work really well. They seem to create a binder with the yeast. Sweet potatoes also add a golden color to my conchas while making them moist and soft.”

Another classic dessert, the tres leches cake, is usually made with whole milk, condensed milk, and evaporated milk. Marroquin devised her plant-based recipe using coconut milk, oat milk, and a coconut-based sweetened condensed milk.

Marroquin admits that her redefinitions of pan dulce are not always received with open arms because they stray from tradition, but a host of vegan fans are thrilled to find sweets they never imagined could be successfully recreated.

What does her grandmother think?

“Now she’s one of my biggest supporters,” says Marroquin. “And when I share my pan dulce with her, she says, ‘Wow, mija, I can’t believe this is vegan!’” ♦

Find Mad Vegan Collective at Jack London Square Sunday Farmers’ Market, Hercules Bayfront Saturday Farmers’ Market, and special events around the Bay Area. You can order custom cakes at madveganco.com.

 

Anna Mindess is an award-winning journalist who writes on food, culture, and travel for numerous publications including the Washington Post, Atlas Obscura, and Berkeleyside. Follow her on Instagram @annamindess and find her stories at annamindess.contently.com.