In the novel and film adaptation of Like Water for Chocolate, the main character, Tita, is a talented cook whose dishes are infused with her emotions. When she sheds tears while making a wedding cake, all of the guests turn violently ill after eating it. When she makes a sauce using roses received from an admirer, nearly everyone who eats the dish is overcome with arousal.
If the East Bay-based pop-up Good Luck Bakery lived in a similar world of magical realism, its handmade sweet and savory treats would put a halt to family feuds and instantly squash decades-old squabbles. Because these pastries are imbued with the friendship of their creators; pick up one of their boxes emblazoned with a blue horseshoe and you might feel a little more affable and accommodating.
Good Luck Bakery
The pop-up appears at Ordinaire Wine, 3354 Grand Ave. in Oakland, most Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. Check the Instagram and website for menu updates, pre-order options and other Bay Area pop-ups.
Good Luck Bakery is the creation of two former bakers and pastry chefs from the recently shuttered Sister restaurant on Grand Avenue near Lake Merritt. After Sister closed in January, it wasn’t long before Blair Cardigan Smith and Kelci Moran were messaging each other about ideas for cream-filled croissants and compote-stuffed tarts and the possibility of launching their own business. By the end of March, Good Luck Bakery held its first pop-up.
Today, they are at Oakland’s Ordinaire Wine Shop almost every Saturday — calling it their “residency” — and have started doing other pop-ups around the Bay Area.
The two bakers hit it off immediately after Cardigan Smith, the former pastry chef at Sister, hired Moran in April 2020. Originally from Winnipeg, Cardigan Smith started learning to bake in Canada and leaned in when she arrived in the Bay Area 13 years ago. She got a job at Josey Baker’s The Mill and fell hard for sourdough. “It’s magical,” she said.
Moran, who hails from Sacramento, moved to New York to pursue art. When that didn’t work out, she got a job as a pastry chef and took to the craft quickly. She moved back west during the initial COVID-19 shutdowns.
“We were instantly inspired by each other, and immediately worked really well together,” Moran said. “From the beginning, there was a lot of trust between us, and a willingness to try new things.”
For Good Luck Bakery, they work in concert at a West Berkeley commissary kitchen on Wednesdays and Fridays to prepare each week’s lineup of baked goods. They have similar approaches — both waxing poetic about the art of hand lamination (“It’s a labor of love,” Moran said) and taking inspiration from local products, like the season’s first Blenheim apricots.
Together, they’ve fashioned an environment that breeds boldness and snuffs out fear. Biscuits made with masa? Sure! Spiced carrot and coconut cake? Let’s do it! Mishaps (a broken refrigerator shelf leads to a dent in a sheet cake, for example) are met with a knee-slap and a chuckle. Why not try new things? If it fails, they’ll try something else next week.
“It’s still very new and feels like an experiment each week,” Cardigan Smith said.
The partners have also put a priority on enjoying their workspace.
“Kelci makes me laugh every day,” Cardigan Smith said. “We worked apart for a while, and when we were not working together, I learned to value it — how she contributed to my creativity.”
Moran blushes as she gives an “aw shucks” wave of the hand, but this is a common occurrence. They sprinkle each other with compliments and appreciation, eager to talk about the other’s contributions more than their own.
And their pastry process is purely collaborative. One of them might be inspired to use apricots one week, while the other suggests the form, like a pop tart. The two bakers move from one task to another seamlessly. If Moran prepares the croissant dough, Cardigan Smith might portion and shape it.
“A lot of time, without even talking about it at all, we will divvy up the prep list and move from one thing to another without having to discuss much,” Moran said.
The bakers focus on using local, organic, seasonal ingredients and whole grains. The flaky, buttery buckwheat croissant, is astoundingly springy, rebounding to its original shape when you squeeze or bite into it.
The sesame caramel coffee cake, a holdover creation from Cardigan Smith’s time at Sister, is a perfect pairing with a morning coffee. Made with oat flour, the sweetness of the caramel is tempered by the sesame, which adds a toasty depth to the flavor making something seemingly simple and familiar somehow new.
The pop-up menu always has a mix of sweet and savory, usually a layer cake, something gluten-free and something laminated. Pre-orders, including a cake of the week, cookie packs, and a pastry box with a chef’s selection of a half dozen items for $38, are available on their website with pick-up at Ordinaire.
A recent menu featured a butter croissant, ham and cheese claw, savory hand pie with caramelized onion and white cheddar, a chocolate chip cookie, a gluten-free lemon poppyseed and coconut cake, gluten-free cherry and ricotta muffin, apricot pop tart with sunflower butter and sour cream glaze, peaches and cream Danish, buttermilk cake with bing cherry preserves and pistachio whip, banana cream pie, and a buckwheat chiffon layer cake with apricot preserves, vanilla diplomat cream and lemon oil buttercream.
At Ordinaire, the duo is tucked into a narrow counter and kitchen area on the way to the bathrooms at the back of the shop.
Emi Fulea, who runs Lakshmi Lassi and Chai at the Lakeshore Farmers Market, makes his way to Ordinaire most Saturdays after he closes his stand. He grabs a glass of wine and gets a box of pastries from Good Luck.
“These are some of the best baked goods I’ve ever had. I’ve lived in France, and I’m telling you their croissant is a 10,” he said.
One motivation the partners had for launching their own business versus joining an established kitchen as a pastry chef was they wanted to meet their customers and feel a greater sense of community.
“In restaurants, as the pastry chef you don’t really get to interact with customers,” Cardigan Smith said. “We want to reach and connect with people through food.”
Running a pop-up has been both exciting and a lot of hard work in the first three months, they said. Good Luck Bakery is their primary focus, but they each have side gigs as well, Moran with Rachel Caygill of Green House Bakery and Cardigan Smith with Patty Lu of Year of the Snake, whom they’ve tapped for advice as they build their business.
The pair is available for special orders and catering, including wedding cakes. At a recent Airbnb corporate event, they created a build-your-own pavlova station and a 50-inch long cake. Cardigan Smith and Moran also love baking bread, and there are plans to start selling sourdough, focaccia and other loaves.
Around 4 p.m., after selling out of multiple items, they started packing up the pop-up at Ordinaire. Fulea was eating a slice of their buttermilk cake with cherry preserves alongside a glass of white wine. He motioned toward the box full of Good Luck Bakery items beside him.
“I’m not going to eat all of it,” Fulea said. “I always take the box home and share it with friends.”
