When Laureanne Hoekstra realized that her job in accounts receivable made her so busy that she barely saw her kids, she knew it was time to shift careers.
“I went from always being there to never seeing (my kids). No quality time at all,” Hoekstra said.
Hoekstra quit her job and became a stay-at-home mom.
She started pursuing her love of baking, and opened a home-based Filipino bakery called Laureanne Artisanal Pastries.
Drawing from childhood memories of Filipino pastries and sweets, Hoekstra started experimenting with different pastries, but wasn’t content with following basic recipes.
As she tweaked and refined her Filipino sweets and delicacies, one pastry in particular challenged her: the elegant and time-consuming Sans Rival.
“It was such a tricky recipe…I just kept at it.”
Hoekstra perfected her recipe, but added gourmet and elevated ingredients.
She describes her Sans Rival as “melt-in-your-mouth layers of dacquoise and French buttercream that is as silky as ice cream and flavoured with amaretto liqueur.”
And of course, it comes in classic cashew flavour and an indulgent pistachio flavour.
Elevating the lowly Polvoron
Polvoron is, at its lowliest form, a cheap Filipino dessert moulded in a small, round metal “stamper”, often wrapped in red cellophane.
It is made primarily of flour, powdered milk, sugar and margarine.
One look at Hoekstra’s polvoron and you’ll hardly recognize the sweet treat.
Instead of the usual round-shaped, crumbly polvoron, it has been transformed into elegant squares, enrobed or drizzled in chocolate.
Her polvoron resembles dainty petit-fours, and packaged so beautifully in ribbon-wrapped boxes.
“Instead of margarine, I use the best butter—Stirling Creamery butter. Instead of all-purpose flour, I use pastry flour,” she revealed.
Hoekstra uses the best ingredients she could find.
Her polvoron comes in five assorted flavours: classic, chocolate drizzle, chocolate dipped, cashew and pecan.
Perfecting other Filipino treats
Hoekstra also makes other Filipino treats such as pastillas slow-cooked to candy consistency, and leche flan made from water buffalo milk.
She makes maja blanca where the coconut topping, or latik, is homemade.
Hoekstra is pretty much self-taught, although she took a basic pastry course from George Brown College in Toronto.
Hoekstra has no storefront yet, and operates her bakery from her home in Ajax. “My husband built the (commercial) kitchen,” she said.
She sells at farmers markets, temporary pop-ups in Ajax, Whitby and Pickering and can be found at holiday markets in Pickering.
Her mission
When asked what she’d like to say to her clients, Laureanne wanted to quote from her mission statement:
“We, at Laureanne Artisanal Pastries, are on a mission to introduce Filipino desserts to the mainstream market while concurrently re-introducing the classic Filipino delicacies to the discerning consumer, elevating familiar flavours with our own gourmet and creative twists, using the finest ingredients, and wrapping them up in pretty packages.
We strive to push to the limits into what a traditional Filipino dessert can transform when we insist on only using premium ingredients and staying true to artisanal methods of baking.”
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