bake - April 2017 - 23

THE BAKING ORIGINS OF PORTO'S

were a little nervous, but the early signs indicate that
this idea is working even better than expected.
"With the amount of people coming into our bakery,
it makes you feel good," Salazar says. "We wanted

Tracing back to 1960, the Porto family made the
tough decision to leave their home in Manzanillo,
Cuba. After living through the drastic changes that
were taking place around them, they requested
permission to leave the country. Immediately Raul
Sr. was terminated from his job and sent away to
manual labor for the duration of the wait period.
Wife, Rosa Porto, was also let go. Knowing that it
may take years to be able to leave the country, Rosa
found herself alone and having to find a means to
support her three children Betty, Raul Jr., and Margarita. Rosa, always a talented cake maker, with a
passion for baking, entrenched herself in perfecting
her recipes and began selling her delicious cakes to
friends and neighbors, not realizing that she was
also building a loyal customer base.

to bring a lot of the work from the back to the front.
With all of our staff working in front of the customers,
right as they walk in, it makes it very inviting to the
customer."
The custom-made kitchen features refrigerated
drawers, while the bakery encompasses a bevy of
new equipment: three Revent double-rack ovens, a
MIWE bread oven, and a Koma proofer box. "Those
are incredible," Porto says of the bakery equipment.
Other changes, or minor tweaks, involved the production of new pastries. The bakery's newest top seller

When the family finally emigrated from Cuba
to California, they had not much more than the
clothes on their backs: Raul Sr.'s strong work ethic,
Rosa's exceptional baking skills, and a dream for a
better life. Soon after the plane landed, Rosa realized that her reputation had preceded her, and met
her first customer just as she got off the plane.
Raul Sr. took a job as a mechanic and after work
delivered Rosa's cakes. These were hard times, but
the family was now in a country filled with limitless
opportunities and their dream for a better future
became more real as the years passed.

is the Milk 'N Berries cake - a twist on a classic Tres
Leches but more indulgent, ﬁlled with fresh blackberries, blueberries, strawberries and fresh cream.
It's served as a parfait, like a verrine (a small thickglass container that contains a liquid or solid layered
dessert with no base). "In Europe, everything is in
a verrine, and we decided to bring verrine into our
bakery," Salazar says.
Another European-inspired dessert now at Porto's
comes in the form of a roulade, French for roll. They
make a dulce de leche and cream roulade (rolled into

Rosa continued on with her cake business and
when their home could no longer accommodate the
increased demand, opened a little 300-square foot
bakery on Sunset Boulevard in the Echo Park area
of Los Angeles. From day one, the place was busy.
After tirelessly working two jobs, Raul Sr. left his
latter job at Van De Kamp's and joined Rosa full
time. Meanwhile, their children Betty, Raul Jr., and
Margarita managed to maintain their studies and
learn the business: baking, decorating, food preparation, customer service, and finances.

a jelly roll), as well as a version with cream cheese

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bake - April 2017

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