Ever try gelatina? How about rugelach? Two new Mexican bakeries making these and more

You know what's underappreciated?

Picking up a single-serving dessert from a bakery.

We think of bakeries as places to order wedding or birthday cakes, but most serve an array of smaller goodies, too. There's a simple delight in treating yourself to a cupcake on the way home from work or a salted caramel macaron sandwich cookie to go with your coffee on a Friday morning.

While La Boulangerie, Eddie's Bakery and the multiple Le Parisien Cafes certainly have plenty of these kinds of treats, I'd like to tell you about two new Mexican-American bakeries. Callejas Cakes and Mi Panaderia La Michoacana are serving all kinds of deliciousness and the people behind them have some pretty interesting stories to tell.

Callejas Cakes

In central Fresno, in the shopping center just east of the Shields Avenue/First Street Target, is Callejas Cakes. It specializes in cakes, obviously, ranging from tres leches cake made from three kinds of milk to German chocolate, red velvet and champagne cakes topped with curls of pink chocolate.

You'll find individual slices of these cakes for sale in a cooler for $4 each.

Other treats include tiramisu, cheesecake slices, Danishes with all kinds of fillings and cannoli stuffed with a creamy filling and topped with chocolate sprinkles.

And then there are the cookies: Butter cookies with frosting and sprinkles, crunchy pink strawberry cookies, Mexican wedding cookies with powdered sugar and rugelach – the rolls of cream cheese dough with fillings like apple and raspberry. As a grand opening deal, the bakery is selling cookies for the temporary price of three for $1.

The owner, Victor Callejas, is a third-generation cake decorator and baker. He's been doing it for 26 years.

He was born in Mexico, in a city that had a bakery employing lots of residents. He started when he was 16, working his way up from the bottom and learning how to decorate cakes.

He moved to the U.S. at age 19 and worked in Mexican bakeries and supermarkets before landing a job decorating cakes at Eddie's Bakery, where he worked for five years. Six years ago, he opened his own bakery in Kerman, also called Callejas Cakes. That one will stay open and is now run by his brother Joe.

The Fresno Callejas Cakes opened in late February and, since it's truly a family business, you'll find Victor's brother Tomas working there.

Victor Callejas jokes that having his kids grow up in the U.S. is helping him be sure to carry both traditional Mexican cakes and American ones.

"My kids, they don't like tres leches cake anymore. They want chocolate cake, German chocolate," he said. "I think I create something between both Latino and American. I think I make a fusion between both."

The Fresno Callejas Cakes is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturdays and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Mi Panaderia La Michoacana

In southeast Fresno, a new Mexican bakery is pumping out all kinds of food. Mi Panaderia La Michoacana opened about three weeks ago on Belmont Avenue between Cedar and Maple avenues (Bonanza Furniture next door will likely catch your eye first).

The taqueria and bakery sell Mexican food – burritos, tacos, tortas, tamales, even a pizza al pastor – but also lots of sweets and baked goods. In addition to the standard pan dulce (sweet breads), popular sellers here include rounds of cornbread and a version of bolillos, a sort of squat baguette, with cream cheese and jalapeño baked in.

You'll also find tres leches cakes and flan.

And there's the gelatinas. It's a traditional dessert in Michoacán, said the business owner, Jerry Gonzalez.

It's an impressive dish that is part structural engineering and part art. Taking three days to make, it involves suspending green and pink cubes of Jell-O in more Jell-O, then adding a layer of fruit that is encased in more Jell-O.

Although they're not as artful, smaller versions of gelatinas are available in single-serving sizes.

This isn't the first business Gonzalez has run. He had two grocery stores in Northern California. In Fresno, he also owned three stores in Manchester Center, including a tuxedo shop and a bridal and quinceañera shop, before selling them.

Mi Panaderia La Michoacana is open from 6 a.m. to 1 0 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sundays.

This story was originally published June 16, 2018 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Ever try gelatina? How about rugelach? Two new Mexican bakeries making these and more."