Asian bakeries offer flavours steeped in heritage and culture: Jasmine Mangalaseril

With bright colours and sweet, delicate flavours and textures ranging from fluffy to chewy, a handful of local Waterloo region bakeries give us glimpses into Asian baking cultures.

Many western breads are made from four ingredients: water, flour, yeast and salt. Out of the oven, these loaves often have a chewy, slightly salty crumb with a solid crust.

But bite into a slice of Asian milk bread and you'll find fluffiness and sweetness. While many include fat (such as butter or milk or cream) and sugar, their tangzhong or roux (cooked paste), gives bread a softer texture and keeps the loaves and buns from staling sooner.

Yet, while milk breads and buns are sweeter than their Western cousins, Asian cakes and other desserts are meant to be not too sweet. Instead of being the overwhelming taste, sugar supports the other fruity, herby, spicy, even savoury flavours.

Manon Bakery, Waterloo

Chae Sik Lee, co-owner of Waterloo's Manon Bakery, said Korea's roughly century-old modern baking culture is influenced by European traditions.

Croissants, baguettes, and fraisiers line his cases, as well as soboro, a nutty streusel-topped sweet bun inspired by German baking.

You'll also find sausage ppang. This cheesy-topped pull-apart somewhat resembles a peacock's tail and is like a cousin to pigs in blankets.

Lee also said milk bread is eaten as dessert in Korean homes.

"We add milk instead of the water, and butter, and little bit of egg and sugar," said Lee. "It's like a brioche … it's really rich in butter."

Hong Kong Bake, St. Jacobs Market

Hong Kong pineapple buns don't contain pineapple. Instead, their name comes from their craggy tops. Before baking, a cookie dough disc tops the milk bun dough. As it bakes, the topping cracks creating a pineapple-like appearance.

They're often used as sandwich buns at Hong Kong cha chaan tengs (similar to diners). Fillings can vary from plain or compound butters to sliced meats like beef or pork, or ham and egg.

They're at Hong Kong Bake's St. Jacobs Market stall, where you'll also find coconut buns and snowy buns. Snowy buns are like pineapple buns, with the softer covering looking like a blanket of snow. Co-owner Amy Wong said, in Hong Kong, it's often called a "Mexican bun."

"What happened is [Chinese] people moved to Mexico to work and then they came back to Hong Kong," explained Wong. "They started cafes or bakeries. So, this was the very, very first shaping of pineapple bun-y bread."

La La Bakeshop, Waterloo

La La Bakeshop co-founder Brian Tran says rules others may have about flavour and texture are meant to be broken in contemporary Vietnamese food culture.

"It's like why not? I find that perspective very refreshing," said Tran. "This kind of willingness to experiment and not being bound by certain rules … I think prevails in the food."

An example is La La's salted egg and pork floss lava cake. The sweet bun is filled with salty-sweet egg sauce and topped with pork floss (finely shredded dried pork, with a cotton candy-like texture). Each bite combines sweet, salty, savoury flavours with tender, creamy and slightly sandy textures.

Meanwhile, their trifle-like cake cups can showcase delicate flavours, such as longan and jasmine. Here, fleshy, floral longan fruit tops layers of jasmine-steeped cream and soft, light chiffon cake.

Kinoko's Oven, Kitchener

When she opened Kinoko's Oven, Aimee Lê wanted to showcase the Japanese, Singaporean and Vietnamese flavours she grew up with.

You'll find Singaporean sago cups — coconut milk with chewy tapioca-like pearls and fresh fruit — among salted egg chiffon cakes and pork floss buns.

Her banh da lon is a Vietnamese steamed layer cake. It's made by pouring and setting layers of emerald green pandan-infused rice and tapioca flour batter with ochre-coloured moong bean batter. When set, the 11-layer striped cake is lightly sweet, chewy and jelly-like.

Lê also makes Daifuku, part of the mochi family of sweets. She envelopes cream and mango in glutinous rice paste skins, to make a rich, stretchy and delightfully messy confection.

"Here, the most popular item is Daifuku. That is a dessert from Japan," said Lê. "I make the fresh mochi wraps every day, with the mango [and cream] filling inside. People love that."