Paleo, Gluten-Free, Raw & Delicious: Five Locally Made San Diego Snack Bars You Need to Try
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Eat This Now: Gluten-Free Pavona Pistachio Cakes
There are some bits and bites in San Diego that you really need to be eating right now.
The Bite: Pavona's Pistachio Cakes
The Chef: Christina Sanini
The Bakery: Pavona Dolci
Why It’s So Good
If you close your eyes and take a small bite of this divine pistachio cake, you might feel like you’ve somehow been transported back in time to take part in afternoon tea at Downton Abbey. When you open your eyes, you’ll be grateful there are other Pavona cake flavors to try.
Sanini bakes her coffee-house treats in a dedicated gluten-free kitchen. Other flavors include almond, almond dark chocolate sea salt, and seasonal flavors like almond lemon and almond chai. Sanini’s mastered cake recipes were inspired by a trip she took to Italy, which led to baking and making her first delivery to Kettle & Stone in 2014. Since then, deliveries have grown to four days a week with plans to expand offerings to include breads and doughnuts in the fall.
The pistachio cakes are nicely balanced and not too sweet, with a pure pistachio flavor and light texture. The butteriness is worthy of its own sentence to praise its merits. And all that gets topped with frosting and chopped California pistachios. Pairing well with coffee or tea, these little cakes are, in a word, transcendent.
Where to Find Them
Pavona pistachio gluten-free cakes can currently be found at nine coffee shops and one market in the city: Kettle & Stone, Mission Hills; Better Buzz, Hillcrest; Meraki Cafe, University Heights; Grants Marketplace, South Park; Achilles Coffee Roasters, Downtown; Cafe Mingei, Balboa Park; Royal Food Mart, Hillcrest/Bankers Hill; The Living Room, Point Loma.
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