Mary Aryanpour knew at a very young age that she wanted to be a baker
Published in the May 27-June 9, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Mary Aryanpour bakes her goodies in her kitchen ovens in the mornings. She then spends the afternoon delivering them.
When she was a young girl, Mary Aryanpour enjoyed spending time in the kitchen with her Italian mother Pat baking dessert cookies, cannolis and other pastry sweets from the Old World recipes brought over to America that had been passed by generations. Now on most mornings in her San Vicente Court home’s kitchen, she stays busy using those family recipes to bake for other people with her Momma’s Dolce baked goods.
“I think of my mom and dad when I bake her cookies and the fact that my dad loved them,” Aryanpour said. “I remember on my wedding day every table had her delicious cookies and everyone loved it. She had big trays because Italians like big things.”
The tradition of baking in her family goes back many generations, with the Pizzo (her mom’s family) bakers in Italy still baking the traditional cookies and cannolis at their bakeries.
After spending time putting together the cookies and pastries in the morning hours, Aryanpour spends her afternoons delivering the freshly baked goods. Sometimes she gets special orders from far-away places which requires a stop at the Morgan Hill Post Office to mail the sweets. She has mailed her baked goods as far away as Boston and New York to customers who have heard about her through word of mouth and wanted authentic Italian pastries. She can deliver anywhere in the United States to a customer’s door step.
“It’s all word of mouth and from my website,” she said about how Momma’s Dolce customers find her. “I’m still growing. It’s maybe a year down the road when I want to expand because I’m busy baking in the morning and delivering in the afternoon.”
Aryanpour keeps things simple with two ovens used in her home baking business, she said.
“Everything is online and it’s by phone order. So if you place an order in the night, I can bake it in the morning and deliver it to you in the afternoon. I deliver. I bake. I’m a one-man show.”
Among her specialties are traditional Sicilian rum cakes called cassatas as well as carrot cakes. She also does a tiramisu which she calls “world famous.” She fills the mouthwatering pastry with moist layers soft fresh Italian espresso, mascarpone cheese, and savory dark rum.
Other sweets made with handcrafted loving attention include traditional pinulatta, chocolate cookie, and Italian sugar cookies called “cloud cookies” because they look like a little white cloud. The finest pastry desserts start with the freshest ingredients, she said.
“It’s the recipe that makes it authentic. It’s a cup of this, a cup of that. It’s very authentic. Nothing comes out of boxes,” she said. “The chocolate cookies are a family favorite. It’s chocolate heaven. It’s crunchy, it’s moist, it’s dip in coffee type of thing so it doesn’t break up in your coffee.”
Her almond cookies are soft, light, flaky, not too chewy, she said. “If you like almonds, you’ll love my almond cookies. If you’re a walnut lover, you’ll love my walnut cookies. Everything is light in taste and very fresh as if you’re in a cafe in Europe.”
She can make up to between three dozen and five dozen cookies per batch. Christmas time gets crazy for her because that’s when the biggest orders come in and she spend her time baking 10 dozen batches in a morning depending on the order.
“My mom and dad inspired me in my passion for baking,” she said. “Ever since I was a little girl, yeah-high, I loved to bake. I loved being in the kitchen with mom fixing things and stuff like that. I always wanted to be a baker. And my mom taught me how to do things passing recipes down from the generations. I’m a proud Italian bringing Italian pastries to the people of Morgan Hill.”
