Our Cakes
Why Our Cakes Are Extraordinary
- We approach our work as artisans
and craftspeople.
- Our cakes are lighter than
ordinary cakes...
- We bake from scratch, in
small batches, every day.
- We highlight fine and expensive
ingredients: fruits, nuts,
chocolate, and natural flavorings
like Bourbon vanilla, leaving modest amounts
of sugars to play a supporting
role.
- We choose ingredients and
flavorings based on their
taste, freshness, beauty,
seasonality, and nutritional
value.
- We use real butter and
milk fats in our cakes, not
artificially-hydrogenated
oil.
- We feature fresh, local,
seasonal, and organic ingredients.
- Enjoyed in moderation,
our cakes are a more pleasurable
and more nutritious alternative
to most of those that are
commonly available.
- Our cakes are the result
of a worldwide interplay
of culinary influences: Rooted
in the European classics,
refined under the hands of
a new generation of Japanese
pastry chefs, and enhanced
with America’s bounty
of fresh ingredients. (See
The Global
Evolution of Cake, below.)
Think about the last piece
of cake you ate. Was it so
enjoyable that you felt an
impulse to share it with a
friend or loved one? Did you
find yourself telling someone
how good it was? If your answers
are “no,” chances
are you ate a piece of ordinary
cake. Was it worth the calories?
We believe that high-calorie
treats should always be
maddeningly delicious. The
inspiration for our business
derived from our surprising
realization that the quality
of cakes found in bakeries
in Tokyo are generally superior
to those commonly found in
the United States. Japanese
pastry chefs have adapted European-style
cakes and pastries to the point
where they now stand as a separately-identifiable
type of cakes, with particular
characteristics of appearance,
taste, and texture. We formed
a partnership with a highly-acclaimed
Japanese bakery (Anniversary
Company, www.anniversary-web.co.jp/ )
in order to bring these specialties
to America. The best way we
have found to describe our
products is, “Japanese
innovations on European-style
cakes.” The Japanese
elements are essentially an
appreciation for refinement,
subtlety, elegance, delicacy,
seasonality, and meticulous
presentation:
Japanese
cuisine is world renowned for
its meticulous preparation
and refinement in presentation.
The food is served in small,
carefully arranged portions,
with emphasis on visual appeal—the
interplay of colors, textures,
shapes, and overall design.
They have also developed a
sensitivity to the individual
foods as they are processed
for eating. Unlike the Chinese
and other Asians, who blend
herbs, spices and main ingredients
into a bouquet of flavors,
the Japanese prize the particular
properties of each ingredient
and emphasize the equal importance
of their individual flavors
and textures.
--
Davidson, A. (1999). The
Oxford Companion to Food.
New York: Oxford University
Press (pp. 413-414).
We created Satura Cakes because
we love truly good cake, because
we love to share it, because
it’s too hard to find,
and because we think you will
appreciate the difference.
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Why Ordinary
Cakes are ... Ordinary
There are some passionate, creative,
and talented bakers and pastry
chefs in the American food community.
We know some, and we are thrilled
when we eat a masterfully-crafted
piece of cake or pastry. The
fact is, however, that a very
good cake is hard to find...
When we do encounter
a truly excellent pastry or
piece of cake, it’s often
at a distant specialty shop,
or at a fine restaurant after
we’ve eaten a full meal.
Since portion sizes keep increasing—along
with the size of the American
waistline—we often found
that even good cake can leave
us thinking, “Why did
I eat that?” We think
that a true “treat” should
deliver an answer instead of
a question.
Most cake available in the
United States today is mass-produced
by the commercial food industry
in huge quantities using inexpensive
ingredients and artificial
additives. Surprisingly, even
a cake baked in your local
bakery is more likely to have
been created from an industrially-manufactured
mix than to have been made
from scratch (we recommend
you ask). Even the fancy-looking
cakes in display cases of upscale
supermarkets are likely made
from mass-produced commercial
mixes.
Because they are inexpensive,
easier to work with, and keep
longer than natural fats, most
commercially-made cakes contain
artificially-hydrogenated shortenings.
Not only are these shortenings
flavorless, but they leave
an unpleasant film or coating
in the mouth. “Melts
in your mouth” is an
overused phrase, but we invite
you to pay careful attention
to how your next piece of ordinary
cake feels in your mouth. Can
you detect a film? Is it a
pleasant sensation? What flavor
is it? Does it really have
a taste except “sweet?” Is
it a truly enjoyable experience?
To add injury to insult, hydrogenated
shortenings contain trans fats.
The butter and milk fats that
we use (for all it’s
delicious flavor and good “mouthfeel”)
does contain moderate amounts
of saturated fats, which can
increase LDL (“bad”)
cholesterol. We honestly do
recommend you limit your intake
(and thus our smaller portion
sizes). Trans fats, however,
not only increase bad cholesterol,
they also decrease HDL (“good”)
cholesterol. Furthermore, trans
fats increase triglyceride
levels (associated with increased
risk for hearth disease), and
increase the risk of developing
diabetes (UC Berkeley Wellness
Letter, April, 2002).
A Harvard University study
found that trans fats are twice
as bad for your heart and arteries
as saturated fats (the kind
contained in natural dairy
ingredients): “[The]
combined effect [of trans fats]
on the ratio of LDL to HDL
cholesterol is double that
of saturated fatty acids.” For
more information see www.hsph.harvard.edu.
To compensate for inexpensive,
inferior flavors and ingredients,
the Big Food industry relies
on high amounts of sugar and
unhealthy trans fats to produce
an inexpensive product that
most consumers will accept.
We are here to do it better!
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The
Global Evolution of Cake
Cakes can be simply defined
as baked treats made essentially
of wheat flour, sugar, eggs,
and often milk and fat. When
a cake batter is heated in the
oven, expanding air in the mixture
is captured by elastic strands
of gluten (wheat protein in the
flour)…
This process is like blowing
up thousands of tiny balloons
inside the batter. The mixture
thus rises, then gels and sets,
leaving cake with its soft,
light, porous structure.
The most celebrated types
of cake in the world are creations
of the Europeans. Evidence
of the oldest crude cakes has
been found in the remains of
villages near lakes in Switzerland.
Crushed grains were moistened,
formed into “cakes” and
cooked on hot rocks. Things
had gotten a bit more exciting
by the dawn of the Roman Empire:
The ancient Romans made a type
of cake from barley, raisins,
pine nuts, pomegranate seeds,
and sweet wine. This was called
a “satura,” “saturated” as
it was with such good things.
Revolutionary yes, but this
kind of cake was still flat,
dense, tough and heavy. (So
why did we name our business
after this cake? See
below!)
By the early centuries A.D.,
the Romans had discovered yeast
as a leavening. For the sake
of simplicity, we will say
that leavenings cause cakes
to rise by producing air in
the batter, creating a lighter
result. The yeasts available
at the time, however, drawn
from the foam produced on beer,
were hard to work with. By
the 1800s, yeast was abandoned
as a leavening in favor of
the foaming power of beaten
egg whites.
Until the mid-1800s, cakes
were typically enjoyed in Europe
as small accompaniment to a
glass of sweet wine, such as
Madeira. Around the mid-19th
century, the French adopted
Russian-style multi-course
dinners, and the concept of
dessert as a separate, sweet
part of a meal took hold across
Europe. The innovations of
the day became the modern European
classics. Around the same time,
cake-making underwent a technological
revolution with the advent
of baking powder, baking soda,
and the development of ovens
with reliable temperature controls.
Home baking of cakes developed
as a tradition in Europe and
North America.
Alas, technology has its drawbacks.
Automated production and the
availability of cheap, long-lasting
shortenings brought about the
ability to industrially mass-produce
inexpensive cake of a poor,
if generally consistent and
safe, quality. As we have said,
good cake can still be found,
but cake-making as an art has
became the sole preserve of
a few professional and home
bakers.
And the Japanese part? Even
we are still learning, but
what we do know is that the
Portuguese introduced baking
to Japan during their first
trading encounters in the 1500s.
Japan still uses pan, the
Portuguese word for “bread.” At
some point, and most intensely
during the economic boom in
the Japanese economy a few
decades ago, Japanese chefs
became very interested in learning
about fine European cakes.
Chefs from Japan traveled to
France and Italy to learn classic
baking and cake-making. Upon
returning to Japan, these professionals
began innovating and modifying,
adapting the classic recipes
to Japanese tastes which are
suited to less-sweet cakes
with a lighter texture and
a cultural appreciation for “refined
elegance” (miyabi).
Chefs from Japan, a country
with no native wheat crops,
stunned the baking world when
a Japanese team won the Coupe
de Monde (the “world
cup in baking”) in Paris
in 2002.
When Hiro Tamaki, a Japanese
entrepreneur, came to California’s
Silicon Valley in the 1990s
for his work, he was enchanted
by California’s weather
and natural beauty. One of
his biggest surprises, however,
was to discover that, in a
country founded largely by
European immigrants, he couldn’t
find a piece of cake that came
even close in quality to that
which he had enjoyed from a
local bakeshop in Tokyo. After
all, cake is a Western phenomenon.
After several years working
in California, Hiro returned
to Japan and co-founded Golf
Digest Online, a company that
went public in 2004. This success
rekindled an old idea in his
entrepreneurial mind: Could
he bring the quality of cake
he knew was being produced
in Japan to market in the United
States? After reflecting on
what Starbucks did for coffee
(even if it’s not your
favorite, one has to admit
that Starbucks revolutionized
the quality of coffee in the
United States), he assembled
a Japanese and American team
of businesspeople and bakers,
and Satura Cakes was born.
We don’t yet know if
we can seize the American public
imagination with “Japanese
cake” the way it has
been captured with sushi or
tofu, but if we can, we think
it would be a good thing for
everyone. For now, we suggest
you try it so you can say you
knew about it before it
was cool!
Oh.
And how did we choose our name?
In studying the early history
of baking, we learned that “satura” was
the name of a type of cake
made in the ancient Roman Empire.
Primitive though it was, the
satura contained innovative
ingredients likely to be found
in the kitchens of today’s
most cutting-edge gourmets:
pine nuts, pomegranates, raisins,
and sweet wine. After sitting
neglected on our list of possible
names for months, we began
to notice that our Japanese
team members kept rating the
name highly. When we asked
them, they said that the word “sounded
Japanese” and “sounded
nice” to Japanese people
(it is not at all a Japanese
word). Once we discovered this
bicultural connection between
the European origins of cake
and one of its highest refinements
in the hands of modern Japanese
pastry chefs, we knew we had
our name.
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Our Company
Mission
“Our mission is: Never another ordinary bite.”
This
represents our promise to deliver the
finest, cakes, baked goods, chocolates,
coffees and teas in the world.
We started Satura Cakes because fantastically
delicious cakes made with fresh, high-quality
ingredients are too difficult to find.
We think a high-calorie treat should
be enjoyed in moderate quantities and
should always be maddeningly
pleasurable. We bake our cakes from
scratch, every day, right here in our
Los Altos bakeshop. We use real flour,
eggs, sugar, butter and dairy. We never
use mixes or artificially hydrogenated
oils that contain trans fats. After
enjoying our cakes, hand-crafted from
the finest available ingredients by
artisan pastry chefs, we are confident
you’ll never want to settle for
the ordinary ever again.
“Never another ordinary bite” has
a second meaning, just as important
as the first. This represents our commitment
to maintain our quality standards as
we change and grow. Satura Cakes will never produce
an ordinary bite!
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Essential Values
Satura Cakes is guided by the following
principles in executing our mission:
We have faith in our customers’ ability
to recognize a total commitment to
quality. We will not experiment with
ways to cut corners or skimp on costs
just to see what we could “get
away with.” We believe that an
internally-experienced feeling of pride
among our staff is our most effective
marketing tool.
We value human diversity. We aim to
take this idea beyond empty words by
staying honestly engaged with issues
related to diversity in the workplace.
We know we will have to openly confront
the challenges and difficulties of
this effort, as well as enjoy the benefits.
We believe that possibilities are
limited only by imagination. Aside
from our aim of providing the best
cakes in the world, exactly what we
will do and how we will do it as we
grow over the years is wonderfully
unpredictable. We believe that encouraging
and rewarding ideas and opinions—from
our staff, from our customers, and
from our friends and partners—is
one of the smartest (and most fun)
business strategies we should employ.
Innovation leads to prosperity, and
support and affirmation leads to innovation.
We endeavor to support the health,
happiness and well-being of our team,
our customers, and our communities.
We will do this by striving to provide
an open and acknowledging work environment,
and by providing for our team’s
health, safety, livelihoods and personal
and professional growth as best we
can. We will do this by listening to
our customers and responding to their
needs and desires. We will do this
by supporting those who work to improve
our communities.
We believe that profitability and
growth are key requirements for advancing
our mission and we are committed to
making good business decisions for
our company and its team.
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Inspiration
Satura Cakes was founded by Hironobu
Tamaki, currently Chair of the Board
of Directors for the company.
Hiro
is a Japanese entrepreneur and cake
lover. When his former company sent
him from Japan to California’s
Silicon Valley to work for several
years in the 1990s, Hiro was surprised
to discover that the cakes in California
were generally inferior in quality
to those he had become accustomed to
enjoying in cake shops in Japan.
After earning a master’s degree
in business administration from Harvard
University, Hiro returned to Japan
and co-founded Golf Digest Online,
which went public on the Japanese stock
market in April, 2004. That company
had a market capitalization of $350
million on its first day of trading
and increased in value to over $600
million within weeks. This amazing
success provided Hiro the opportunity
to finance his previous idea of starting
a chain of high-quality cake shops
in the U.S. He assembled an international
team of businesspeople and bakers,
and Satura Cakes was born.
Chief among the members of that team is Masahito Motohashi. Mr. Motohashi has been recognized as one of the top five most-talented pastry chefs in Japan. Hiro Tamaki contacted Motohashi because, as Hiro says, "When I ate a piece of cake from Mr. Motohashiís bakery [Anniversary Company in Tokyo], I felt the happiest."
Trained in both Europe and Japan, Motohashi's Anniversary Co. bakery was the first in Japan to begin selling real wedding cakes (previously, wedding cakes in Japan were inedible symbolic decorations). Today, baking 500 wedding cakes per month, Anniversary is the largest wedding cake producer in Japan, and perhaps the world (the Guinness Book of World Records is currently researching this supposition).
Once he felt assured that Satura Cakes could faithfully produce his products, Motohashi entered into a licensing agreement with Satura Cakes and assumed a seat on the companyís board ofdirectors. He provided Satura Cakes with his recipes and assigned his protégé and top pastry chef, Seung Ho Jung, to come to the United States and administer the partnership in the role of consulting executive chef. "Jung is an extraordinary chef, and I wanted to introduce his style to the U.S.," said Motohashi.
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