New Eats: Blanchard’s new patisserie trailer a good way to start the day

By , Daily Memphian Published: September 27, 2022 11:08 AM CT

If you’re in the market for a cruffin, you’re in luck.

And if you don’t know what a cruffin is, it’s time to find out.

Daniel Blanchard has them at Blanchard’s OG Patisserie & Coffee, a food trailer he parks at Joe’s Wines and Liquor on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.


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“Think of it like the best cinnamon-sugar doughnut you’ve ever eaten,” is how Blanchard described it, but well, it’s complicated.

It’s not really a doughnut.

It’s croissant dough baked in a popover tin, with a more compact bottom and a fluffier top, really two “muffins” in one as the texture changes from denser to airier where it puffs out. It’s intensely buttery, with a soft, bready, peel-apart dough, a light crispness on the edges and a gentle shower of cinnamon and sugar all over.

It’s $3 well spent, and we have more good ways to talk about spending your dough.


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Blanchard, who’s been baking out of his Midtown home for a couple of years, debuted his food trailer at the Cooper-Young Festival earlier this month and set up at Joe’s last week.

He was only in the market for a canopy so he could set up and sell bread — his bread and butter at Blanchard’s Organic Bakery — but when he found a vintage trailer with a canopy, he changed his business model.

“I saw it and got an idea of what it would look like, then started collecting other vintage pieces to outfit it, had it painted and here we are,” he said.

He’s not selling bread right now, but plans to start stocking a small cart with at least sourdough once a week, ideally on Friday, and most ideally starting this Friday, Sept. 30. But Blanchard is the father of two small children and is trying to run his business and have time for his family, too.


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“Right now, it takes about 12 hours of prep work to get all this baked, so if I were to add a big variety of bread, I’d be working seven days a week,” he said.

But the bread will come, and sooner rather than later is the plan. The menu changes, though as this is just his second week out, he’s not sure if he’ll be on a regular schedule of certain items on certain days or exactly how it will work. He opens at 8:30 a.m. on the west side of the Joe’s parking lot with 80-100 items, and he’ll be there until around noon or 1 p.m. unless he sells out early.

For now, it’s possible you’ll eat the best bagel of your life when you visit Blanchard, unless you’re looking for something light and fluffy, in which case, try something else. But if you want dense, chewy and full of flavor, pick up an everything bagel ($2).

“This is more of a Montreal-style bagel,” Blanchard said.

After forming the bagels, he boils them in malted water before cooking, though not on wood as is typical for the Montreal bagel. Still, it’s thinner, with a bigger hole in the middle and a much stronger tug than a grocery-store bagel. And superb; the everything is blanketed with coarse salt, sesame seeds, toasted onion bits and poppyseeds so tiny as to be almost microscopic — smaller by half than any poppyseed I’ve ever seen.

Blanchard doesn’t sell at farmers markets because he doesn’t think it’s right for him.

“I don’t really buy any of my products locally, because for me, it’s about being organic,” he said. “That means I scour groceries all over town and might even end up buying organic chocolate at a place like Bargain Hunt, or I have to mail order. If I could get local organic products, I might feel like I could sell at the farmers markets.”

He sells organic Stumptown coffee, one he discovered when he lived in Oregon. And he has savory pastries, such as a gruyere and ham filled croissant (made in the slight rectangular shape of a pain du chocolate instead of the crescent of a typical croissant; $7.50).

He’s also been working on a difficult pastry to master, the canelé de Bordeaux. This tiny ribbed cylinder is what you get when you take cremè brûlée out of a ramekin and give it a bit of structure.

Is it a good canelé? I heartily endorse the experience in my mouth when I popped a small piece in, biting through the thin and tender caramelized crust to the wet vanilla center. But I have no real point of reference, as it’s only the second time I’ve tried a canelé and the first was also Blanchard’s; this one was better.

Next week, I’m going to try one again. And the week after, I know where I’ll be. Repeat. It’s tiny but well worth my $5 and small time investment. Plus, of course, it’s in the name of research.


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Blanchard’s OG Patisserie & Coffee sets up in the parking lot of Joe’s Wines & Liquor, 1681 Poplar Ave., at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He’s there until around noon or 1 p.m. but will leave early if he sells out.

Topics

New Eats Daniel Blanchard Blanchard's OG Patisserie & Coffee
Jennifer Biggs

Jennifer Biggs

Jennifer Biggs is a native Memphian and veteran food writer and journalist who covers all things food, dining and spirits related for The Daily Memphian.


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