Tarit Tanjasari - Crema Bakery & Cafe

We’re so fortunate to have a group of culinary friends who are always at the ready to help out when we need it!

One such person is Tarit Tanjasari, artisan baker/owner of Crema Café in Seal Beach, a fifteen-year-old neighborhood bakery, and his newest venture, Artisan by 7 Leaves Café and Crema Bakery in Fountain Valley, which opened in July.

Tarit is also busy at Crema Artisan Bakers, his wholesale bakery which opened seven years ago. He’s having a lot of fun partnering with 7 Leaves in Artisan, as it’s their first time to offer more than coffees and teas. Tarit helps with the menu and supplies all of the delicious bread, croissants, and pastries.

Tarit has provided treats at two of our Hungry Games events. Recent guests at the Hungry Games 4.0 will remember his tasty Croffles, Waffle Vanilla Croissants, and Passion Fruit Crème Brûlée. He’s honored to be a part of our events.

Tarit also donates ingredients to Bracken’s Kitchen. “If I have extra flour and a pallet of ingredients that I don’t need, I’ll give it to Bracken’s,” said Tarit. “I support Bill that way.”

Bill does the same for him. Sometimes Bill will send over pastry supplies that he doesn’t need for the feeding programs.

As talented as Tarit is, he isn’t a classically trained pastry chef. He briefly attended a French pastry school in Chicago, yet he’s mostly self-taught with a true love for bread and croissants.

What makes great bread and croissants? Tarit says an ingredient that no one ever talks about in general, is time.

“It’s important to give dough time for fermentation and to develop flavor, rather than using sugar and additives,” said Tarit. “I am drawn to artisan baking because we use more time. We allow the dough to ferment overnight. We’re baking bread that takes a day or two to make, rather than two hours. We don’t have to do much to it except to give it time, be patient, and respect the process of artisan baking.”

Ingredients are also very important. “We use the very best ingredients -- no preservatives or chemicals, not just for bread, but also dough for croissants,” said Tarit. “We find the best ingredients like butter from Wisconsin that’s as close to butter in France that we can find in the U.S.”

Most bakeries that are larger tend to concentrate on production. “With our wholesale bakery in Irvine, we need to make sure we can make everything on time. It can take us 2-3 days to make our bread. We always tell our clients and customers they need to wait two days for orders,” said Tarit.

He has a few good friends in the culinary business such as Dean Kim of OC Baking,

Bill Bracken and Martin Diedrich at Kean Coffee, and loyal customers who vouch for him and helped grow his business. “Our bakery is growing by leaps and bounds by word of mouth,” said Tarit.

Tarit is in awe of Bill Bracken. “I’ve never known anyone who does what Bill does. He is truly a class act. He’s in the business of feeding people and I admire him very much,” said Tarit. “He smiles and he’s happy, completely fulfilled. I truly admire him. I will help him in any way I can.”

We are so honored to have Tarit’s support in our mission to feed those in need healthy and nutritious meals!