These Mexican pastries come to you

What the Taste Team craves this week

The only thing better than starting the day with a run to a bakery for a fresh batch of Mexican pastries is having those sweet treats show up on your doorstep.

And that’s exactly what you get from Alebrije Bakery, a new San Antonio business specializing in both familiar and uncommon Mexican pastries made with big flavor and a decorative panache that can be picked up or delivered to your home.

If you only try one thing from

Alebrije — a tall order given the South Side bakery’s wide range of colorful, beautifully garnished delights — start with the pan de elote. These sweet cornmeal cakes are not only rare finds in San Antonio’s Mexican bakeries but a perfect celebration of corn’s well-deserved place on the dessert spread as well.

Alebrije’s pan de elote ($12 for three) was dense and moist with an intense, corn-forward flavor and a texture that gave this very sweet cornbread a cakelike quality. These small cakes were smartly garnished with a length of lightly charred corn husk for a gentle toasty aroma that hit my nose when I opened the box delivered to my home. Bright flower petals deftly placed on top of the cake delivered a subtle perfume.

Whipped cream, dolloped out in a strand of tiny pearls across the cake’s surface, tied together all the flavors in a perfect, smooth bite.

If cheesecake is your thing, the pay de queso ($12 for three) is the way to go. These Mexicanstyle cheesecakes were a little more firm and dry than their silky New York-style counterparts, but every bit was as delicious. The garnishes, which change regularly on all of Alebrije’s

cakes, included a puddle of chocolate sauce, a cinnamon stick and flower petals.

The traditional Mexican bakery staples aren’t slackers, either. Conchas ($18 for six) got a makeover with fluorescent green and pastel blue tops. Besos ($10 for six), a type of frosting-filled sandwich cookie, came piped full of creamy layers in a rainbow of hues. Cochinitos ($9 for six) cut into chubby pig shapes (they’re sometimes sold as puerquitos) were rich and fatty with a caramelized piloncillo taste accented by a pinch of ginger.

Alebrije Bakery has a South

Side retail store on South Flores Street and also takes online orders for in-store pickup or delivery.

Alebrije Bakery, 6734 S. Flores St., 210-551-1771, alebrijesa.com, Facebook: @alebrije.sa. Hours: 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Online orders, depending on when they were placed, will be available within a day or two, with deliveries made on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Paul Stephen / Staff Pan de elote — sweet cornmeal cakes — and chocolate-topped pay de queso, a cheesecake, are among the Alebrije Bakery delights that can be picked up or delivered.