Springfield baker preserves Mexican heritage through homemade breads, pastries

After checking on a batch of conchas in the oven, Lupita Hernandez pulls out a handmade recipe book she made when she was 12 years old. Handwritten recipes and photos cut from magazines sit on yellowed, lined stationary. This delicate book represents the start of Hernandez's passion for working magic in the kitchen.

Hernandez is the owner of Sweet Pieces, a business she operates from her kitchen. Each week, she makes homemade breads and pastries that she sells at the Farmers Market of the Ozarks and El Cafecito, a new Latin coffee shop in Springfield. Her specialties include conchas (sweet bread rolls), churro cookies and birote, the crispy bread necessary for tortas ahogadas (baguettes often filled with refried beans, carnitas, onions, cucumbers and a red sauce).

Growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, Hernandez began cooking around age five, learning from her aunt. Around the same time, she began saving money to purchase her first set of piping tips, used to decorate desserts, which she learned from her father. Hernandez's love for cooking and baking have been constants throughout her life, but she didn't always think about pursuing them as a career.

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Hernandez received a degree in accounting from Universidad Guadalajara Lamar in Guadalajara and worked as an accountant for 10 years. After a decade in the industry, her husband, Ivan, inquired about her happiness.

"I remember one day he just (asked) me, 'What is (your) most favorite thing you want to do?' and I said baking," Hernandez recalled, looking to Ivan with a smile.

Hernandez began taking cooking classes on the side, but when she became pregnant with her eldest daughter, she decided to take a step back. Ivan thought otherwise.

"One day, he tricked me," Hernandez said. Not long after their daughter's birth, Ivan took Hernandez to the Institute of Cuisine Isima, which offers a gastronomy degree, where students learn about Oriental, Spanish, German and Mexican cooking along with confectionary, baking and chocolate. Upon arrival, Ivan encouraged Hernandez to check things out. When she wasn't around, he enrolled her, which came as a complete shock.

"He worked in the mornings and I went to the school in the afternoons for a whole year, and I (had) my baby, one year old," Hernandez said. "It was interesting and complicated."

About 10 and a half years ago, the Hernandez's moved to Springfield from Guadalajara because Ivan was offered a software engineer job at O'Reilly Automotive. Hernandez said she spoke no English when they first moved to Springfield, but she enrolled in cooking classes anyway.

When Hernandez started Sweet Pieces in July 2021, she focused solely on decorating sugar cookies and cakes, but then she began to branch out, baking traditional Mexican breads and pastries.

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"(I) was very scared because my baking style is Mexican style; it's different to the bread here or the things here in America," Hernandez said about first selling at the Farmers Market of the Ozarks. "I tried to combine both cultures, and the people love it."

Since she began working with El Cafecito, Hernandez has been busy. For the coffee shop's opening last week, she made 40-50 churro cookies and 200 conchas, filled with both cream cheese, jam and Nutella.

When asked how many hours a week she bakes, Ivan said "all of them," with a laugh.

"Sometimes, when it's time for the farmer's market, I start at 6 a.m., doing the dough and waiting for it to raise, then I do other things — (take) my kids to school, pick things up, but about 10 p.m. at night I finish," Hernandez said.

Aside from the large batches of churro cookies and conchas she makes each week, Hernandez's true specialty, unique to the area, is birote. Well-made birote is determined by its crunchy exterior, soft interior and ability to "drowned" in sauce without getting soggy.

The key to making successful birote is humidity. Hernandez said the humidity in Missouri is similar to the humidity in Guadalajara, which aids in her baking.

The history of birote in Mexico dates back to 1864, when Belgian Camille Pirrotte came to Mexico with the French Army. A baker, Pirrotte taught the locals how to make French bread, but no yeast was available. So he left the bread out to ferment, producing a sourdough, Hernandez said. This method proved sufficient and the locals began to pick up on the technique.

Following the conclusion of the second French intervention in Mexico, Pirrotte stayed in Guadalajara and opened his own bakery.

"His name was Pirrotte, with P, but the people couldn't say the name, so they started saying birote," Hernandez said about the origin of the bread's name.

The Hernandez's became permanent residences of the United States about three years ago. When looking to the future, Hernandez said she is interested in expanding Sweet Pieces into a larger space, outside of her home. For now, orders may be placed through the Sweet Pieces Facebook Page at facebook.com/sweetpieceslupita.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Springfield baker puts twist on traditional Mexican breads, pastries