From the outside, 830 N. Massachusetts Ave. may seem quiet — but inside, the DOU Bakehouse team is hard at work baking thousands of sweets each and every week for some of Central Florida’s biggest brands, like the happiest place on Earth. We asked pastry chef Diana Cortes Blanquicet about how she got her start, the bakery’s growth, and the bakers’ current pastry obsession.
Diana first started baking in 2008 at a culinary school in Argentina. Baking and Pastry was her most challenging class, but also the one that inspired her to keep pursuing the sweet side of the culinary world.
In 2015, a client asked Diana to bake cookies for the coffee shops she worked in — it turns out those coffee shops were inside one of Orlando’s largest theme parks. “Back then, it was just my husband David and me, scooping cookies by hand and working out of a commissary kitchen, delivering them in our Honda Civic,” Diana says.
DOU Bakehouse has come a long way since then, growing to 18 employees baking thousands of sweets per week for theme parks, resorts, cruise lines, and more in a 5,000-sqft facility in midtown Lakeland.
Financier pops are available in flavors like lemon and blueberry or chocolate and orange.
Photo by Werlost Boys provided by DOU Bakehouse
The bakehouse specializes in European-style pastries, including cookies, French macarons, chocolates, and entremets. Diana says DOU is currently obsessed with financier pops — small cakes made with almond flour and brown butter, dipped in chocolate, and topped with ganache. These colorful treats are as tasty as they are Instagram-worthy.
Can’t wait to get your hands on one of these pastries? You can place an order online and pick it up from the bakehouse at 830 N. Massachusetts Ave. (across the way from Haus 820) to take your tastebuds on a European vacation.
