You now have a new place to buy a king cake.
Queo Bautista is selling the New Orleans-style cakes with the little plastic babies inside his new bakery, Panaderia Monterrey, in South Memphis. Just in time for Carnival season, which began January 6th.
Bautista, 46, opened his new bakery in October. Previously, he and his brother, Misael, were co-owners of Kay Bakery.
He went into an entirely different occupation after he left Kay, which is now owned just by his brother. “I was in the remodeling business,” Bautista says. “That’s not what my passion is. My passion is baking and design. And that’s the reason I came back. I stepped out for two years and I decided I wanted to come back. This property opened up and I got it.”
Bautista, who is from Acapulco, Mexico, didn’t grow up eating a wide variety of sweets. “We only had what we could afford. Homemade cookies from mama and also bread.”
His mother made “shortbread and sugar cookies. And, of course, the churros.”
When he was 16, Bautista got a job as a helper in a bakery in Mexico. But he got more involved in the business when he got a job in a small bakery after his family moved to Chicago in the late ’90s.
Bautista liked everything about the business. “The way the bread smells after it’s baked. The smell of all the ingredients. And all the sweets, of course.”
His family moved to Memphis in 2002. And in 2007, Bautista and his brother bought Kay Bakery. “We had it together until 2020. That’s when I stepped out.”
His new bakery isn’t a second Kay Bakery location, but Bautista still uses the same recipes as his brother, which are the original Kay Bakery recipes that he and his brother own. “We share the recipes together.”
Customers might not see some familiar Kay Bakery items, such as the gingerbread men, right away. “[Eventually] I’m going to get all those Anglo cookies. Like American-style baking cookies.”
For now, people can order any of their favorite Kay Bakery items, including the “regular cake” with buttercream icing, if they give him a day or two notice. “It’s a pretty small shop. Only 1,600 square feet.”
Bautista carries a lot of Mexican items, including “SeaShell bread — a bread with sugar icing on top. We got Elephant Ears. They are like sugar pastries. Fluffy. Of course, churros. We got those. And what we call the French bread. It’s like a sandwich bread.”
And they sell tres leches cake, which is made with evaporated, condensed, and regular milk.
Bautista’s clientele is different from his brother’s. “Honduras, Salvador, and Guatemala in this Winchester area. More South American population than over there on the North side. That’s more like a mix. A lot more Mexican population.”
His customers “use a lot more French bread. Like non-sweet bread rather than sweet bread. And then, of course, nothing with spice. They don’t eat any spicy food.”
His king cakes, which have to be ordered, are “made out of sweet dough. And it’s also got the color in it. The green, purple, and gold icing.”
They come with the decorations, including a pair of Mardi Gras beads. “It’s got a baby inside. I guess you can say the baby represents Jesus when he was running away from the king. Jesus was hiding.”
The baby also is hidden in Bautista’s popular Three Kings, or “Epiphany” cake, which is sold after Christmas. That cake, which isn’t as sweet as the king cake, is also round, which means “Jesus has no beginning and no end.”
The Three Kings cake isn’t as sweet as the king cake. “On the king cake, we put the icing. On the Three Kings cake, we don’t put any icing.”
And, he says, “It’s got candy on it. Like fruit candy. Papaya candy from Mexico. And then we got the figs, pecans, and cherries.”
A lot of Three Kings cakes recently went out of his new bakery’s door, Bautista says. “I made about 160 and then I sold out.”
Panaderia Monterrey is at 3127 South Mendenhall; (901) 249-7248.