The patisseries where Kubidoce operated, in Olhão, changed hands six months ago, but the brand created by Filipe Martins has not disappeared and has reinvented itself. The cakes and bonbons that were the delight of many in the Algarve at Christmas are now healthier and, some of them, gluten-free.
Filipe Martins, the creator of Kubidoce, felt «the desire to do something new. I needed a break. Whether professionally or personally, I needed new challenges. As soon as I sold the stores, I went outside to study. I had training in Barcelona in this area of healthier pastry, which already interested me. Then people started asking and we said: let's go there again», he told the Sul Informação.
Currently, Kubidoce works behind number 118, on the EN125, which crosses the city of Olhão. Still lacking a patisserie space per se, Filipe Martins and his collaborators work in a kitchen, which has a small counter, and produce delicacies to satisfy orders, which do not stop, especially during this Christmas season.
There are Christmas trunks, king cakes or castle cakes, but which, according to Filipe Martins, «are not so bad», because the ingredients are chosen “by hand”. “We are, for example, using brown sugar, which is healthier. It is less processed, has 98 nutrients, while white sugar has zero. We use less processed products, with longer fermentations, which are not so bad».
Although a large part of what is produced in this new chef-pastry space is gluten-free, even “when we use cereals, we are using those that are ground by millers, in stone grindstones. They are not heated, the endosperm and germ are not removed. Thus, they keep all their characteristics. Sometimes there is controversy with regard to gluten-free products, because in the past there were no intolerance problems and now there are. The problem is not gluten, which has always existed and we have always consumed, the problem is industrialization. In the past, cereals took three months to grow and now they take 15 days. The problem is there».
Filipe Martins explains that the objective of this renewed Kubidoce «is not to make a patisserie for celiacs. We want to make pastries that can be enjoyed by everyone", not least because "the taste of what we make is very good and doesn't do much harm. Nowadays, more than just worrying about the caloric issue, we need to know the origin of things. For example, we have abolished margarine. We only use three types of fat: cocoa butter, butter and oil».
The results have been positive, since “we have had clients with intolerances, celiacs, consuming some of the things we are doing and having no reactions. Why? Because fermentations are longer».
Even the bread that Filipe Martins is producing, «is how it used to be. Yeast has that smell that was characteristic of the bread that was made by our grandmothers».
Soon, there is the opening of a pastry shop, still without a defined location. «I hope to open in March, everything is underway. It will be a healthier pastry, which will also serve natural juices. I'm going to discover everything again», he adds.
This type of author's pastry, or good gourmet food, which «looks to be innovative, but going to the roots» does not have «the same price» because the ingredients used by Filipe Martins are expensive.
However, explains the pastry chef, “I prefer to sell more expensively, but giving something that is tasty and doesn't do so much harm”. As an example, a king cake “without those candied fruit, full of sugar and which almost no one eats”, costs 18 euros a kilo.
The price doesn't seem to keep customers away, who continue to look for Filipe Martins' work, despite the fact that the promotion of the current production space has only been done “by word of mouth” and through social networks.
“I have old customers and new customers coming here. For now, I don't want to have too much trouble. I want to take a break from the hustle and bustle. I want to do what I want and what I like, for those who like what I do», he concludes.
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