What are your best-selling products?
This is a difficult question to answer, since all of our products sell in large quantities (if we do say so ourselves). But, if we must, the following items do go out the door faster than we can make them:

How much advance notice should I give for a special order?
In most cases, four days notice is sufficient. However, custom orders, such as wedding cakes, must be requested one month in advance. Oftentimes we must order specialty items three weeks in advance. You needn't give a month's notice to get a great cake, however: many beautiful ornaments and wedding tops are on display and available year round.

Are Porto's cakes a better value?
Indubidably! Unlike most bakeries, all our cakes are double-layered; each layer of cake is topped with a layer of filling. That's what makes our cakes richer in flavor, moister, and taller (resulting in more servings).

Do you use imported or domestic ingredients?
Both. Porto's Bakery fancies the finest from all over the world. Listed below is a sampling of our fine ingredients and their points of origin:

Do you offer special items for the holidays?
Of course! For most major holidays - New Year's Day, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Mother's & Father's Day, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas - we offer specially shaped and decorated cakes, cookies, and cupcakes. From Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve we supply freshly baked apple pies and pumpkin pies, along with Croquembouche, one of our most popular items.

Is your bread fresh?
The freshest! All of our breads and pastries are baked daily. In most cases, MANY times a day, depending on how fast they go out the door. We bake bread at least four times a day.

What kinds of icing do you offer and how are they used?
Proper consistency is the key to decorative icing. Each has unique properties making it proper for use in making the petals of a flower, the details of a border, or for covering the surface of a cake.

Which of your products is the most labor-intensive?
Cuban crackers are one of the most labor-intensive products - the complete process takes almost 24 hours! The preparation begins the night before when flour, water, and small amounts of yeast are mixed to form a first-dough (a.k.a. "sponge"). The sponge is left to ferment for 12 hours at room temperature. The next morning the final dough is prepared by adding water, salt, shortening, and flour. Using an old-fashioned doughbreaker machine, the dough gets kneaded until the proper consistency is achieved. A master baker and three assistants then thinly sheet the dough, cut the crackers, and lay them on baking sheets. The baking sheets are then placed in a proofer where they ferment for an additional hour. They are then baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. The crackers are then cooled for approximately one hour before they are placed in bags. It takes 40-50 crackers to fill one bag. This very old-fashioned process, using very little yeast and long fermentation periods, give Cuban crackers a wonderful flavor, light texture, and a long shelf-life without using any preservatives.

In European countries they are known as "marine crackers" because they keep well, and thus provided weeks of nourishment for shipping crews. Cuban crackers are best kept sealed in their original bag at room temperature and should not be refrigerated).

Like traditional American saltines, Cuban crackers can be eaten plain or be complemented by many foods. Here are some of our favorite ways to eat Cuban crackers:

What is meringue icing, and why do you use it?
Different from the meringue found on lemon meringue pie, our old-fashioned meringue is our most frequently requested icing.

Gasparini, a Swiss pastry chef of Italian origin, invented meringue and first served it to nineteenth-century French royalty. Today, there are primarily three kinds of meringue: Italian, Swiss, and French (a.k.a. ordinary meringue). Even though the ingredients for each type of meringue are essentially the same (egg whites, confectioners' sugar, and sugar), the techniques used to prepare them, and the resulting products, are distinguishable.

We at Porto's use Italian-style meringue. This Old World recipe is simple in nature, but its preparation and application require tremendous skill. This is why it is not widely used, and why our cakes are unique. Customers enjoy its no-fat content, lightness, shiny veneer, silky feel, and its ability to endure hot weather, unlike whipped toppings. Some of our most popular products, such as Cuban Cake and Tres Leches, are finished off with meringue. For the Tres Leches, the meringue is glazed with a flame using a propane torch, giving it a look and taste similar to roasted marshmallow.

What type of parking is available at Porto's?
Two-hour free public parking is available on Brand Boulevard in front of our store. Meter parking is available in the back, for 50 cents per hour. The city of Glendale has recently opened a tri-level parking structure located one

block south of our store, which we validate for the first two hours. The entrance to this parking structure is on Orange Street (between California and Wilson). Our store has a back entrance for your convenience.

What forms of payment do you accept?
Two methods of payment are accepted: cash and checks. Our checks are processed electronically. At this time we do not accept credit or debit cards.