Dragon's Delight Recipes & Inspiration

For those who scower the internet , you might know the guy who says; take a walk with me(the vibe im setting)… and learn about my early life as an apprentice baker when I was 14.

First a little bit about him.

My grandpa Juan Mercado Raya hailed from Tamaulipas Mexico in year of our lord 1929.

He became an apprentice baker at the age of 25, opened his own a few years later next to his house, he married (she was from Guadalajara Mexico) and raised 12 kids in Brownsville TX.

For the rest of his life he ran his neighborhood bakery and would live until 86 years of age.

His wife passed when she was 65, she had a diabetes and an infection that went south really fast, I was 9 when I first met and buried her in the same year.

My grandpa in his lifetime had gone through 2 cancer therapies and survived, I was there for them both. He took a small break and closed his business for a while but continues once he was better and in remission he baked again.

I didn’t get to say goodbye, family issues for me at the time and college was in the way. Plus being in San Antonio was a pretty far drive to see him.

I will always cherish the first time he showed me how to make cookies, pies for Thanksgiving, cakes and his town reputation for donuts.

He never changed his recipes to lower quality ingredients, he never even changed his price, 10 cents for each piece of bread, cookie, cake and donut. His pies I think were $5.

I honor him by baking to this day, he showed me a foundational skill set at such a young age, his perseverance for hard work and his integrity to do best by his fellow neighbors and the surrounding community.

He is a forgotten piece of history, an unsung hero for many that he gave free pan dulce to, and even some of my friends I met in high-school still live in that neighborhood.

To this day they remember the smell of his freshly fried donuts and baked bread on the way to work, school and home.

His original dough cutter I still use to this day.

I took this photo of him while staying at his house, my family had financial issues at the time and we were there for maybe 6 months to a year.

My grandpa was a silly person, liked to make faces, fart jokes and drink Corona with a lime.

He is buried in Rose and Lawn Memorial Cemetery in Brownsville TX

His home is the red brick, his bakery the white house in Brownsville TX.

So here I am coming in from school swim practice (after school until 6/7p), getting home (about 7,730 sometimes 8p) from an already long day.

What most people didn’t know at the time… I was getting up every day at 4a to bake with my grandpa.

It started off as a dare, he said to me, “since I was young and trying to learn a trade to have enough money, raise my kids, feed and clothes them, I learned how to bake.”

He also said with a stern face, ” I get up at 4a without fail every day.”

I basically said “challenge accepted.”

He stared at me thinking I was joking. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t know a lick of spanish and he wasn’t sure about anything he said in English was right. But we understood enough.

I live in his house for a while, took up one of the rooms, my parents took another, we had moved from Corpus Christi (shout out to Selena!) Because my grandma had recently passed at the time, my mom reunited with her family and wanted to be closer to her dad.

Honestly I was bored, new town, no friends, had nothing better to do, but to get to know him. Learn what he’d been doing most of his life up to that point.

I think he put up with me because I wasn’t an annoying kid, I was shy and lonely.

I’ll never forget how he showed me to make cookies without a cookie cutter, how to cut cake without a knife, mix frosting by hand, crimp a pie crust by finger, flip donuts from a hot fryer by hand and also glaze them by hand.

We made hundreds if not thousands a week. Every time especially during colder seasons, I can still smell the natural gas heating up those giant industrial ovens.

To measure his flour and other dry ingredients, he used a weighted system with 2 plates, these hockey puck weights would be in grams and the scale much like the one at the doctor’s would have a marker in the middle. On the other plate (think liberty of justice) would be a bowl, once the scale leveled, his weights would even out, and his dry ingredients were measured out.

Besides his ovens, his mixer was the only piece of mechanical equipment in the back end. It was the 50lbs bowl with 2 knobs, push or pull to start and stop, turn to mix, slow medium or fast. With whisk and dough hook attachment.

Surrounding the back walls, wall to wall were his racks for cooling hot pan dulce, he had stacks on stacks of pie crust metal containers, sheet pans and flour 50lbs bags.

His donut fryer, just a giant deep square of metal filled with grease about 1 third of the way and a flat grill grate with a upside down U shaped handle across. This grate was used for placing in and removing the donuts from frying to draining off excess oil.

With a small slender dowel he would flip each donut individually to fry evenly. Once we mixed the frosting, chocolate and vanilla glaze by hand, we would then dip each donut by hand. Placing them on a sheet pan to cool and frosting to dry.

The vanilla donuts were hung up on that dowel by his window sil and small biscuit pan, he didn’t make many because mostly people wanted his chocolate glazed ones.

When it was about 630a or maybe 645a I would take my “payment” of a bag of donuts or cookies or cake, walk to school (Porter High) and treat my friends for breakfast or lunch time. Sometimes I’d eat them on the way too.

Once I told everyone that he was my grandpa, they all knew him, all would savor the bread he baked, the home grown feels you get with a fresh pie for Thanksgiving (he made pumpkin or apple).

And if you didn’t have a dime, he’d still give you a free one to go…

Me at 14, yes I loved my green contacts 

My grandpa’s family heirloom, original donut cutter, he only ever owned one.

My first time baking sweet bread when we moved to CT in 2018. At Wickham Park, for Nates work picnic. So many people loved the cookies. They’re called poloronez. Translates in a way, The Cookie of many faces.