Orange Blossom: the Killingsworth window and the cardamom bun

Northeast Portland pastry fans have been slowing down on Killingsworth just to stare through one corner window, and after enough drive-bys we FINALLY went inside Orange & Blossom instead of treating the glass like a museum exhibit! This is pastry chef Marisa Kroes’s vegan patisserie in Vernon — 1612 Northeast Killingsworth, the 16th-and-Killingsworth corner — and out of all the seasonal tarts, farm-fruit danishes, and olive-oil cakes in that case, the bun we came to clock is the cardamom bun with orange blossom glaze, because it is the rare mainstay in a shop that otherwise rebuilds itself every time the farms change.

The window is doing REAL work before you even touch a door handle. Laminated dough, shiny glaze, fruit that looks like it came from a field that morning, edible flowers perched on tarts like they were styled for a magazine and then actually baked. Inside, the room leans patisserie-cute in a way we did not expect from a former farmers-market stand: vintage bentwood chairs, a burnt-orange couch that matches the name a little too perfectly, and floral wallpaper that makes the whole cafe feel like someone upholstered a garden. Kroes came out of serious restaurant pastry — including the James Beard–winning Slanted Door in San Francisco and a huge in-house program at Facebook HQ — then got tired of dessert that only worked if it was built on eggs, butter, and cream. She started Orange & Blossom as a market project in 2019, opened the brick-and-mortar in 2023, and the shop still cooks like a stand that got a permanent case: small batches, organic produce, plant-based on purpose.

The cardamom bun is the order we do not overthink. It is a soft, fluffy vegan brioche swirled with cardamom, brown sugar, cinnamon, orange zest, and vegan butter, then finished with that orange blossom glaze that dries into a pale, fragrant sheen. If they also have a lemon poppyseed bun with chamomile flowers on top, or a raspberry maritozzo stuffed with vanilla bean crème and Groundwork Organics raspberries, those are the laminated extras we add when the window already convinced us. Then we look at what the farms are doing THIS week, because Groundwork, Sunrise Organics, Baird Orchards, and Camas Country Mill are not branding footnotes — they are why a pistachio olive oil cake arrives under pistachio buttercream and edible local flowers, why a zucchini rye spice cake tastes like actual zucchini, and why a Saturday tart might be stacked with red raspberries, golden raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries under house elderflower syrup.

The cookie we take home if we already have a bun in the bag is the miso brown sugar cookie: a brown-butter-style vanilla dough with organic red miso, finished with Jacobsen flaky salt. The sourdough chocolate chip and the gluten-free buckwheat ganache brownie are the other case-stealers. Savory shows up too — a dill pickle biscuit with ranch seasoning and cheddar, a pesto pizza brioche danish with sungold tomatoes, focaccia under a curry chickpea sandwich after 11. Everything in the case is vegan. You do not have to ask. You DO have to ask if you need gluten-free, because that is a slice of the case, not the whole shop.

Morning pastry goes. That is not a vibe, that is the bake. The shop runs Wednesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and if the window is the reason you stopped the car, get in line before the window is the reason you are disappointed. Parking on Killingsworth is the usual northeast bargain. We fold it into a morning that already had us north of Fremont, and we treat the glass as research and the counter as the decision.

We keep coming back because a lot of vegan bakeries taste like a workaround, and Kroes’s case tastes like a pastry chef who rebuilt the recipes from produce up. The orange blossom glaze is not a gimmick name. The cardamom is not hiding. Take the bun. Take whatever fruit the farm sent this week. Then get out before the case teaches you that “we will come back later” is how you miss the morning pastry COMPLETELY!

More on the place page: Orange & Blossom