Sterntaler Bakery

I’m sorry to hear they are no longer making desserts. They made some amazing marzipan rolls.
This place is owned by a friendly young german couple, I used to work next to them at the los gatos farmers market for a while. The market for wholesale bread is a tight one, I understand that they probably couldn’t last forever.

Best German bread you can get for the price in the Bay Area. I love their Laugen, especially the ones with Schinken and Kaese (ham and cheese). Not sure if they still have the one with ham.
I am also addicted to the seeded break stick and the multi grain bread. I am not the biggest fan of the sweets, but that’s personal preference, as I am used to a different regional variation. Compared to what else there is available here, they still beat that. (Also, I haven’t had the Stollen, as I make my own).
Unfortunately I have to make quit the trip to get the bread, but hey, that’s worth it! :)
Keep up the good work!

4÷10÷08 Update: Removing all stars. They are getting out of the bread business and focus full time on stollen. That really sucks. Email as follows:
We are sorry to announce that we are going to stop baking bread, pretzels, and the other fresh baked specialties you have come to love. We have changed the focus of our business and will only be producing Stollen during the Holiday Season from now on. We will be stopping all other baking activities at the end of April.
There is still a last chance to order things for pickup on the following dates:
April 11 (Friday)
April 18 (Friday)
April 25 (Friday)
April 30 (Wednesday)
As always, you can place your order by email until 2PM the day before your pickup, and you can collect your order from the pickup cabinet in the lobby at 915 Terminal Way, San Carlos any time between 7AM and 6PM, and simply leave a check for your total. Send your order to
We sincerely appreciate your business and it was an honor to bake for you. Our fabulous Sterntaler Bakery Stollen will be available online and in stores near you during the Holiday Season. We hope to see you soon!
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1÷29÷08 Update: Their multigrain rolls are getting bigger again, so maybe they heeded my lament. They accommodate at-​bakery pick ups on Fridays if you order ahead. Sigona carries their breads — probably still elsewhere, but that’s good enough for me. (The breads freeze easily: just thaw them for around 2 hours and they’re good as fresh. Don’t microwave.)
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The Peninsula is blessed with so many authentic German artisans including Dittmers and Esthers — and now Sterntaler. I’m happy for them that they have quickly come out of no where to make such a big name for themselves in the stollen business. Their pretzels are dead on authentic. Also grateful that they still make efforts to accommodate local customers who contact them for special orders. But straight forward, authentic German breads just isn’t their focus these days with their opportunities for wide distribution with coffee houses. Standard baked goods have taken a bit of a back seat. Multigrain rolls seem to be getting smaller and smaller. No new bread varieties emerging, only on the sweets side. Sigh. At least I should be grateful for what they do have.

I have a confession. For a little bit of backstory, refer back to my Mollie Stone’s review.
. Something about breaking up and unhealthy relationships, etc. Well, I’m ‘fessing up. I still go to Mollie. I went to Mollie for a bottle of bourbon and a stick of butter this weekend. I just had to. What can I say? Bad habits are hard to break.
This weekend, I’m back at Mollie’s, and lo and behold, I run into my old boss passing out samples of Stollen (that’s German coffee cake, kinda like a fruit cake, but not necessarily with fruit, and a hundred times richer and moister). Turns out in addition to being some big product/​marketing guy, he was helping his two friends, Jared and Natalia, the awesome couple that started Sterntaler Bakery, to spread the word about their bread for the day. Pretty neat!
Well, in addition to a bottle of bourbon and stick of butter that day, I also scored a Walnut German coffee cake and two sticks of bread, all of the extremely dense, rich, and moist variety. Yummmm. The breads are scrumptiously indulgent just butter spread on top, and the coffee cake is perfect with coffee or to bring to a dinner party or something. Everything looks so homey and rustic, and coming from San Carlos, it’s all super fresh. Hopefully, I’ll get to try their pretzels soon too — authentic German pretzels sounds good to me.
And as an aside, Sterntaler baked goods are sold at a few more «exes» of mine — my «Mr. Big,» Bi-​rite, and the long-​distance relationship gone awry, Piazza’s in Palo Alto (
). Or have I now taken the metaphor too far?

I bought one of their chocolate Stollen to take to a friends Oktoberfest party. It was a little pricey but weighed several pounds, so I figured it was worth the bucks.
Tried some at the party — mmm, can you say German crack cocaine cake? If you could alchemically transmute lead into butter and chocolate instead of gold it would taste like Sterntaler’s stollen. Better than most of the stollen I tried when in Europe.
I’m definitely going to have to make a pit stop at the San Carlos farmer’s market to try some of their other goods.
There is no retail store at this location.

I have not had pretzels this good since I was actually in Germany.
I swear these were the ONLY things I ate when I was there. It’s been 5 years since I was in Germany, and I have craved these ever since. I always wanted my friend to overnight me some pretzels here to CA, but I thought that was a little extreme!
At the farmers markets, they come in two sizes $ 2.50 for the large $ 1.25 (i think) for the small. The Pretzel bites are 5 for $ 1.00.
I’m just sad that my local farmers market is over this Friday.
Oh well, I guess I will just have to drive now to get my fix.

Sterntaler Bakery has the best, hearty organize German breads especially their 100% rye bread. My friends’ German parents say it’s the way they used to make bread, that they don’t anymore even in Germany.
I’m addicted to their pretzels and little pretzel pieces that they sell at various farmer’s markets. I often go to a few markets during the week and I go out of my way to the Oakland one in Temescal for a pretzel fix.
However when I first discovered them, it was near the holidays and I tried their walnut stollen at Harvest Bakery. It was completely rich and addictive. You could really taste the butter and the swirls of cinnamon still stick in my mind.
Their bread is at Real Foods and other places. I’m mentioning all of these because I want to make sure Unilocalers know and that they stay in business since it is the most fabulous bread for my gruyère and tomato sandwiches!