Into Each Pastry, a Dollop of Imagination

It's more than sugar and spice and everything nice that goes into each smartly packaged pastry dreamed up by Krishna Brown, owner of ShoeBox Oven, who sells baked goods at the Arlington Farmers Market on Saturday mornings. A dash of glamour, a generous dose of wanderlust and a whiff of exotic spices dress up her creations, giving Brown the inspiration to formulate magical sweets that seem lifted from the pages of fairy tales.

Brown clearly has fun with her baking, as evidenced by the way she refers to her three-month-old company as "a very tiny merry bakery" and the droll names of her treats.

There's Amor and the Samurai ($6 for nine), miniature tartlets that mix Mexican chocolate with Japanese chili peppers, the idea for which came from Brown's watching too many foreign films. There's the Champagne Chocolate ($4 apiece), which looks like your average brownie but tastes magnificent, like a moist, cakey champagne truffle. Then there are the Pao de Queijos ($6 for nine), savory biscuits filled with cheese and rolled in panko bread crumbs that are best when reheated at home. The habañero cheddar version of this traditional Brazilian puff was the ideal appetizer at a recent dinner party, its heat softened by the molten cheese. Brown's chewy molasses spice cookies, called Malaço ($6 for nine), were inspired by her desire to visit Brazil.

The pies ($8 apiece) must be good, too, because they were gone by 10 a.m. on a recent visit. Brown rotates the offerings, creating new combinations such as raspberry and white chocolate; pear and lavender; plum with white wine; and green apple topped with "fromage strudel."

She says she has plenty of practice stretching the limits of imagination from her day job as a graphic designer. "That's something I have to do all the time -- take the basic things you see every day to make them appealing and evoke a message," she says.

Despite having to pull an all-nighter each Friday (Ray's the Steaks owner Michael Landrum donates his kitchen to Brown from 11:30 p.m. to 6 a.m.), Brown chats cheerfully with farmers market customers. "It's called sleep deprivation," she jokes. "If you had seen me four hours before, I was grumpy and tired. There's nothing merry about the bakery at that point."

ShoeBox Oven at the Arlington Farmers Market,

N. Courthouse Road and N. 14th Street, Arlington. Open Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon. Call 703-549-0525 or visithttp://www.shoeboxoven.com .

-- Rina Rapuano

Freelance writer Rina Rapuano last wrote for Food about Modern Times Coffeehouse on Connecticut Avenue NW.