Which Pastries to Get at Rockman Coffee + Bakeshop

Watch out – when you walk into Rockman Coffee + Bakeshop, your eyeballs (and heart) might pop out from the beautiful, bursting pastry case. Austin’s newest bakery has quickly become a favorite, and this post shares more about it!

Rockman Coffee + Bakeshop

As the rockstar baker behind the eponymous bakery, Amanda Rockman has been feeding Austinites delicious bakeries for a decade. She returned to Austin in 2015 after pastry adventures took her to New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. You may have tasted her pastries in one of the New Waterloo venues like Mañana.

Now, aren’t we lucky to get this special bakery? A place of Rockman’s own with creative pastries, caffeine and booze, and a colorful interior. There are 18 classic pastries, 4 bagels, and 9 weekend special pastries on the menu. That’s a whole lotta pastry! It’s a blessing and a curse – so much variety and so little time. I highly recommend bringing a group so you can split a little bit of everything!

And drinks! There’s coffee, there’s booze. The seating is casual but if your group gets there early enough, you could share a carafe Sammy Sunrise (mimosa) and have a really good time.

What’s in My Pastry Box

With so many options, how do I choose?! I try to get a sampling of items, a mix of classic and specialty. The main categories here with multiple options are croissant, bagel, cake, cookie, and schmear. Items like buns, cones, and turnovers are available too.

Here’s what I got.

Kouign Amann – This was a must, of course. It’s one of my favorite pastries. Rockman has a regular flavor and a seasonal flavor. When I went I believe the special was a lime margarita.

Strawberry Cheesecake Croissant (weekend special) – They do have a plain croissant but with so many flavors, it was hard to resist! This strawberry cheesecake version was great! It has dried strawberries and light strawberry glaze on the outside and cream cheese filling. The outside was a bit crispier than I like but the inside was like a cheese danish.

I’ve had the Churro Croissant on another occasion and it was delicious too. It is loaded with cinnamon on the outside and also has a cream filling.

Everything Bagel with French Onion Dip – When there’s a whole bagel and schmear section, you have to order one! I also ordered this to try to balance out my box of breakfast sweets. (This is correct logic, right?) These are tear and dip bagel/schmear situations and this combo was great! Next time I want to try the pepperoni pizza bagel.

Vanilla Chantilly Cake (weekend special) – There are two kinds of cake at Rockman. One is cake disguised as breakfast – think banana chocolate walnut cake and almond poppysead lemon cake, which are both available on the classic menu. The other is clearly cake, a party cake. This vanilla chantilly cake is excellent and of what I ordered, the only thing that would be a must-order again for my next visit, probably because there are fewer party cake options on the menu.

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookie – I typically order a chocolate chip cookie for two reasons – it’s a classic bakery item to compare and it’s my husband’s favorite. This one was pretty good. Next time I want to try the Oat Crack Cookie.

Cardamom Bun – I went for adventurous on this flavor and while good, I wish it was cinnamon. The texture and glaze were perfect though!