There’s sweat pouring down my face as I watch a group of mostly Latinas walk past a table full of decadent, fall-themed donuts, pan dulce and pastries.
I’d be in shock if I weren’t in so much pain from the HIIT workout I just finished. My heart’s racing, my body’s on fire, but the wildest part is—I don’t even want the carbs. Not the conchas, not the pumpkin empanadas, not even the glazed donuts that look like they were designed by a marketing team to keep me from remembering what macros are.
That’s weird for me. Because even though this was one of the first real days of LA fall—the winds whipping my skin into a dry frenzy, mornings finally cold, daylight shrinking by the hour—I didn’t feel the usual pull of sweet bread.
According to Luis Hernandez, a certified dietician and trainer at The Camp Transformation Center in Whittier, there’s a reason for that.
“It’s simple,” he tells me. “Working out raises your dopamine and serotonin levels. Your body doesn’t need sweets because it’s already happy.”
That nearly made me spit out my protein shake. Because two questions hit me right after: Yeah, but could I be happier if I had a piece of sweet bread? And why do I crave pan dulce so much during the fall and winter months?
Turns out, the answer to both is the same.
Pan Dulce Season
The first cool breeze of October always hits me like an alarm clock I didn’t set. One minute I’m fine, tracking my calories, carbs, fats and proteins. The next, I’m at the panadería with a bag full of conchas, bolillos, and a pumpkin empanada. It’s not hunger exactly. It’s instinct. It's a memory. It’s my DNA whispering, “Cafe con pan.”
When I was a kid, my dad would take me to work with him on cool Saturday mornings at the crack of dawn. We would always pull up to a donut shop or a panaderia and grab a sweet treat. We’d sit in the car, windows fogged from our breath and cafecito, breaking sweet bread with our hands while oldies played on the radio. Now, every fall, my body remembers that ritual before my brain does. The air gets crisp, the days shorten and, suddenly, I’m chasing that same warmth in a world that feels a little colder every year.
I’m not alone in this. According to a report by the specialty magazine Commercial Baking, 36 percent of Americans are more likely to buy sweet baked goods in the fall and winter, drawn to what industry experts call “comfort flavors”: cinnamon, brown sugar, chocolate, and spice. Another national survey found that desserts top the list of seasonal foods people crave in winter months.
Part of that is, cold weather makes us want instant energy sources like carbs, but psychologists trace our cravings for sugar even deeper—to biology. As sunlight fades, the body produces less serotonin, the neurotransmitter tied to mood and calm. Sugar and carbs give a temporary lift, flooding the brain with serotonin and dopamine. In other words: a concha isn’t just dessert in October—it’s self-prescribed therapy.
“It’s comfort food,” says Hernandez. “It’s cold, the weather’s gloomy and you want to feel cozy. Sweets are a mood stabilizer. When you’re sad or stressed, they calm you down. Right now—the season we’re in—it’s perfect timing.”
At Gusto Bread in Long Beach, owner Arturo Enciso has been watching this pattern for years.
“Anytime it’s a hot day, I know it’s going to be slow,” he says. “But as soon as it gets cold, something changes. Bread just seems more comforting for people—a warm thing on a cold day. Then the holidays hit—Día de los Muertos, Thanksgiving, Christmas—and people start eating differently. It’s about celebration, about comfort.”
Enciso estimates fall and winter sales jump by as much as 30 percent.
“You can feel the mood change,” he says. “People want warmth. They want something special.”
Kathy Lopez’s vegan bakery in East LA, Soy Concha, also estimates a 30% jump in sales during the holidays.
“Yeah, you wanna cozy up and you wanna have your coffee or hot chocolate with your conchita,” says Lopez. But she also attributes the jump in sales to the fact that there are a lot more family gatherings during the fall and winter when large orders of baked goods are a go-to.
“I think in the Mexican household, we don't just eat sweets when it's seasonal, it’s definitely a morning ritual all year-long,” she explains. “But people gather more together and there’s also seasonal baked goods like pan de muerto and rosca de reyes, fun stuff like that boost our sales up more than than the usual average month of the year.”
According to Lopez, that’s why it’s important that Soy Concha sticks to traditional pan dulce baking techniques using vegan ingredients. Instead of eggs, for example, Lopez substitutes liquified garbanzo beans.
“We keep the same authentic flavor,” she explains. “Something that excites me a lot, is when I bring baked goods to, let’s say, my kids' school and people try them first without knowing they're vegan. Then after they taste them, I tell them, ‘Oh, it's vegan.’ And everybody's really amazed because there’s not much of a difference in taste, but in reality, the difference is that we don't use animal products.”
So maybe it’s not just nostalgia that makes pan dulce irresistible this time of year. Maybe it’s biology, memory, and culture conspiring in the best possible way. When the daylight fades and serotonin dips, the smell of a fresh concha can feel like an extra hour of sunlight in the kitchen.
On my drive home from the gym, I finally give in. I stop at a panadería, buy one concha—just one—and sit in my car as the windows fog again. I take a bite. It’s sweet, warm, and fleeting. My serotonin spikes. So does something deeper.
Maybe joy has always tasted like sugar and memory. Maybe that’s just what it means to be alive in pan dulce season.
