By Zoe Benjamin OnMilwaukee Reporter Published Oct 18, 2015 at 1:08 PM

For the ninth straight year, October is Dining Month on OnMilwaukee, presented by the restaurants of Potawatomi Hotel & Casino. All month, we're stuffed with restaurant reviews, dining guides, delectable features, chef profiles and unique articles on everything food, as well as voting for your "Best of Dining 2015."

For as long as I can remember, the prospect of a steaming plate of food excited me way more than a dessert ever could. Sweets leave me with both a physical and metaphorical feeling of heaviness; it’s almost as if society looks down on me in contempt of every sugar-filled bite. Luckily, Terrazas Bakery, 2474 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., has successfully changed my perspective on desserts in the sense that I will never feel guilt again.

Sisters Karina, Carla and Eira Terraza bake their passion, dedication and love into each cake and pastry, and it shows. A daily selection of pastries, including chocolate truffles, fruit tarts and various cupcakes are available for customers’ immediate indulgence.

I picked out a few items from their selection, with the fruit tart and tres leches cake being my favorites. The ladies at Terrazas use fresh, locally-sourced ingredients to create satisfying fruit tarts, which are filled with freshly-made custard, and topped with grapes, blueberries, strawberries and kiwis.

This small masterpiece was arguably my favorite pastry from Terraza’s. The custard wasn’t too rich – which is a problem I find with a lot of custards – and had a vanilla-flavored finish to it that lightened my life. I chose to take multiple bites of the tart, allowing each bite to include a different fruit topping.  I'd eat five of these at once, if I could.

The tres leches cake was especially interesting because it differed from most I’ve had in the past. Typically, tres leches tends to be mushy from being soaked with sweet milk. Terraza’s version of the tres leches cake involved a dense cake in which the milk mixture is poured directly to the middle; this allows it to absorb the flavor of the milk without making the whole cake soggy. The frosting is light and not too sweet, drizzled with a bit of chocolate. After cutting a slice for me, Karina poured a bit more of the wondrous milk mixture onto the cake.

I expected the usual uneasy feeling of eating too much of a good thing once I finished the tres leches cake, but found myself wanting more. For the first time, I ate a whole slice of cake (mind you, this was a fairly large slice). My first tastes of Terrazas pastries were delightful and satisfying to say the least.

The real magic of Terrazas, however, is its ability to create whatever comes to your mind. I decided to shoot the ladies at Terrazas a few cupcakes ideas, and they delivered quite nicely. I asked them to make red velvet, banana’s foster and raspberry-filled chocolate cupcakes. Each cupcake was moist and fluffy, with just the right amount of sweetness.

My favorite of all the cupcakes was the bananas foster; the cake itself was a type of banana nut bread, with a frosting that tasted very similar to vanilla ice cream. The real MVP of this glorious cupcake was the sauce that topped the cupcake. It was probably one of the best rum sauces I’ve had with any bananas foster.

All in all, my experience at Terrazas Cakes & Pastries was superb. The Terrazas greeted me with warmth and excitement, making me feel like I was the most cherished customer ever.

Terrazas went above and beyond to create a bananas foster cupcake that exceeded my expectations, making me feel as if the dessert world was my oyster. The next time you're in Bay View, don't refuse yourself happiness by missing out on some of the best baked goods offered in Milwaukee.

Zoe Benjamin OnMilwaukee Reporter

Zoe Benjamin, currently a senior at UW-Milwaukee, was raised in the South suburbs of Chicago. She is a foodie, an avid traveler and music junkie, with just the right amount of nerdiness to top it all off.

Growing up in a large Jamaican family exposed her to a lifestyle full of food, laughter and pride. Zoe’s appreciation for her family’s eclectic nature led her to celebrate the differences in others. She just so happens to especially enjoy the study of food, seeing that eating is her favorite pastime.

Ever since she was able to get on a plane by herself, Zoe has taken the liberty of traveling to every place within her reach -- whether that be the next state over, or across the seas. Her wanderlust has taken her to 10 different countries, with France being her favorite. Nothing excites her more than French food and wine. Zoe hopes to absorb and share as much culture as she can so that the world may become that much more accepting of all the bountiful diversity in the world.