How to Pair Pastries with Coffee at Safeway

A good pairing meets in the middle, where neither the coffee nor the pastry drowns the other out. Set a delicate light roast next to a dense chocolate croissant and the coffee vanishes. Set a heavy dark roast next to a plain sugar cookie and the cookie does.

So the whole thing comes down to weight. Bright, light coffees go with lighter, fruitier treats. Dark, heavier coffees go with richer, sweeter ones. Once you have that, the rest is what you feel like eating.

Safeway's bakery sits a few aisles from the coffee, so you can build the pairing before you reach the register.

Pastries that pair with each roast

Read this by weight. Roasts get bolder as you go down the table, and the pastries get richer to keep up.

The medium row is where most people live, because most coffee on the shelf is medium roast and most bakery items sit comfortably next to it. The two ends are where a wrong match shows.

Light roasts and delicate treats

A light roast is quiet. It carries fruit and acidity more than body, so it wants a pastry that stays out of its way. A lemon muffin or a berry scone echoes the coffee's brightness instead of burying it. A fruit tart does the same, the tart fruit meeting the tart coffee. Reach for a chocolate croissant here and you'll taste the croissant and little else.

Dark roasts and richer pastries

A dark roast can take a lot. It's bold enough to stand up to chocolate, deep enough to sit under butter and sugar without giving up. That's why a chocolate croissant, which flattens a light roast, comes alive next to a dark one. The bitterness of the coffee cuts the sweetness, and the chocolate meets the coffee's own cocoa notes. Cinnamon rolls and glazed danishes work the same way, since the roast has room to spare.

Bakery items that go with your morning coffee

On a weekday, the pairing also has to survive the commute. That narrows the field to what you can hold in one hand and eat without a plate.

A plain or blueberry muffin travels better than anything. A butter croissant flakes, but it flakes cleanly. A cinnamon roll or a glazed danish is sturdier than it looks, and it fits a medium roast, which is what most drip machines and travel mugs are holding anyway. Save the fruit tart and the layered pastry for a morning you can sit down.

What pairs with a latte

A latte is mostly steamed milk, so it plays by different rules than black coffee. The milk rounds off the coffee's edge and adds its own sweetness, which means a latte can carry a richer pastry than the same espresso taken straight.

Almond croissants and cinnamon rolls are the easy wins, their sweetness folding into the milk rather than fighting it. A chocolate croissant works too, since the milk softens the coffee enough to let the chocolate through. Biscotti earns its place by design, dry enough to dunk, firm enough to hold. If you want contrast instead of comfort, a lemon or berry pastry cuts through the milk and keeps the whole thing from turning heavy.

Pastries at the Safeway bakery

Most Safeway stores have an in-store bakery, which is where the croissants, muffins, danishes, scones, and cinnamon rolls come from. Selection and what's baked on a given day vary by location, so the case in one store won't always match another.

Two things are worth looking at, Gluten-free and vegan options exist at many stores but aren't in every case, so check the label or ask an associate. And if you're feeding a group, the bakery takes orders for larger trays and custom items, which beats picking the case clean one pastry at a time.

Choosing the coffee at Safeway

Roast changes flavor, not strength. A dark roast holds about as much caffeine as a light one, because roasting doesn't change caffeine the beans contain. So pick the roast by the taste you want, using the table above, and don't read boldness as a caffeine gauge.

Most ground coffee on the shelf is medium roast, which is why a Classic or Breakfast Blend is a safe pick when you can't decide. The 33.7-ounce Folgers Classic Roast alone carries nearly 7,000 customer reviews on safeway.com, averaging about 4.5 stars. Signature SELECT is Safeway's own store brand and sits alongside the national names in the same roasts. A few label details are worth a look before you buy:

• Roast date vs. best-by date. A roast date tells you how fresh the coffee actually is. A best-by date only marks the outer limit. Sealed, either bag holds up until you open it.

• Blend vs. single origin. A blend keeps one house flavor steady from bag to bag. A single origin comes from one place and carries more of that place's character. The coffee certifications guide covers these alongside the organic and Fair Trade labels.

• Decaf. Decaf is ordinary coffee with most of the caffeine stripped out. It comes in the same roasts as everything else, so it pairs the same way.

If you brew a French press or make cold brew at home, buy a coarse grind or grind whole beans yourself, since a standard drip grind runs muddy in either one.