Eitelbach [RIP]

Bakery: Eitelbach
Address: 55 Bloor St. West (in the Manulife Centre) [no longer at this location]
Website: http://www.eitelbach.com
Style: German
Price: $$$$

[I'm not sure if this place is gone completely, as they still have a factory somewhere in North York, I believe... their website has the address, but the one in the Manulife Centre is gone. So please be aware of that! ^^]

The story of how we got this is an interesting one. We were in Yorkville before Christmas and walking in the underground mall between The Bay and Holt Renfrew when a woman passed me and was carrying an Eitelbach bag in her hand. The logo, oddly enough, looked like macarons to me and so I began to wonder if there was some fancy patisserie here that I'd never seen before and that is was *necessary* for us to go and find it. After some time wandering the little mall, we gave up and once we came back, I checked online and found that these guys made Baumkuchen, a delectable cake that I'd had twice before and I really loved. So, vowing the next time we went to Yorkville I'd buy it, I left it at that. And yet I ended up getting it as a Christmas present. ^^

I was personally hoping for the traditional, lumpy tree form, but I got one in a tin with a thick, thick layer of dark chocolate all over the cake. Considering that this is not cheap ($32 + tax/cake), I have to say that it definitely sounded better than it actually tasted. I mean, the experience itself: the fancy bag, the cellophane-wrapped cake in a tin which is in a box wrapped in red ribbon is pretty exciting, but the cake itself was disappointing.

 The signature of this cake is its many rings (Baumkuchen = tree cake; it's like tree rings ;P), but they didn't seem to bake it long enough between the layers and there was no real colour that you could see. Next, traditionally, the cake is just dough. It's really made and eaten in order to appreciate the special baking technique; alone, the dough, really dense, is delicious. Here, the focus was the chocolate and the thick layer of dark chocolate coating everything. If you love chocolate, you might appreciate this, but it was simply too overpowering. All you could taste was the chocolate and none of the dough; you're actually under the impression that you're paying more for the coating than the cake and for the packaging along with it. Sadly, without the chocolate, the cake itself was insignificant: quite plain and possessing the same amount of flavour as a, albeit dense, vanilla cake. All in all, as unique as it may be or as high-quality the chocolate coating is, this here is going to get a big NWI: Not Worth It! For $35, there's so much more you can get than this is rather unimpressive, under-performing cake.

Rating: **