Highland Farms

Bakery: Highland Farms
Address: 50 Matheson Blvd., Mississauga, ON (4 other locations)
Website: http://www.highlandfarms.ca/
Style: European, Italian, Eastern European
Price: $

Runner-up for a medal standing in the Best Supermarket Bakery category, Highland Farm's huge assortment is pretty impressive. What's even more wow-worthy (well, for supermarkets and most delis, that is ;D) is that they do make quite a few of the stuff in store. As HL is essentially an Italian store, their homemade stuff naturally tends towards this (behind the glass counter they have 12/15$ (or $1.35/each) pastries including bite-sized cakes, canoli, cream-filled choux swans, and other cute delicacies ^^) although they do also bake quite a bit of the standard, North American fare (muffins, doughnuts, cookies, danishes). I don't actually go here often at all, mainly because it's really a pain to get here. Well, it's at the other end of the city, so I guess it's understandable. ^^ So, I sort of just went and picked something for everybody to try and get my post looking nice and spiffy after one visit. Great job, Mimi!! ^-^

Erm, anyways, I was really having a hard time deciding on what to take: their store-made stuff or something else. And then I saw all the poppy seed and I caved for most of the latter. :P

First up are mini-buns (3 for $1.99) in either cinnamon or poppy seed by a German-sounding bakery I'd never heard of before. I'd actually never seen this in store either, so I was pretty intrigued by these little things. The brothers ate the cinnamon ones, but the poppy seed one was pretty good with not a lot of poppy seed but a good dough, soft feel, and tasty... taste. -___-;; I'd take them again next time.

The next purchase was my poppy seed bun ($1.79, I believe) courtesy of Sweet Temptations. He he I took this because I love it. ^^ We used to buy them more often at a Polish deli we don't shop at anymore, so I missed them, although they're really at varying levels of freshness and poppy seed mass here. Sadly, it didn't taste too fresh (I went on Sunday) and the icing was a little sparse, but I still like this thing... too much, I sometimes believe, since it's not super, super good, but tasty. I'm pretty happy HLF carry them. ^^

Last pick for today is their store-baked maple and pecan danish ($1.29) which I... didn't eat. Accordingly, you won't be getting my in-depth taste analysis. ;DDDD Um, but anyways, there was apparently plenty of nuts, but not enough maple taste, although it was pretty good in taste, especially in comparison to other supermarket baking which is just not good here. Seeing as my brother ate it is a good sign, since he recently got an almond danish from Longo's and he didn't look too pleased even at the mention of it. LOL!

Verdict: in terms of standard supermarket chains, Highland Farms' bakery department is probably as impressive as it'll ever get around here. The freshness may be lacking, but the variety is pretty good and the prices are very reasonable, especially with Italian and other European goodies. If you have a lack of bakeries around you, this is a good place to just sample different places.

Rating: **