The Dutch Shop

Bakery: The Dutch Shop
Address: 3019 New Street, Burlington, ON
Website: http://www.burlingtondutchshop.com/
Style: Dutch (that's a no brainer! :P)
Price: $-$$

The Dutch Shop, as the name very clearly states, is pretty much your source for all things Dutch, at least in Burlington and the closest you'll get in the west GTA. Years ago, I once stumbled upon a Dutch store in Grimsby (was it Grimsby? Yes, I hope so), but this one is definitely bigger with a huge variety of goodies and great baked goods from three or four semi-local Dutch bakeries (including The Country Bakery, which will be reviewed in a separate post!!). On top of that, they've got their own in-house bakery, which looks so home-baked (this isn't a bad thing, by the way!) though, to be fair, there's not much in it besides two or three varieties of pies or fruit cakes (it was pies and one Dutch apple cake when I was there -- around $7-8), raisin breads and date and other crumble bars. I have to admit that it didn't look all that exciting and I was contemplating not getting anything at all, but seeing as this is probably one of my first trips to Burlington (ahem, especially with the Cake Tour in mind ._____.;;), I thought I'd take the almond tarts ($0.99/each) because well, I like almond tarts and I was curious how they'd live up to Scandinavian ones. ^^;;

How did it turn out? The brother ended up yelling at me... for not getting more, especially for the price! -_- These were a huge hit! The filling was much more flaky in comparison to the more marzipan-like texture of the Scandinavian ones I've had, so especially with the top browned, the centres were nice and chewy, the tart shell crisp and flaky and that tiny, off-centre dob of icing a little... brittle, but nonetheless, icing or no, these things were delicious and definitely made me appreciate Dutch baking (well, not that there are actually any bakeries around here... *sighs* if only there were) and maybe rethink another trip to Burlington. And even if there isn't much in the home-baked section, you've got oodles of other bakeries to fall back on (I'll have to get their addresses next time I'm there...) ;DDDD

Rating: ***