Deri Italian Bakery

Bakery: Deri Italian Bakery
Address: 640 Bloor St, Mississauga ON 
Website: http://deriitalianbakery.com/
Style: Italian 
Price: $$

It's that time of year again! Anyone that's a regular frequenter of Italian bakeries will know what I'm talking about: it's zeppole time! :) The greatest of Italian pastries makes a comeback, often for a limited time, and I am there to cover as many bakeries as possible in the time period, hoping to find yet another "golden zeppola" out there. Lacking enough for a proper competition, I still decided to try one at my newest bakery.

I must not drive this way at all, since a couple months ago, I was driving down Bloor (in Mississauga) and noticed a plaza I had never known existed; on it was Deri Bakery. Granted, Deri is a couple of decades old at this point, and so it's been around for some time and is, in fact, far from new. Still, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find new things to review, so while in the area, I popped in here, overjoyed at the signs in the window announcing that it was zeppole time -- yes! Turns out I got here at the right time! ^^;

Deri is a typical Italian bakery/deli, just a bit smaller-scale with a limited selection of baked goods and more items located in the display cases; these include whole cakes, cupcakes, and some pastries like cannoli and, there in the bottom corner, zeppole. While most items are labelled, there isn't a price to be seen, which was a little frustrating.

Nevertheless, this zeppola ($3.50, taxes included) was of the custard variety with three stiff, half-cherry peaks on top. This being fairly standard, I didn't expect that the three chunks of cherry (totalling 1.5 amarena cherries per zeppola) on top were the only cherries in it. In all others ever tested, there are either more cherries inside or the filling is at least drizzled with syrup-like juice, infusing it with that cherry flavour I love. This was just plain pudding, quite thick and resembling the packaged stuff a little too much for it to be enjoyable. Good dough for the ring, but iffy filling made this zeppola bland. I'd been waiting all year for this and came away a bit disappointed and with my zeppole cravings unsatisfied.

Rating: **