Sugarloaf Bakery

Bakery: Sugarloaf Bakery 
Address: 729 Queen St E, Toronto ON 
Website: http://www.sugarloafbakery.ca/
Style: Brazilian, Canadian 
Price: $$$ 

Spotting the sign and name of this bakery, I instantly, excitedly wondered if Sugarloaf Bakery was a Brazilian bakery with a very clever name. Their "non-traditional artisanal bakery" designation only served to confuse matters; personally, I would have been a lot more intrigued by "Brazilian bakery", seeing as it's certainly not a common ethnic baking variant in the city, but that might just be me. That being said, Sugarloaf is not exactly a Brazilian bakery, but more like an artisanal bakery with a bit of Brazilian flavour. Think baked goods with guava or dulce de leche, maybe some coconut, but besides that, the bakery's selection includes various types of sweet and savoury croissants, scones, brownies and cookies.

 Nevertheless, I couldn't resist the more traditional of the non-traditional. ;) I went with the beignet ($2.75): a simple, smaller doughnut ball stuffed with custard. This had tasty custard filling, much better than ones I've encountered at Portuguese bakeries, in a fresh, fluffy dough. The outside looked nicely fried, but I would have liked that golden brown exterior to have had a little more crunch to it. The softness always seems to give the impression of it sitting around for too long.

The next item up, the Pao de Mel ($3.75) looked exciting. Upon biting into it, I was a little surprised to find it was filled with a spice cake similar to a soft gingerbread, simply because I hadn't been expecting it. The chocolate and gingerbread tasted so... Eastern European. Interesting. Right in the middle, however, there was also a layer of dulce de leche. This layer added complexity and the overall taste was quite good, albeit unexpected. A bit dry, maybe, but good nonetheless and probably better value than the beignet above (though I myself preferred the beignet... ^^;).

Rating: ***