Address: 1504 Queen St W, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Guyanese, Caribbean
Price: $
I actually got so excited about this that I had to introduce a new tag to my site for all those cakes that can be bought, but not from bakeries or from any stories for that matter: festival tents, bake sales, you-name-it. It's those one-time jewels that you won't find anywhere else; after all, sometimes nothing beats home baking! And, of course, it also gives you a chance to try something that might be a tad too specific to have its own bakery. Here's my example!
While walking along Queen St W in Parkdale (for Tibetan food *-*), a woman stopped us on the street and invited us inside to her church's bake sale. Now, how could I possibly resist an opportunity like that!?! ... And I don't think the woman expected that of all the people walking by she would nab Mimi and her Cake Tour!! ;DDD We stepped inside to the teeny-tiny church where there was a table set up with around 10 different baked
goods, all plastic-wrapped and selling for $1 each, with the exception of the banana cake. And everything was really interesting, with 90% of sweets containing coconut. Going all out, I went for the ones with the specific names, if only for the reason that I could go back and see where all these coconut goodies originated from. Imagine my surprise and excitement (okay, I'm probably the only one to get excited at such an opportunity, I'm so pathetic!) that I typed the names in and discovered I was now sampling... Guyanese baked goods! *shrieks* How interesting is that! ((and this marked my first Caribbean discovery too!!))The first purchase was "sugar cake" ($1), which can also be known as "coconut ice"; this is more a combination
of both names, since, in fact, it's pretty much very coarsely chopped coconut stuck together with sugar and water. It's rock hard, but once you break off a piece, it gets really chewy. My mom was a big fan and I also quite liked it during the first few bites. The texture is weird, but not in a bad way. After a few 'chews', however, my teeth were starting to hurt from the sweetness, my jaw from the chewiness and my gums from the sharp edges; you can't eat too much of it, that's for sure, but just a bit is quite pleasant.The second purchase was "salara" cake, which is another Guyanese specialty, although I think it was Trinidad also had a version of it. The
Guyanese one, however, is rolled up. ((yes, I'm extremely proud of myself!)) This was my favourite. It's a simple yeast dough rolled with a coconut mass; the pinkness comes from food colouring. Unlike the sugar cake, this one was actually not very sweet, but good. When hearing that they had probably three different 'coconut buns', the youngest brother got mad at me for not buying one for him, so maybe next time. ^^A great, wholly new find for me! Even after suffering some mouth injuries with that sugar cake, it was definitely worth accepting the invitation inside. So, thank you very much, ladies of the Overcomers Missionary Church and maybe I'll be in the area for your next bake sale! ;)
Rating: **
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