Chrusciki Bakery

Bakery: Chrusciki Bakery 
Address: 2872 Delaware Ave, Kenmore NY (plus two locations around Buffalo)
Website: http://www.chruscikibakery.com/
Style: North American, Polish
Price: $$$

I think this is quite possibly the first Cake Tour inspired by a commercial. My brother, seeing an ad for this bakery on the Buffalo TV station, just couldn't resist giving it a try; after all, there was something exciting about trying out a new Polish bakery -- and one that seemed to have "chrusciki" (deep-fried strips of dough coated in powdered sugar) as their specialty!

The concept, however, far exceeded the reality. In the first place, one could hardly call Chrusciki a "Polish" bakery. The only baked good that was actually selling at the moment of the brother's visit were the bakery's cannoli. Excluding the four items that were purchased (that is, every single Polish item for sale), expect your North American staples as well as a few Italian ones -- for whatever reason. And expect these North American staples to be better than anything Polish (this does seem to be general opinion online) they have to offer. As a rule, the Polish baked goods were either stale, laughably unauthentic, or both; prices were a little steep for what you got. No one was expecting grandma's old-country baking, but we were still pretty... startled.

The first purchase (not pictured) was the famous -- or infamous -- pączek (jam-filled doughnut) which the brother ate on the spot. He was greatly disappointed at finding it old, the dough stale and the icing cracked (a sure sign it's been sitting somewhere for a while), and was quite angry that they sold it at all, at regular price.

The second item was their mazurek, which was a mazurek in name only. This relatively small cake (check out the Karlik post for a photo) traditionally eaten during Easter and is usually made up of two layers of shortbread dough (at least, I think that would be the translation of it) and filled with a thick filling of either jam, chocolate or sometimes caramel. (I've encountered all three) The top is then intricately decorated with dough and icing. Chrusciki's version, for one, should not have even taken the name of mazurek; if they wanted it to be "Polish", they would have gotten away with "ciasto" (cake). This was like the bouncy castle of mazurki: bloated and puffy with a sponge cake dough that had a commercial boxed-cake feeling to it and filled with alternating layers of orange and red jam, though no one could really pinpoint what fruit it was. Sickly sweet and simply not at all Polish-tasting, my mom called it a disgrace. At the very least, the vacuum-packed plastic prevented this from getting old....

There was, however, one item that did pass with (relative) flying colours: their makowiec (poppy seed roll). This was by far the best thing we had and most certainly the most authentic. The mom commented that some old lady who still knew what was doing probably made it. ;D Certainly not the best I've had, but it still manages to beat out a bunch of the, especially commercial, GTA bakeries, both in terms of taste, quality, and freshness -- perhaps it didn't taste freshly baked, but here was absolutely nothing wrong with it and this is probably the worst criticism I had. A surprise, at any rate. Had I judged this bakery on the makowiec alone, I would have given it **1/2.

Naturally, the namesake did need to be tried. Given the fact that this is supposed to be their signature baked good, the chruściki proved to be yet another disappointment. Maybe these things don't get stale as quickly as doughnuts, but no matter if they're in a not-so-sealed contained, they do get old. And these were old. :/ Actually, chruściki/chrusty are one of these things that need to be eaten hot and fresh, dusted with sugar once they've been taken out of the oil, otherwise you get a totally different and not that great experience. The dough had lost its crispiness and tasted artificial -- at first we thought it was the powdered sugar, but then realized it was in the dough. Not sure what it was, but no one liked it.

Final verdict: obviously TV is the last place to get bakery inspiration. -__- Even if they are the only Polish bakery in the area (please feel free to contradict me; this is what the brothers tell me from their regular trips), there are better places to get baked goods in Buffalo -- at least they'll be fresher, that's for sure.

Rating: *1/2