Muscoreil's

Bakery: Muscoreil's Fine Desserts and Gourmet Cakes
Address: 3960 Niagara Falls Blvd, Tonawanda NY
Website: http://www.muscoreils.com/
Style: Italian, North American
Price: $$-$$$ 

Another trip to Buffalo, another bakery. (And looking for this place made a Danish bakery in the Buffalo-area pop up. O.O You so know where the brother is going next time to bring me back something!)

Anyways, this was the chosen destination purely by chance (and the unwillingness to go off the usual route and find something new ;)) and, while it resembles more a banquet centre (or maybe a greenhouse) than a bakery at first glance, it seems to be more well-known for their cakes than anything else. Both their website, a visit to their bakery, and online reviews seem to indicate that this is indeed the case. None seem to make a note of the various Italian-inspired "individual" pastries and desserts offered, although they have quite a large selection of the usual staples; perhaps, though, there's a reason behind the omission. At the very least, you won't go away from Muscoreil's feeling hungry. Although the prices are, in theory, quite steep -- at around $5 per item, one would think you're at a French patisserie -- you get a lot in return. Yup, these things were huge. I've never seen an individual tart so gigantic; it was bordering on a six-person flan! And that tiramisu! D: In the latter case, especially, Muscoreil's does manage to prove that bigger isn't always better.

More specifically, the brother brought back two items, which were, believe me, big enough for five. XD The first treat was the pear frangipane ($4), which, although the shell was probably too big for the contents and made it a tad too doughy with not enough fruit, was alright. Well-cooked pears. Nice, albeit subtle flavours. Pretty good.

In this way, the big no-no was the tiramisu ($5). And "big" is literal here. This towering dessert was massive and so tall that it was difficult to eat -- or to remove the plastic support around it. This was layers of cream and ladyfingers topped with a chocolate coating -- and lots of it. In creamy desserts, the key to making them work is that the cream, well, needs to taste good and this cream didn't taste good. Whether it was because there wasn't any actual cream in it (we suspect whipped topping) or there was some sort of flavour added to it, but both taste and texture were off-putting. It was too stiff, and just didn't have that great taste you come to expect. These are one of these things that after the second bite, you really can't eat anymore. Compared to the frangipane above, which was the bakery's redeeming factor and has bumped up the rating, this was a "big" flop.

Rating: **