Mazurek's Bakery

Bakery: Mazurek's Bakery
Address: 543 South Park Ave, Buffalo NY
Website: http://www.mazureksbakery.com/
Style: Polish, European
Price: $$

Another trip to Buffalo, another bakery. I'm really starting to like this concept! :) Mazurek's seems to be the best Polish bakery and one of the best bakeries in the Buffalo area. Or, following a couple of not so stellar bakeries from previous trips, this is what I got from finally searching 'best bakery in Buffalo.' To be sure, Mazurek's -- from 1933 (!!) -- should have long qualified as a landmark and it certainly is better than that *other* Polish bakery in Buffalo, but while it tries to be to some degree authentic, I would actually say it's leaning more towards revamped German baking than Polish baked goods with products such as "stollen" (see below), German apple cakes, etc. Of course, you can still spot some Polish classics like cakes and doughnuts, although, like the previously mentioned items, they're not necessarily authentic, although at the same time, I guess you wouldn't expect anything else from a business that was founded so long ago.

Anyways, so I received two items this time. Actually, there were three, since the brothers got two pączki (around $0.80/each), although one didn't seem to resemble a jam-filled doughnut at all. At first, we thought both were identical, but it does turn out that one just wasn't a pączek. Rather, I'm not quite sure what this was supposed to be; it was a doughnut that was cut open and stuffed with cream. More of a Boston Cream, but no one was really complaining. The second was indeed the Polish doughnut we all know and love. ;D Both were the same dough, but the latter was covered in glaze while the first in powdered sugar. I think it was simply that they didn't deep fry it enough, since there was no nice brown crust on it. In fact, it reminded me more of the jelly doughnuts that Tim Hortons, for example, sells as opposed to something European with its soft, too-white exterior, but in taste it was pretty good.

The stollen (around $7) came in a variety of flavours and the brothers took this one simply because the old man in front of them specifically asked for it. ;) They had picked the sweet cheese and jam and they themselves didn't see anything remarkable about it. Remarkable in the sense that it was not a stollen. Sorry... it had to be said. I'm a purist. ^^;; Even if you'd like to make it more European, the name "strudel" or "danish" would do the trick perfectly fine, and in fact a strudel/danish it was, resembling a larger version of the classic sweet cheese bun. In some Polish bakeries, these can get pretty doughy and you get more dough than filling, so the ratios were just right. However, one ratio was *not* right: this was way, way too sweet! The cheese filling, jam, and dough were already sweeter than it needed to be and then on top of that, you had all the icing. For those like my mom, who seem to say just about everything is too sweet, this wouldn't be too big a surprise, but no, the opinion was unanimous: a baked good of this style should not have been this sweet. Despite the name controversy, the sweetness was really the one disappointment.

Overall, Mazurek's is one of the better bakeries I've reviewed in Buffalo, but I wouldn't necessarily call it the best. Of course, more reviewing is needed, but it looks like Dessert Deli still reigns supreme.

Rating: **1/2