St Phillips Bakery

Bakery: St Phillips Bakery
Address: 5100 Rutherford Rd, Woodbridge ON (one more location)
Website: http://www.stphillipsbakery.com/
Style: Italian
Price: $$

Another Cake Tour brought back for me. ^^; This was the result of a trip to Vaughan Mills and, of course, it seems to be a given that going through Woodbridge means bringing back Italian pastries. I guess it also means that bringing back Italian pastries better mean you went to Woodbridge, since this is generally *the* place in the GTA for the better ones. Not always true, but St Phillips did deliver.

The last time I was driving down Major McKenzie to the highway, I spotted their other location and promised myself I'd go the next time I was there; now that's unnecessary. ;) Like a great many Italian "bakeries", this is more of a rather grand deli, with pastries and baked goods occupying one part of the store. Judging by their website alone, they seem more custom cakes than anything else; however they do have a fairly large selection of Italian pastries as well as cake slices, tarts, and other less impressive North American treats (cupcakes....) The purchaser found it frustrating that nothing was labelled or priced, because he a) wasn't sure which were the 100% Italian treats, b) he forgot how sfogliatelle were spelled and therefore couldn't recall how to pronounce them. In all the mix up, he's since forgotten how much he ended up paying. -_-

Nonetheless, he did figure out what to get eventually: one cannolo. This was one of the more notable cannoli in the GTA: nice crispy tube with a great tasting cheese filling. Similarly, there was the other cream-filled pastry made with puff pastry. This wasn't as popular and it seemed too doughy and difficult to eat -- the traditional Sicilian cannolo was certainly better.

Then there was, ha ha ha, the famous sfogliatella: layers of thin dough in the shape of a shell/leaf and stuffed with a small scoop of creamy filling. Perhaps not that much filling and the outside was a tad over-baked, resulting in the edges being rather hard and chewy. Not the best.

Finally, there was this beauty. Ah, everyone seems to know how fond I am of zeppole! *-* And too bad we didn't do another zeppola challenge this time, since this would have probably received the highly coveted golden zeppola. This was one amazing zeppola. The dough was so good: crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, this was almost cruller and that is fantastic thing. Delicious filling and so loaded with Amarena cherries that the dough underneath had gone dark red. Unlike many bakeries, you could taste the cherries in every bits -- absolutely delicious!!! One of the best I've had (because yes, I am a zeppola connoisseur ^^). 

St Phillips is thus a pretty good place; some items, obviously, seem better than others, but for those fond of their pasticcerie, it's certainly worth checking out. And get a zeppola while you're at it. ;)

Rating: ***1/2