Ohlson's Bakery

Bakery: Ohlson's Bakery 
Address: 8500 Sheridan Drive, Williamsville NY 
Website: http://www.ohlsonsbakery.com/
Style: Danish, North American 
Price: $$ 

Everyone should already know what another trip to Buffalo means: another Cake Tour! Finding myself quite disappointed with the bakery selections on best-of lists (then again, this would probably to most cities; I'm a unique one ;)) I thought of doing a little of my own picking and choosing. One of the bakery options I came across was Ohlsons. Looking past the pictures of custom cakes and cupcakes (I would really wish bakeries highlighted their signature items instead; other customers, clearly regulars, were all going for the danishes...) I spotted danishes and kringles, took note of the name, and made this my first choice. I am, after all, exceptionally fond of Danish baked goods!

The one thing Ohlson's really has going for them is selection; their selection is impressive, bordering almost on huge. Several glass cases are filled with products. There are those with cakes, cupcakes and cookies; beyond that, and this is where it gets a little more exciting, there are individual cakes, an entire case devoted to danishes (available in a variety of traditional (fruit, nut) and not so traditional (sweet cheese) fillings) and large 'Wisconsin kringles', likewise in several varieties. And certainly the baked goods looked promising: no fruit-free gloop like in other bakeries!

So, for the trying there were three varieties of danishes (blueberry, cherry and sweet cheese, and a bear claw; $2.25/each). Let's start with the first: the blueberry didn't look too bad; there were whole blueberries in the fruit filling and resembled a bit of a compote. Perhaps a little too much; the same could certainly be said for the near-solid layer of icing, which was quite overwhelming. This was especially true with the bear claw... which is somewhere in there. :P And the cherry and sweet cheese was just so Eastern European! Not that that is a bad thing, of course; it's just an observation. Not being a fan of sweet cheese, I have no idea why my envoy chose this over everything else... including the kringle, which I particularly stressed. :/ The bear claw was the best from the bunch, with a filling of cinnamon and nuts. I really, really don't think it needed all that icing since it made it difficult to taste the filling, which was the best part.

The dough looked like it would be great and stand out from your run-of-the-mill bakery and well, a danish must be judged by its dough. It had a slightly flaky exterior, browned a little and soft on the inside, but in the end, all samplers agreed that a bakery should have been better; it had this commercial feeling to it which was kind of disappointing, especially judging by the fact that they must have made it from scratch.

Additionally, there was the Swedish Lace Cake ($5), a decadent chocolate cake which um, seemed to have nothing to do with being Swedish? (Perhaps it's a heavier variant on kladdkaka, a sticky chocolate cake, which the discs of dough seemed to resemble??) Well, it beats me. In truth, it was a black forest cake: two layers of dark chocolate cake with a layer of cream and cherry in the middle and topped with nice and drizzled chocolate. Insanely rich, but if that's your thing, then go for it. ;) For what it was, it was pretty good.

Overall, Ohlson's proved to be one of the better bakeries Buffalo has to offer and especially one of the best from the ones already reviewed, beating out previous European-inspired spots. The dough still didn't manage to impress, but it wasn't bad.

Rating: ***