Bobcaygeon Bakery [Mimi's Cake Tour X Butter Tart Tour]

Bakery: Bobcaygeon Bakery 
Address: 9 King St E, Bobcaygeon ON 
Website: http://www.bobcaygeonbakery.com/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$

A little recap: So, some absolute genius at Kawarthas/Northumberland Tourism created the Butter Tart Tour: a "tour" (rather, several smaller tours) of 40+ local bakeries, cafes, markets, and other businesses making and baking their own butter tarts. Participating locations are spread out all over the county, from farms, to small towns, to Peterborough  itself, and are marked with a Butter Tart Tour logo (left) in their window and, surprisingly, no butter tart is alike. On the most recent "tour", I tried five bakeries in five towns and butter tarts (with some extras along the way) were purchased for the big challenge: five butter tarts, all at once.

Second place: Bobcaygeon Bakery. Actually, to be fair, it should be said that one person thought that these guys made the best butter tart. At any rate, it was a very close one.

Bobcaygeon Bakery was a sort of accidental find as it's not listed on the Butter Tart Tour website as a destination (hence the unknown number), but as they had an official sticker on their window, a visit was required. And this turned into a very good thing.

By appearance alone, the top two bakeries seem to set themselves apart and everyone seemed to know, just by examining the tart shells and filling that the two would be neck and neck. Bobcaygeon prides itself on taller folded shells which means you get a generous heap of filling. For the butter tart, this butter tart filling was so good! You have every single component of a perfect butter tart filling: the nuts, the butter, the hint of maple syrup and that froth on top.... A more substantial shell compliments this larger amount of filling so well and then there was the butter bomb. Ha ha I don't even know what it was... it's like you're eating it and in the middle you have this softer centre and all of a sudden you get this jolt of butter. Amazing. *-* It really was tough, but I'd say first place did have the better shell as this wasn't as flaky as I would have liked it. Of course, it beat three of the competition, so it was still up there.

In addition to this, the bakery seems focused on tarts, all with the same tall, folded shells. Others included the pumpkin tart with its delicious spiced filling and a dollop of cream on top; it was miniature pumpkin pie done right (which seldom happens, so I was pleased)

Also, there was the Fern tart, a Scottish-Canadian semi-classic. I love Fern Tarts. ^^; They resemble Danish/Swedish mazariner with their almond filling and small layer of berry jam at the bottom of the shell. This version was very tasty: I do like their shells and the almond/icing/jam combination was really good. My only minus: the coconut centre. I just don't think it matched at all. I'm not that big a fan of coconut; it's great in Portuguese baked goods, but here it was over the top, especially as the tart was busy enough with the icing, almond, and jam.

The verdict: it was difficult to make a decision between the top two places but it had to be done. Still, Bobcaygeon is a fantastic bakery way up there in the rankings.

Rating: ***1/2