Danish Home Bakery [International Correspondent]

Bakery: Danish Home Bakery
Address: 1155 101 St., North Battleford SK
Website: n/a
Style: Canadian
Price: $

Amazing cream cheese icing!

I thought it weird/funny that, of all places, North Battleford is home to two "Scandinavian" bakeries down the street from each other: Danish Home Bakery and Skandinavian (sic) Home Bakery. The second looked closed and it was only when we were driving away that I saw someone go in, so it was open after all. Oops. [editor's note: I hate everyone. ;__;] We did go to one, though.

Danish Home Bakery is pretty much Danish in name only. I have to say I was getting pretty excited myself about Danish baked goods, but I can't say I was surprised to find more Canadian classics such as cookies, brownies, and those other danishes. You know, the usual bakery stuff. Cream horns and florentines are probably the most "unusual" of the bunch. They had a quite a bit of gluten-free stuff too, though nothing that looked worth trying if you're not gluten intolerant.

This was good too...

The cinnamon buns, though, were amazing. I love cinnamon buns with cream cheese icing; this is my favourite type and I consider myself a cinnamon bun connoisseur. When I saw the huge layer of thick yet fluffy icing, I knew I had to have this bun. Amazing.

We also got a chocolate-dipped florentine (is that right?), which was also pretty good. Good crunch, liked the chocolate on one side, and I liked the nuttiness and caramel crunch-like texture and taste to it.

I have to say this bakery was a highlight of the trip, even if it wasn't exactly "Danish". At the end of it all, rural Saskatchewan (well, none of the towns were that big) probably had some of the best bakeries on this trip.

Rating: ****

Wolfe Island Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: Wolfe Island Bakery & Restaurant
Address: 311 Queen St, Kingston ON 
Website: http://www.wolfeislandbakery.com/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$ 

Not sure if the original location on Wolfe Island is still around, but the one is Kingston is gone. One less bakery in the city....

I can't believe I never thought of this before; really, it's almost unthinkable and so stupid of me, but on a recent trip to Montreal, it dawned on me that I should be doing Cake Tours along the way. Of course, in the past several years, I'd taken the bus/train, thus making en route Cake Touring impossible, but this time, it was by car and it is by car that the most bakeries get done. :)

Kingston. This is surprisingly not only my first bakery in Kingston, but also my first real time seeing the city -- and I mean actually seeing it, not the train/bus station or the plethora of fast food places on Division St. For such a sprawling place, there really aren't that many bakeries! I mean, Kingston is not that small, but there seem to be few bakery options (at least when you search online)?!?

Because they claim to have Kingston's best butter tart, this was something I had to see for myself. Specifically the pecan variety. (around $2.25; I paid $4.55 for two items with tax; there are no prices listed, only select items are labelled) There always two components to a successful tart: the shell and the filling. The shell was Wolfe Island's downfall: it was simply too thick, resembling more a pie bowl. It was hard and overpowering; the tart on the whole was doughy. Curiously enough the tarts on their website photo aren't nearly as fat. The filling was also too hard; even when it's not supposed to be runny, there should be a certain softness to it. This was too dense. Alright on its own, but with the thick shell, it was slightly disappointing.

Same for the cinnamon bun. It was less grown and fluffy than your usual varieties. It softened up and got more gooey when heated and had a nice drizzle of icing over the top, which was nice. Perhaps slightly too flat since it exposed and dried up the cinnamon parts. Stuffing that all into your mouth, the taste was pretty good, but not the best.

All in all, Wolfe Island was okay; the baked goods were tasty, but at the same time nothing stellar. A safe bet in the fairly arid Kingston bakery-desert. :P

Rating: **1/2    

Nougat Bakery

Bakery:  Nougat Bakery and Delicatessen 
Address: 600 Queen St S, Kitchener ON 
Website: n/a
Style: Polish, German 
Price: $$ 

I tried Nougat while at the St Jacob's Farmers Market one Saturday (at which I got so many baked goods, I couldn't even cover everything! *-*); they have a booth in the secondary, smaller hall and while they have a selection of German baking classics, such as Bienenstich, the undeniable look of poppy seed buns, walnut rolls and almond rolls gave this away as being Polish. Not that that's a bad thing, especially when their poppy seed baked goods (always the most important :p) do look of better quality and higher poppy seed content than usual. I mean, just look at that fantastic glaze and pretty folding. :)

Mmm... poppy seed...

Having already enough yeast baked goods (cinnamon buns, another poppy seed strudel...), I opted instead for the poppy seed bun. Some items were priced and some were not. The poppy seed roll was $4 and I thought that the bun could not be too expensive given the cost of the slab. As such, I found $2.50 a little too much in sheer comparison... until I ate it. :D Mmm... followed by a not-so stellar poppy seed strudel, this was amazing and I could have easily traded in that aforementioned strudel for a bunch of these buns. Fantastic, slightly atypical poppy seed filling that fit somewhere between the usual Polish and German mass. Delicious icing poured generously on top and soft, tasty dough in between. Mmmm.... so good!

St Jacob's is already home of superb cinnamon buns and apple fritters, so adding Nougat into that means needing to come with a full wallet and an empty stomach. ;D

Rating: ***1/2

The Tempered Room

Bakery: The Tempered Room
Address: 1374 Queen St, Toronto ON 
Website: http://www.thetemperedroom.com/
Style: French, European 
Price: $$$ 

The Tempered Room, with its rustic wood benches in the window and minimal signage, is easy to walk past; perhaps you might not even realize afterwards that you've just missed a patisserie. I might be guilty of that, unless this bakery with its displays shoved deep into the store is fairly new and I simply didn't notice it when I was in the area more than a year ago. I'd at least like to see it that way. .__.

Anyways, although the bakery on the whole is fairly large, the area with all the baked goods is rather small, as is the selection. I believe that they don't bake most/all of their breads, but their pastries are homemade and feature a rather limited variety of petite (and I mean petite) pastries, dainty enough to fit on one finger, a few "larger" tarts, and about 4 types of French dough goodies. At the counter, they also had a basket of chouquettes (mini puff pastries; 6 for $2), but they only had four left. All items are labelled and priced.At a glance, I thought the elaborate pastries (minis and tarts) really small (and quite expensive for the size), even in comparison to other French bakeries. I was intrigued by some of the small pastries (like one with green tea powder), but I could not see it being worth it.

As is always the case, the most bang-for-your-buck items was the French dough. In this, however, there is little variation between one product to the next. Obviously, this is a small operation which doesn't bother me at all, but, for example, I was a little disconcerted that all the baked goods, with the exception of the plain croissant, had big chunks of dark chocolate in it. I'm not a big chocolate fan and would have really liked an option without chocolate (something with fruit, for example -- it was the season for local peaches and strawberries) or at least something that wasn't so... chocolatey. :P

In the end, I settled for the bread pudding with dark chocolate chunks ($3.75). It looked like the chocolate was only on top, but there was a lot of it on the inside. Wholly unnecessary, in my opinion, but besides that: this was one giant mountain of bread pudding. I happen to like bread pudding and this was... well, without exaggeration, this was the best bread pudding I've ever had! *-* Yes, the dark chocolate wasn't needed and made it a little too sweet when you got a chocolate pocket, but wow. Big chunks of rich, buttery dough, slivered almonds -- enough said. I heated it up as recommended and my mouth is watering just thinking about it. The Tempered Room has found another fan. :P

Rating: ***1/2

Gunn's Bakery [International Correspondent]

Bakery: Gunn's Bakery
Address: 247 Selkirk Ave, Winnipeg MB 
Website: http://www.gunnsbakery.com/
Style: Jewish, Eastern European 
Price: $$ 

[The Great Canadian Cake Tour is back for another exciting year! This time it was a road trip from Toronto to Calgary that got me even more bakeries from Alberta and northern Ontario as well as some off-the-beaten-path bakeries through Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Some good, some not so good and all those in between. I know I'm itching to get started, aren't you? :P Thank you to both brothers for supplying me with bakeries, reviews, and the occasional baked goods brought back to yours truly!]

The (Splenda) strudel... -_-

In "gritty" north Winnipeg, there is the long-established Gunn's bakery, featuring a large selection of Jewish and Eastern European baked goods, both sweet and savoury. These include strudels, poppy seed buns, bagels, knish, etc.

We noticed the poppy seed cake, but it was too big, especially when we were kind of getting tired of baked goods at this point [what? but there's no such thing! ;___;], so we opted for other baked goods. The first item was an apple and cranberry strudel. I was lured in by the fact that they said it was no sugar added without noticing that it was with Splenda. I felt angry and disappointed afterwards; I didn't see the need to put Splenda and just wanted something without sugar and with the natural sweetness of the fruit. The strudel was cold and not so fresh. The dough was kind of soggy. The filling was alright; overall, it was okay.

Apple jack

The other item was an apple jack. We noticed only after we paid that the bakery had kefli (a hard dough with jam in the middle) which I would have liked more. The apple jack was okay and tasted like it looked: a log of dough with apples. Seeing that we were pretty much waiting all trip to come here (we went to Winnipeg on the way there, but left too early in the morning for anything to be open), Gunn's disappointed. It was.. okay.

Rating: ** 

Caledonia Bakery

Bakery: Caledonia Bakery 
Address: 1492 St Clair Ave W, Toronto ON
Website: n/a
Style: Portuguese 
Price: $-$$

Although this area is called Corso Italia, there are in fact more Portuguese bakeries in the neighbourhood than Italian ones. Out of the many options, there is Caledonia Bakery, somewhat separated from the commercial strip of shops and, both for pedestrians and driver, rather a nuisance to get to. Parking can get scarce, as it shares its four stalls with the car wash directly behind it. Once inside, the bakery actually looks bigger than their selection. Sweets are only located on one side of the large L of glass cases and counter tops. They were particularly lacking, on a fairly busy Saturday afternoon, the typical baked goods you'll find in any Portuguese bakery. Yes, they had the usual cake slices, nadas (custard tarts), but as I'm particularly fond of the baked goods, I had a hard time deciding on what to get. Gone were my usual coconut and custard buns, but my interest was instantly piqued with this gigantic coconut ring.

It's huge! It's flaky! It's the coco-ring!

It took a couple blank stares, a whole lot of confusion on both sides, and two workers to figure out that I wanted the coconut ring (is there is a special name for this? Is it not a ring coated in coconut and stuffed with it too? O.o I thought it was pretty self-explanatory, even if I am the oblivious (i.e. non-Portuguese) buyer...), but I got it! ($8) I was actually complaining that very day following a trip to a French bakery that the reason I'm not too into Portuguese baking was because the dough, unlike French dough, is always too bready and really dense. It's often little more than a slightly sweetened chunk of white bread, sometimes with not even enough filling to make it exciting. I say this now because Caledonia seems to disprove it all; their coconut ring (I persist with my name, even though it's wrong :P) was by far the best Portuguese dough I've had! I feel like this is what others are aspiring to; this are Portuguese baked goods as they should be. Caledonia's was a variation of classic French dough: multi-layered flaky dough with delicious glaze and coconut on top. Crack open the top (and bottom, which was equally good) and you have soft, fluffy dough folded with equally distributed coconut, so you had it with every bite and, it being so huge, you got a lot of bites out of it. ;) This was so good and easily one of the best Portuguese bakeries I've sampled!

Rating: ***1/2

Pain Perdu

Bakery: Pain Perdu 
Address: 736 St Clair Ave W, Toronto ON 
Website: n/a
Style: French
Price: $$ 

Several weeks ago, I was once again on St Clair Ave, to try out some other bakeries in this bakery hot spot. The first time I was here, I actually walked past this petite bakery and light lunch spot without noticing it was a bakery. It was only when I was returning on the opposite side of the street that I realized "hey, there was a patisserie there!?!?"

My affinity for French baking made this is a must-visit this time around, although the "boulanger" is perhaps more fitting on the outside than "patissier"; in truth, Pain Perdu specializes in rustic breads and even their baked goods focus more on viennoiseries, variations involving flaky French dough, than, say, tarts and tortes. If you are fond of French dough, you'll find your typical croissants and pains au chocolat along with more unique items stuffed with raisins or sweet cheese.

Cinnamon + buttery dough = yummy combination

A fan of French dough, but not a fan of raisins (hey, just being honest ;D) I was intrigued by their take on the cinnamon bun ($3.15). I love cinnamon buns; they can range from gooey to doughy, but a cinnamon bun done right is a good thing. :) This one, I admit, smelled like burnt toast... or 'browned' toast if putting it nicely. This was a little concerning, but unravelling this cinnamon spiral gave me a multi-layered, chewy dough with a flaky outside and soft inside, rolled not too overwhelmingly with cinnamon. Oh, and that delicious buttery flavour! *-* Once in the middle, where it was at its softest and most cinnamon-y, I found that I actually preferred the browned outer edges; it was there that that delicious flaky French dough was at its best.

Overall, a great spot for rustic French baked goods (as opposed to fancy creations); a wee bit too toasted, in my humble opinion, but tasty nonetheless. ^.^

Rating: ***

Sweet Sammie Jane's [International Correspondent]

Bakery: Sweet Sammie Jane's 
Address: 701 Park Ave, Rochester NY 
Website: http://www.sweetsammiejanes.com/
Style: North American 
Price: $$ 

We were in Rochester one weekend for a road trip and I was kind of ordered to get at least one bakery from Rochester (especially when I don't think there are any reviewed yet). We were driving down this street with stores and I spotted this bakery.

From the outside, Sweet Sammie Jane's looked like your standard, traditional bakery. For example, cookies, brownies, cakes, etc. I thought that was alright, but once inside we realized it was pretty much a cupcake shop. I don't like cupcakes and I know the Cake Tour doesn't do cupcakes either (editor's note: indeed ^^;;), but I didn't feel like just leaving and I spotted that they did have a few other items, like macarons. So, I thought I could try some macarons and macarons are something I like, so it was two in one.

Their macarons were fresh and they had a selection of both classic and interesting flavours. We got seven different flavours (though I don't think I remember all of them): there was passion fruit, raspberry, blueberry, salted caramel, and something like pop rocks/candy (the one that looks like it has sprinkles in the cookie) and I forgot what the last one was. Lemon? Crunchy and soft cookie and a thick ganache filling. The more traditional, fruity flavours were better; I didn't like the candy one and the salted caramel was a little weird. These tasted like "good" macarons, as they should, but I can't say they were spectacular either.

Rating: **1/2

Uncle Tetsu's Matcha Cafe [RIP]

Bakery: Uncle Tetsu's Matcha Cafe 
Address: 598 Bay St., Toronto ON
Website: http://uncletetsu-ca.com/
Style: Japanese 
Price: $$-$$$

In the running for best logo ever ^-^

NOTE: This is not for the cheesecake. Not a frequenter of the area, I'm still waiting for the chance when the line isn't snaking around the corner. :( Look out for it in a future review!

A regular baked good "supplier" for the Cake Tour was in downtown Toronto one hot day a few weeks ago and decided to attempt the famous wait for Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake. Actually, he walked by earlier in the day and heard people commenting that it wasn't so long and... thought he'd come back later. Big mistake. He returned, waited two rounds, and gave up, instead opting for the "Matcha Cafe" directly next door, which at the time only really had fed-up people from the line. That should change now that the Matcha Cafe is supposed to carry green tea (!) cheesecake as well. Expect to wait in both places now; that is, until the novelty will eventually pass.

*melts*

At the time, however, there were no cheesecakes and, besides a small selection of matcha drinks and frozen treats, all the matcha cafe really offered in terms of baked goods were madeleines ($2.22; buy 3 get 1 free) with either plain green tea powder or green tea and red bean filled. I could settle for that. :P I love madeleines and finding fresh-baked ones aren't easy. These ones at Uncle Tetsu's were fantastic, even if they don't conform to the traditional shell shape -- perfect spongy texture, tons of quality matcha (my mom once baked cookies with low-grade matcha and the taste just wasn't the same) with the absolutely necessary rich, buttery taste of a good madeleine. If there's no butter, there's no point eating it. ;)

I love Uncle Tetsu's as a concept; as a logo consultant (no, I'm actually not, but could be), this place gets two thumbs way up. It is so amazing! Not sure if I'd want to stand in line for that long or if it would be worth it in the end (I feel that Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake will be good, simply because it's good, authentic Japanese cheesecake and not necessarily because it's Uncle Tetsu's.), but to pop in for some green tea madeleines... you can always count me in! ^^

Rating: ***1/2