Sweet Olenka's

Bakery: Sweet Olenka's 
Address: 23 Jutland Rd, Toronto ON (+3 locations)
Website: http://www.sweetolenkas.ca/
Style: Cakes 
Price: $$-$$$ 

Having previously only tried Sweet Olenka's ice cream, I was thrilled and excited when one brother saved me a leftover slice from the cake he got from Olenka's for a work party. Judging from the ice cream -- of which I'm a fan -- I could only expect the Haagen-Dazs of cakes and that certainly didn't disappoint! Olenka's is, I would say, first and foremost a chocolate and ice cream shop, both of which are made from scratch; decadent cakes of various sizes, including individual 'mini-cakes', are also available. The selection depends on store and day, but expect a few of the standard flavours (vanilla, chocolate, black forest) with some more original ones like lemon cranberry, Grand Marnier, etc.

The cakes, just like the ice cream, can perhaps only be likened to an overindulgent Eastern European grandmother who will feed you platefuls of food until you burst and proceed to scold your parents for starving you. They're rich. They're creamy. Don't even attempt one when you're on a diet. You might think you can get away with a small sliver of a slice or a mere sample, but one bite turns into two, and then ten, and somehow you end up having eaten the whole darn slice. ;) Olenka's is thus a guilty pleasure: you can just tell how much whipped cream and butter has been used... and somehow you've stopped caring.

No, I'm pretty sure this is not meant for two people...

Well, maybe I'll go back and start from the beginning: I had the chance to try a chocolate buttercream (I don't know what size he got: small is $25 and medium is $35) cake. Over-the-top decorations include mini chocolate balls, cocoa powder and white chocolate leaves and, for whatever reason, spoons. Cutting it open, you could instantly *smell* the chocolate coming from a super moist and fluffy dark chocolate cake and thick layers of milk chocolate buttercream in between the cake as well as smeared over the outside. Truth be told, I saw this and was no longer that interested, given the fact I'm not fond of chocolate cake. Maybe I can like a chocolate cake combined with something else (nuts, fruit, vanilla), but the double chocolate looked brutally decadent and simply not to my taste. I agreed to try the decorations on top since I like white chocolate and I thought I should really try just a forkful of the cake to see how it is. And even I, the chocolate cake skeptic, had fallen under Olenka's spell! Insanely rich with thick-like-butter cream, yet strangely irresistible.
You might as well surrender right off the bat... XD

Rating: ***1/2