Cake and Loaf Bakery

Bakery: Cake and Loaf Bakery 
Address: 321 Dundurn St S, Hamilton ON 
Website: https://cakeandloaf.ca/ 
Style: Canadian
Price: $$

Cake and Loaf is a newer, relatively small bakeshop in Hamilton, specializing in old-school Canadian bakery staples (cinnamon buns, butter tarts, etc.) with a hipster twist. There might even be a bit of a retro vibe going for it, with the white trays and unpainted wooden shelves, serving up anything from giant Oreo cookies, homemade chocolate bars, to apple crumble and... jars of preserves. Small-town bakery meets heritage home pantry, perhaps? I'm not sure if their logo should universally apply to everything in-store; it was a little funny having "healthy" listed as one of the descriptors on the box for the generously iced cinnamon bun. At least there's now no reason against you having one: it's says right there it's healthy. ;D

One item that seemed to stand out and seems to be one of their diagonally frosted cinnamon buns. Hard, flaky dough on the outside makes it look a little like a twice-baked danish, but the effect was unique and interesting: while it didn't have your typical cinnamon bun texture, I'd say it was like a cinnamon toast in the shape of a bun. Just the right amount of cinnamon. Good frosting on top. Definitely the best thing from this place.

Less exciting was the butter tart, which like the cinnamon bun, tried to put a new spin on a great classic. Most notably the airier, flaky puff pastry shell that wrapped around the filling and then overflowed over the top. The effect, however, was kind of disjointed: the shell wouldn't cut easily (the problem with this type of dough), resulting in clumsy chunks of dough with everything inside spilling onto the plate. The filling itself, instead of having the pecans mixed in with the buttery mass, had them sitting on top. I'm not sure if this was the best way to do it: the nuts were dry and trail mix-like while the buttery mass sitting on the bottom had no texture and not enough dough to eat it with. If you got everything in one mouthful, it was good, but doing so was difficult and messy.

 Next up was the egg nog doughnut (or something along those lines). This looked pretty good and points go for appearance: chunks of spice dough perched atop a thick layer of creamy icing. This was also filled with a flavoured cream. I love my doughnuts (embarrassing confession of the day), so I was looking forward to this one; however, I wasn't fan of the dense, cake dough, which I felt matched neither the ball-shape of the doughnut nor the cream filling. An airy yeast dough, with a nice, slightly crispy exterior would have been amazing. 

In the end, I was slightly disappointed with both the doughnut and the butter tart; I felt they could have been better, especially given the fact that the cinnamon bun was well done. Good, but not the best.

Rating: **1/2