Signature's Eatery

Bakery: Signature's Eatery
Address: 16 A Manitoba St, Bracebridge ON
Website: facebook 
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

Signature's Eatery isn't actually a bakery and I spotted a more legit bakery later on, but I was lured in by the "butter tarts" sign on the outside of the building. That being said, Signature's Eatery is well, an eatery: a lunch spot/cafe serving soup and sandwiches, but they also make their own desserts. While there, this was pretty much limited to butter tarts. But I like butter tarts, so it was definitely worth trying.

Outwardly, the butter tarts looked like the ones I'm actually not that fond of. Oversized and with a very thick shell, I was afraid this would be overwhelmingly doughy and difficult to tackle. It was a bit hard to delve into, but I was surprised that all my preconceived notions were soon to be thrown out the door. This proved to be a delicious butter tart that blended all components into one yummy experience. Good tart shell (perhaps a little too thick nonetheless) with a great filling and this amazing baked butter layer on top, this is was good stuff and hey, it turned into a worthy Cake Tour stop after all. :)

Rating: *** 

Schat Bakery and Cafe [RIP]

Bakery: Schat Bakery and Cafe
Address: 26 Main St, Huntsville ON
Website: http://www.schatbakery.ca/
Style: Dutch
Price: $$ 

Note: As I'm writing this, Schat Bakery is gone. The owners retired and the bakery switched hands a few days ago, thus changing the name but hopefully, as the original owner trained the new ones coming in, a lot of the products will remain the same. Let's hope they do! I mean, I can't stand the idea of writing a review for a bakery that no longer exists, especially when it was this good. Edit: I checked out the website of the new bakery and it's overwhelmingly... cupcake. This one is being listed as a goner. ;__;

Schat Bakery is a Dutch bakery in Huntsville that offers a selection of classic Canadian goodies (butter tarts, pies, cookies) along with some traditional Dutch treats. The one thing that made this an absolute must-visit bakery while in the area was the fact that their website advertised oliebollen. Now, I have yet to encounter a Dutch bakery that sells these little balls of fried dough that just so happen to be the precursor to... the doughnut. Yup, the Dutch got there first. And I absolutely had to try them.

Unfortunately for me, oliebollen are only baked on Fridays and they weren't being baked that Friday either, though that wouldn't have helped my cause. Therefore, no oliebollen for me. :( Woe is me! To make up for the loss, they do sell other kinds of baked goods and similar to the oliebollen were the apple beignets (or, rather: appelbeignet): full-size apple doughnuts, Dutch-style. They make an appearance on the Wikipedia article for oliebollen, so all was not lost. :)

Apple beignets are flakier than the standard doughnut and are filled with a mass of small cubes cooked in a creamy mixture, similar to some types of Dutch apple cake. This is then fried and coated with cinnamon sugar. On the outside, they may not look like anything special, but one bite is enough to wow you. Layers of fried flaky dough that was a bit greasy at times, but there has to be a reason for the word "olie" (oil), after all. :P Delicious apple filling and an amazing, great find of a fried treat. Here's hoping the new guys will keep some of the fantastic products I have yet to find somewhere else!

Rating: ***1/2

Wilkie's Bakery

Bakery: Wilkie's Bakery
Address: 169 Mississauga St E, Orillia ON
Website: facebook
Style: Canadian
Price: $$ 

The second stop in Orillia, Wilkie's Bakery is one of two bakeries on the downtown business strip. I wasn't sure which one to go to since the other one had quite a bit of people going to it and this one was a little less populated that day. Given the fact that they only really have one kind of sweet -- butter tarts -- I assumed that not only this is what you have to try while at Wilkie's, but that it has to be good. I assumed correctly. ;)

While they have a few other sweets, the selection is limited. Their claim to fame, however, is butter tarts. In fact, while there, the sign I spotted online touting that Wilkie's has "Canada's best butter tart" wasn't out on the street. Either way, those are some pretty big words and it takes a lot to stand by them. The question had to be asked: are Wilkie's butter tarts as famous and amazing as they claim? Well... yes. It may be a little rash to say they're the best in the country, but these butter tarts pack quite the punch and can probably be considered, based on other bakeries already reviewed, the best butter tart in Ontario.

The key to what makes this butter tart so great is, first of all, the dough. Ontario-style (versus what I call "Western-style") butter tarts with their hand-shaped tart shells are more often than not too doughy and thick, making it hard to crack open with a fork and ending up a little too overwhelming compared to the filling. As such, I'm usually not the biggest fan. This shell had the ideal texture: it was thinner, softer, and the ratio of shell to filling was perfect. That filling was amazing: not runny, not thick. It was right in the middle, just pure delicious, with that melt-in-your-mouth baked butter topping. This was butter tart perfection!

Rating: ****

Sweet Paradise

Bakery: Sweet Paradise 
Address: 630 Stone Church Rd, Hamilton ON 
Website: http://sweetparadise.ca/
Style: Italian 
Price: $$ 

It was the 19th of March, the feast day of San Giuseppe, and you know what that was supposed to mean: zeppole! Yes, it was the day I've been waiting for (though, to be fair, many bakeries make zeppole during the month of March or thereabouts) and I thought I would cover a couple of Italian bakeries in Hamilton that I had been putting off. This, in some sense, was a disaster; only one bakery had zeppole that day -- unthinkable! -- and that zeppola came from Sweet Paradise.

Despite the "bakery" vibes coming from their name and website, Sweet Paradise is a classic Italian bakery and deli, but they did have the largest selection of  Italian pastries and cakes from the places I visited that day, such as two types of cannoli and something known as a Sicilian doughnut (!).

But I was there for the zeppole (as was everyone else in the bakery line). At first, I didn't notice them, but then I realized they were the cream puff-looking pastries coated with powdered sugar, available in either ricotta or amarena cherry. ($3) Perhaps the term "zeppolina" would be more fitting; these were smallest zeppole I've seen. I'm also not too sure why there was so much powdered sugar on it. After scraping off a few spoonfuls, I gave it a try. Zeppole are often considered the Italian equivalent of a doughnut and with the stiff choux pastry often used, this is a bit of a far stretch; this was the first time I could see the resemblance. A soft dough stuffed with custard and cherries, this zeppola was generously filled and yummy. Maybe it didn't beat this year's winner from Sanremo, but it is definitely worthy of second-place. :)

Rating: ***

The Bakery

Bakery: The Bakery
Address: 141 Brock St, Gravenhurst ON 
Website: n/a 
Style: Canadian
Price: $$

The Bakery may not have a proper name, but it's certainly worth mentioning as a notable bakery stop in Muskoka. Generous portions (which doesn't happen too often) seeming to be their main asset, these guys have been in business for a while now -- or so the sign says -- and they have a nice selection of classic Canadian baked goods: a few types of butter tarts, pies and other tarts, along with cream-filled doughnuts and Chelsea buns, all of which looked pretty tasty. They seem to also have a bit of gluten-free baked goods, including tarts, which seem to be popular amongst some people.

The one beauty that stood out from the rest was their apple fritter. Quite literally the size of your face, you could have half and not feel ripped off. Yes, this is one amazing slab of dough: generously glazed with chunks of apples sitting on top, I knew at first glance that this was going to be a winner. While the smell of the glaze was a little puzzling -- a blind test would make you think of thick cake frosting such as you might find on a cupcake, not glaze -- biting into this was a wonderful experience. Perfectly fried with a nice golden crust, delicious glaze coverage, and moist dough... mmm, amazing texture, delicious taste. When was the last time I had an apple fritter this good? My only minus was that it needed a little more apples, especially given the colossal size of the fritter, but other than that.... What a yummy treat! *-*

Rating: ***1/2

Uncle Tetsu's Japanese Bake

Bakery: Uncle Tetsu's Japanese Bake
Address: 596 Bay St, Toronto ON
Website: http://uncletetsu-ca.com/
Style: Japanese
Price: $$$ 

Not that I intentionally chronicle the latest Uncle Tetsu venture; it just happens that way. A few weeks ago, craving some green tea cheesecake (my favourite Tetsu product by a long shot), I went to the Matcha Cafe and found it closed. Shut down. My heart broke. Tetsu is expanding left, right and centre and they closed the best thing in their franchise!?! Furious, I went on their website and found that the Matcha Cafe was simply undergoing renovations. Not sure why, but now I see the reason: Uncle Tetsu did indeed shut down the Matcha Cafe and turned into a... cheese tart place. That means no matcha cheesecake, no matcha madeleines, no matcha soft serve -- you get the picture. WHY!? It makes no sense to get rid of the best products for a business dedicated exclusively to cheese tarts, which could be easily contained in a preexisting business or as a booth. Granted, Uncle Tetsu soon comforted distraught and angered customers by announcing yet another Tetsu business coming soon to the Greyhound station underpass, and it will feature all those green tea baked goods that were (so stupidly) discontinued in the first place. Hopefully.

So, what is the Japanese Bake? Essentially, it should have simply been called "Cheese Tarts" so as not to give people the idea that there is more to it than that. Cheese tarts seem to be the trendy dessert in Asia at the moment. You can think of them as a cross between Chinese egg tarts and dense New York-style cheesecake.

Uncle Tetsu's cheese tarts ($3.50 each) are made with homemade tart shells and a golden yellow filling that has a strangely glossy top, resembling melted mozzarella cheese. Coming with a pamphlet on how to eat them, you have the choice between fresh (room temperature upon purchase), heated up a bit, cooled in the fridge, or even frozen (?); the texture may change a bit, but the taste remains the same. The first bite transported me to my elementary school days, specifically those snack-packs with mini bread-sticks and cheddar "cheese" dip. Identical. These tarts are awkwardly sandwiched between sweet and savoury; the shells themselves are doughy and flavourless and would be more fitting for a quiche or meat pie. The cheese filling is bland and sticky; it clings to both mouth and fork like taffy while the squeaky top is too salty. Suffice to say, I was not a fan. Uncle Tetsu, what on earth were you thinking?!?

Rating: *1/2

The Donut Line [RIP]

Bakery: The Donut Line
Address: 195 Memorial Ave, Orillia ON
Website: n/a
Style: Doughnuts
Price: $ 

It's been a bit slow on the Cake Tour lately, but I finally got through several bakeries on a recent trip to Muskoka. The first on the list is The Donut Line. Though it may resemble a Midas muffler place on the outside, inside it's an old-school doughnut shop that serves humble, no-frills doughnuts. With a nice selection of cake and raised classics being their specialty, these simple doughnuts are fresh and very nicely glazed.

Out of the three doughnuts taken -- a maple raised, apple fritter, and dutchie -- the highlight was definitely the maple, with its tasty, perfectly applied glaze and soft, fluffy texture. Yummy! It looked so good that it was only halfway into it that it was remembered that a photo still hadn't been taken. The others suffered a worse fate. -_-

While both the apple fritter and dutchie were very good in their own right, they had the downfall of being eaten when the memory of downright amazing apple fritters and the best dutchie ever found were still (hot and) fresh in the mind, and therefore, little comparison could be made; still, when it comes to standard sources for doughnuts, these were above-average. The Donut Line is a good place to pull over to get your doughnut fix.

Rating: ***

Happy Bagel Bakery

Bakery: Happy Bagel Bakery
Address: 4949 Bathurst St, North York ON
Website: facebook
Style: Jewish, Eastern European
Price: $$

I was going back down to the 401 when I spotted yet another bakery on bakery-heavy Bathurst -- and imagine, I hadn't done it yet! Happy Bagel, to be sure, is not that hard to overlook. Located on the corner of a plaza, the boring sign makes this look a little like a rundown coffee joint; you don't expect the lovely array of Eastern European/Russian baked goods waiting inside. This includes several types of poppy seed treats (of course that's a priority) along with flaky buns and pastries filled with chocolate, sweet cheese, prunes and nuts. They also have more universal baked goods like turnovers and cookies as well.

Naturally, I had the difficult decision as to which poppy seed bun to get: the smaller coil with rock sugar and what looked like candied orange peel or the larger, more dense roll. I went for the big one. ($2.99) Delicious poppy seed mass generously rolled with thin layers of dough with a hardened sugary topping above. Very good, but I had one issue which I wasn't too pleased with: raisins. In some ways I was surprised since generally this style of poppy seed mass doesn't contain raisins, and there were a lot of them so considerable picking was needed. :/

To make up for the raisins, there were these beauties: trays of hamantaschen ($0.89/each) available in poppy seed or prune. These were freshly baked and you could tell: sugar cookie dough was crunchy on the inside and slightly soft on the inside. Pair that with a chewy poppy seed mass that had not yet hardened as is the case with cookies that have been sitting around for awhile. Nothing too elaborate, but I think these outdid all others I've tried; these "poppy seed triangles" have to be my new favourites! Fantastic, moderately priced and quality baked goods.

Rating: ***1/2

Sanremo Bakery

Bakery: Sanremo Bakery
Address: 374 Royal York Rd, Etobicoke ON 
Website: http://www.sanremobakery.com/
Style: Italian
Price: $$ 

Hey everyone! The latest "best of" guide -- the Best of Toronto bakeries -- made by yours truly has just been finished and posted on the menu at the very bottom of the screen or here.  You're welcome to take a look, see what you think. :)

**

Ah, Sanremo -- at last! It is not often that Mimi's Cake Tour has to retreat and regroup when it comes to a bakery; in this case, that meant walking out and returning another day. In a sense, it's almost unbelievable that this was my first time going to this busy Italian bakery in Mimico, famous for their doughnuts. How did that happen? Nonetheless, checking out their website and spotting thirty flavours of doughnuts was enough for me to come running. Unfortunately, everybody else seemed to have the same idea and I soon learned that coming on Saturday afternoon was a big mistake. With entire shelves and every single doughnut cleaned out and barely enough room to stand, I've never seen such pandemonium in a bakery. Impossible to park, difficult to even drive past, it takes patience and dedication, and even I was getting annoyed. Seeing that nothing I wanted was there, I returned on a Wednesday afternoon to find a more subdued insanity, but all doughnuts except two butterscotch and one chocolate chip gone. They did, however, it being March, have four or five flavours of zeppole... and I then knew exactly what I wanted.

Backing up a bit, Sanremo is more or less a typical Italian bakery and deli with just a portion of the large space dedicated to baked goods. Some self-serve treats are located on shelves near the bread, but the vast majority are located behind the counter of craziness. Even with a number system, it's hectic and frustrating with people cutting in line or groups of individually paying friends ordering all at the same time. Despite this, Sanremo does have a larger than usual selection of Italian and Canadian baked goods including shelves upon (empty) shelves of doughnuts, cannoli, cakes and cake slices, and some interesting Italian pastries I've never seen anywhere else, such as the torta calabrese. Items are labelled and priced... if you can push past the hordes of people to see anything, that is.

Yes, it being zeppole season, I had the chance to try a Sanremo version; the amarena cherry version, to be exact. Other options include ricotta cream, strawberry and cream, nutella, but at a pricey $3.75 + tax -- the most expensive I've ever seen them -- the only one worth taking in my opinion was the amarena cherry one: my favourite. In some ways, I was hoping that it wouldn't be too great since I wouldn't have to return here, but that backfired. :/ Incredibly fresh pastry rings (which made me realize I've never had a freshly baked zeppola before) stuffed with custard and cherries that were literally soaking through the dough and onto the box below. This weighed a ton and was a pleasure to bite into. So much rich cherry flavour, delicious dough -- wow. In the end, everyone seems to know it's worth the wait and inconvenience of grabbing something, anything at all from this bakery.

Rating: ***1/2

Deri Italian Bakery

Bakery: Deri Italian Bakery
Address: 640 Bloor St, Mississauga ON 
Website: http://deriitalianbakery.com/
Style: Italian 
Price: $$

It's that time of year again! Anyone that's a regular frequenter of Italian bakeries will know what I'm talking about: it's zeppole time! :) The greatest of Italian pastries makes a comeback, often for a limited time, and I am there to cover as many bakeries as possible in the time period, hoping to find yet another "golden zeppola" out there. Lacking enough for a proper competition, I still decided to try one at my newest bakery.

I must not drive this way at all, since a couple months ago, I was driving down Bloor (in Mississauga) and noticed a plaza I had never known existed; on it was Deri Bakery. Granted, Deri is a couple of decades old at this point, and so it's been around for some time and is, in fact, far from new. Still, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find new things to review, so while in the area, I popped in here, overjoyed at the signs in the window announcing that it was zeppole time -- yes! Turns out I got here at the right time! ^^;

Deri is a typical Italian bakery/deli, just a bit smaller-scale with a limited selection of baked goods and more items located in the display cases; these include whole cakes, cupcakes, and some pastries like cannoli and, there in the bottom corner, zeppole. While most items are labelled, there isn't a price to be seen, which was a little frustrating.

Nevertheless, this zeppola ($3.50, taxes included) was of the custard variety with three stiff, half-cherry peaks on top. This being fairly standard, I didn't expect that the three chunks of cherry (totalling 1.5 amarena cherries per zeppola) on top were the only cherries in it. In all others ever tested, there are either more cherries inside or the filling is at least drizzled with syrup-like juice, infusing it with that cherry flavour I love. This was just plain pudding, quite thick and resembling the packaged stuff a little too much for it to be enjoyable. Good dough for the ring, but iffy filling made this zeppola bland. I'd been waiting all year for this and came away a bit disappointed and with my zeppole cravings unsatisfied.

Rating: **

The Sweet Escape

Bakery: The Sweet Escape
Address: 24 Tank House Lane, Toronto ON 
Website: http://www.thesweetescapedistillery.com/
Style: North American 
Price: $$-$$$ 

Now that all trips are over and the rush of bakeries has subsided, it's getting a little slow (and lonely) on this site of mine. That's why I finally got started on a new idea I've been thinking of for the past few months: best of "travel" guides. At the moment, there's only one done, but there are more on the way. Scroll down to the bottom menu or click here to check out the first: Montreal! :)

 Located in the Distillery District, at the end of the hallway of one of the commercial buildings there, the Sweet Escape is one of a few bakeries in the area. Actually, I haven't been to the Distillery District in ages and was a little disgruntled that not much has changed in terms of the bakery scene and there aren't as many options as I would have liked to see. However, the Sweet Escape is there; touting itself as a patisserie, their primary focus seems to be cupcakes. In addition to this, they have different varieties of colourful macarons and squares of the brownie kind.

One of their signature items -- or perhaps *the* signature item -- is their "Distillery cake"; this is an English-style toffee cake with a sponge cake dunked and coated in a more runny caramel sauce. This was then topped with two pieces of dates. The dates in themselves were a bit deceiving since I was expecting it to be more like a date cake, which is always amazing, but it was different. The toffee coating made the cake moist, sweet and sticky with a hint of orange, which was nice. Overall: it probably looked yummier than it tasted, but it was still pretty good. 

Rating: **1/2

The Donut Stop

Bakery: The Donut Stop
Address: 617 Parkdale Ave N, Hamilton ON
Website: facebook 
Style: Doughnuts 
Price: $  

Located in an industrial area of Hamilton, this 24-hour coffee stop may be an easy miss and unlikely stop for those on the hunt for baked goods, but The Donut Stop, despite signage advertising nothing but their coffee, makes their doughnuts fresh and from scratch. These come in a bunch of classic varieties, along with a few harder-to-find types. Nothing gourmet, but simple, tasty doughnuts that are fresh and affordable -- what more could you want? ;)

 Anyways, for $6 you get a box of half dozen, and the ones in this box were: walnut, cherry, and two dutchies and apple fritters. My focus was on yeast (raised) doughnuts, because these are always my personal preferences; however, I have noted with many doughnut places that when you make good cake doughnuts, the yeast ones aren't so good. You could say this was the case here: at first glance, I pounced on the apple fritter, but although fresh and with good dough, it lacked apples (I probably had two chunks) and didn't have the flavour and nice glazed outside of good fritters. The same was true of the dutchies, which also lacked raisins and the tastiness of the ones sampled a few weeks prior.

On the other hand, I took a piece of the walnut and cherry at first out of pure curiosity. Dense, but still moist on the inside with an almost shell-like, thickly glazed outside, these two cake doughnuts were the highlights and are obviously the specialty here.

Rating: ***