Baker's Corner

Bakery: Baker's Corner
Address: 133 Freelton Rd, Freelton ON
Website: facebook
Style: Canadian
Price: $$ 

Here's a new review from an area that hasn't been done in-depth (yet), and that's always a nice thing. That being said, despite the name, the focus at Baker's Corner seems to be on their pizza. Yes, it also happens to be the town pizzeria with a large part of their sign dedicated to different pizza options and other Eastern European lunch specials, but they do have a counter of classic pastries and baked goods including butter tarts, various cake slices ($3-something) with some more surprising offerings like cheesecake and napoleon/mille-feuille squares. A little bit of everything, a little hodgepodge, perhaps, but a bakery nonetheless. ;)

 So, two items were tried: the butter tart and the caramel chocolate cake. The butter tart looked pretty good, with chunks of pecan on the surface and a thinner tart shell. Cracking into this thing, however, I didn't really like the texture or taste of the filling. The texture was neither thick nor runny; it was reminiscent of apple pie filling: quite gloopy, but with not a lot of substance. The rich taste that I love butter tarts for was lacking. Overall, I found it... bland?

To make up for it, the caramel chocolate cake was insanely rich with a moist, intensely chocolate cake interspersed with well-balanced layers of thick caramel. It reminded me a little of (amazing) date cake with caramel icing, just chocolate. Pretty good, the highlight of the two.

Rating: **1/2

Total Randomness, part 2

[Always on the lookout for cute baked goods (ideally with a face), I spotted this "little hedgehog" (ёжик) cake at Highland Farms and couldn't resist. Isn't he adorable? :) Obviously they were discontinuing them, since all imported frozen cakes were $9.99, from $20+. They're also sold in some specialty Eastern European stores in the freezer or fridge; made in Latvia.]

Stofan Cafe [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Stofan Café
Address: Vesturgata 3, Reykjavik
Website: facebook
Style: Icelandic 
Price: $$$ 

Given the fact that I've done every proper bakery in Reykjavik, with only one or two in the suburbs left to do, I've taken to reviewing the many cafes in the city that serve homemade cakes. Here is the next place in that series.

Stofan is a cafe and bar right in the heart of the city and a place that a friend of mine has been recommending since my last time in Iceland. Making it a condition that I had to review something in order for me to tag along, all four of us came to Stofan first. With its exposed wooden interior and chill atmosphere, it's a pretty nice place to go for a glass of beer or a coffee; I liked that aspect. However, I was quite disappointed (and my partners in cake greatly amused) to find after reading on their facebook that they have homemade cakes to see... that caramel apple crumble cake in their display case. Imported frozen, precision-sliced cake. The Snickers cake, one accomplice informed me, had also been seen elsewhere. My heart was broken, but they thought it would be fun to test the cafe itself. Upon asking the guy working at the bar about the apple cake, he laughed and replied that it was made in a factory and most of the others were too, but he knew for a fact that the carrot cake was homemade because he himself had made it. Well, their facebook needs some updating to say the least, but bonus points for honesty; still a bit skeptical, I took his word for it and opted for that one.

 Now, to be quite frank, I'm not the biggest fan of carrot cake in general. Whenever I review it on my site, I usually let others sample it and a consensus is made, so I was hoping something else would have been made in-store.... Nonetheless, the carrot cake (a rather expensive 1150kr) was a dome-shaped, rather clumsily put together cake with two layers of nicely spiced dough with a layer of thick icing in the middle as well as on top. The first few bites were quite good, but towards the end of the slice, it was just too much icing -- it had to be 5cm thick! Too sweet, not enough dough. 2.5 stars for this cake alone.

One person took that aforementioned Snickers cake (also 1150kr) and gave me a piece a try, despite avowing it was another of these cakes you'll see everywhere. This was still interesting with several different layers, starting with a sponge cake bottom, a cream layer, a caramel layer, crunchy meringue, and a thick and chewy chocolate coating on top. Again, a bit too sweet for my liking and I'm not really a chocolate bar person, so maybe I was biased going into it.

Great place to hang out and drink, but I'd skip the cake next time....

Rating: **

Quality Bakery

Bakery: Quality Bakery
Address: 150 Ottawa St N, Hamilton ON
Website: facebook
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

A trip to the neighbourhood brought about the question: had any bakeries been done on Ottawa St? It seemed entirely possible, but upon further research into the matter, I came up with... nothing. This needed to be fixed and here is Quality Bakery. :)

Quality Bakery is a neighbourhood bakery that has been around for quite a few years now. Their specialty seems to be egg breads, so challah bread and sweet buns with various fillings (lemon, chocolate chip), but they also have a nice selection of classic bakery staples: a few squares, buns and danishes.

This time, I wanted to give their carrot cake a try. I've been to bakeries where people try to reinvent classics and spice them up by changing ingredients or the appearance, making them look and feel a little more "gourmet", but sometimes, you just crave a simple cake done right. This was the case with Quality Bakery's version. There was nothing elaborate about it and was as traditional as you could get: a nicely sized slab with thick cream cheese icing sprinkled with walnuts and plenty of carrots in the moist dough -- as it should be. In short: a good example of carrot cake.

Rating: ***

Kekuli Cafe [International Correspondent]

Bakery: Kekuli Cafe
Address: 307-3550 Carrington Rd, West Kelowna BC
Website: http://www.kekulicafe.com/
Style: Aboriginal, Canadian 
Price: $$ 

Earlier this month, I was in Kelowna for a few days and was looking for a place to have breakfast. The bakeries I had on a list given to me *rolls eyes* were all closed and I was thinking I would have to stop at just a big chain when I spotted this "don't panic we have bannock" place advertising they served breakfast. So I went.

Kekuli Cafe is an aboriginal cafe serving coffee, lighter meals like bannock burgers and Indian tacos, and, of course, bannock. Everything on the menu besides drinks incorporates bannock, whether it be sweet or savoury, and that was very interesting. I'd tried bannock at a powwow (unfortunately, the bannock tent in Moose Factory closed as soon as I got there...) and knew I liked it, but I didn't expect to see bannock made into a sweet, a sort of bannock doughnut with different toppings/varieties. It was a great idea.

I took the bannock with maple glaze and pieces of walnut on top. With this, I had their Saskatoon berry tea, which I would also highly recommend. The bannock doughnut was amazing: unlike the bannock served with the burgers and tacos, this was fatter and fluffier and it was fried and crispy on the outside with a good maple taste. The Saskatoon Berry bannock is even better -- they're amazing!

Rating: ****

Kaffi Brák [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Kaffi Brák
Address: Brákarbraut 11, Borgarnes
Website: facebook
Style: Icelandic 
Price: $-$$

Ah, yes, here I am again with some Icelandic Cake Tours! Unfortunately, the goal of getting every proper bakery in the country has once again eluded me -- actually I didn't get that much accomplished this time around, but well, I take what I can get and the first of that was Kaffi Brák.

This bright, whitewashed cafe overlooking the Settlement Centre opened its doors fairly quietly last summer and their sign advertising homemade cakes tempted me then and tempted me this time around, so much so that I couldn't resist anymore and had to give them a try. (I just wish all signage wouldn't be exclusively in English...)

In this, I came away more than happy. Their selection isn't big and the cafe was quite free of customers on a sunny afternoon, but they have a lovely array of some of my most favourite Icelandic treats: "married bliss" in cake form, date cake, kleinur (traditional cake doughnuts), thin pancake rolls, and slices of what appear to be vinarterta. More importantly, all are homemade and this is one of the most affordable cafes I've encountered in the country. Did I mention the date cake? Yes, if I made a foolproof guide on how a place can get a 4-star rating, one of the criteria would have to be "make a date cake" -- the two date cakes reviewed on this site both got perfect, after all.

 That date cake, known as the Dillon cake (750kr), is served with a thick caramel sauce and a single chocolate chip on top and a bit of whipped cream on the side. The cake wasn't as moist and spongy as other date cakes I've tried; however, this was in no way a bad thing, just different. The texture was, on the other hand, slightly dense. The cake was nicely spiced with the chewy sweetness of dates complimenting the heavenly caramel perfectly. Oh man! *-* Here I was thinking that date cake magic would wear off eventually, and here it was again. Pair that with a yummy cup of Swiss mocha (450kr) with whipped cream... it was perfect.

Rating: ****

Elmira Donuts & Deli

Bakery: Elmira Donuts & Deli
Address: 22 Church St W, Elmira ON
Website: n/a
Style: Canadian
Price: $-$$

Finally, the Cake Tour is picking up speed again! Elmira Donuts and Deli is, essentially, the bakery in town, though it's more of a diner serving breakfast and lunch (eggs, sandwiches) and an old-school coffee and doughnut place than a real bakery. However, in addition to the doughnuts in the name, they also have pies, which is, if I remember correctly, more or less the extent of their baked goods. Nonetheless, everything is very home-style: simple, but already looking like it'll taste good. ;)

 The doughnuts were no exception to this; they sell all the classic flavours including, in the picture, apple fritters, dutchies, cherry (forgot the full name), and jelly-filled, blueberry in this case. Sold soft and fresh, these were nicely glazed and well-fried, though the apple fritters were the best done of the bunch and certainly my personal favourite: a hint of spice, pieces of apple. Yummy. With its fluffy dough filled with plump raisins, the dutchie came in at a close second. The only cake doughnut of the bunch, the cherry doughnut, was also fairly tasty, especially considering I'm not the biggest fan of cake doughnuts. Good outside crunch, not too dense on the outside.

The verdict: a classic doughnut stop done right. Now, to try their pies, which look equally delicious!

Rating: ***

Galata Cafe

Bakery: Galata Turkish Cafe
Address: 5122 Dundas St W, Etobicoke ON
Website: http://anatoliafinefoods.com/
Style: Turkish
Price: $$

This Turkish cafe a few doors down from Anatolia restaurant somewhat-recently changed its name but still redirects to Anatolia; is it still a more laid-back offshoot of the restaurant and they simply tried to avoid the confusion of having two Anatolias on the same plaza? Or are they independent? Either way, this is one of the very few places for Turkish food in the GTA. There are, of course, a couple spots specializing in pide (a pizza-like savoury pie), but nothing really delving into the sweet realm.

 That being said, Galata/Anatolia advertises Turkish coffee and pastries, but these pastries are mostly savoury, stuffed with feta cheese, spinach or meat. Of the sweets, there are but few. These include three types of baklava, a honey-soaked cookie and a Bundt-style walnut cake. All are more or less the same price. 

 The walnut cake ($2.25) was a big slice of slightly dense, sandy coffee cake with chunks of walnut mixed into the dough. The size of the nuts made them restricted to only one area, but it was homemade in taste. I personally prefer the moister coffee cafe style, but this was a nice treat.

Secondly, there was the cookie ($2.00). Just like baklava, it was soaked in a honey syrup and it drank it all purchases. Not soggy, but still nicely moist, this was the highlight, if, that is, you don't count the hospitality. There's a reason why it's one of the first things mentioned on their website: genuine, warm hospitality that you seldom meet at any business and completely changes your view of customer service.

Rating: ***

Black Walnut Bakery Cafe

Bakery: Black Walnut Bakery Cafe
Address: 134 Wortley Rd, London ON
Website: http://www.blackwalnutbakerycafe.com/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$

The last in my series of London bakeries  (at least for now) and the other bakery in Wortley Village, Black Walnut markets itself as a European-style cafe, and while they don't really have baked goods of the European kind, they have a nice selection of classic Canadian goodies such as pies, muffins, butter tarts and a few more upscale treats like croissants and was that a cruffin? Items are labelled and priced, and for more home style goods, they're a little up there in terms of price.

 Anyways, I tried two sweets: the butter tart and the carrot cake. The butter tart was pretty big when it comes to butter tarts. The shell was thick, but not too thick, and the filling was rich and had the texture and taste of thick, chewy caramel. A bit surprising but really good.

The carrot cake was nicely spiced, good texture with just the right amount of thick, cream cheese icing on top. Not necessarily on the top ten list, but a nice one.

Black Walnut, in the end, turned out being my personal favourite from this "trip" and probably my preferred bakery in town.

Rating: ***