The Claim

Bakery: The Claim Cafe
Address: 305 Strickland St, Whitehorse YT
Website: http://theclaim.ca/
Style: Canadian
Price: $$$-$$$$ 

A few factors made me pick The Claim as my least favourite bakery in Whitehorse; for one, this was the other place I applied to and didn't even receive a reply, so that always dampens things a bit (but I was overqualified for the position, so it's their loss they don't Mimi on their side! :P). It's hard to look at a place objectively when that happens... Putting that aside, however, I was unpleasantly surprised at the prices; one local lady I was discussing the Cake Tour with even mentioned that she found this place too expensive. With simple baked goods like cinnamon buns and brownies starting at $4.50, it's not cheap and the sweets are not fancy enough to justify it.

I came in on a busy afternoon and found the counter and display case stocked with various types of squares, simple cake slices, and a few baked goods on top, namely scones, muffins and cinnamon buns. I was disconcerted to find that all, with the exception of a bran muffin, were gluten-free, though the cafe-bakery doesn't bill itself to be exclusively that. Inquiring whether they had any baked goods that were not gluten-free besides that one bran muffin, the worker went to the back and returned with the answer that the gluten-free baked goods were made with mostly rice flour. O.o Um, but... that wasn't what I wanted to know....

Not wanting to hold up the line, I opted for my back-up pick: the strawberry rhubarb square ($4.75!?) This was a fairly traditional square in the style of a date square with oats and granola on top and a nondescript fruit puree filling. I could taste the tartness of the rhubarb which was nice. Upon first glance, I thought the bottom was some sort of cheese layer, but it proved to just be a spongier dough than on top. This was quite tasty, but the overall experience was a little frustrating.

Rating: **1/2