Abbey Gardens

Bakery: Abbey Gardens
Address: 1012 Garden Gate Dr, Haliburton ON 
Website: http://abbeygardens.ca/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$-$$$

While Abbey Gardens isn't technically a bakery in and of its own, they do have one or two vendors selling baked goods; the building on the whole is a project to sell local and organic foods and support small businesses in the area. A bit like a farmer's market with the side goal of creating some sort of eco-friendly park and/or garden/green space, Abbey Gardens isn't very big; perhaps it sounds more impressive than it really is, and this especially refers to the "market" itself, but still, baked goods are baked goods.

The more dedicated bakery actually specializes only in bread, so it was to the other one I went. This was nothing fancy, though maybe a bit pricey; in fact, it was advertised simply as homemade baking. Classic, small-scale Canadian, perhaps with a bit of British tossed in there, baking.

As soon as I heard this was had dates in the cake, I had to have it. There hasn't been a date cake I haven't liked; that being said, this was labelled as a sticky toffee cake or something along those lines. So, date wasn't the star attraction and, compared to other "date cakes", it definitely didn't taste like the star attraction, though the undeniable hints were there. Still, with a moist spice cake generously coated in a caramel icing, I definitely didn't regret this one!

Rating: ***