ÔBreton

Bakery: ÔBreton
Address: 1201 Av. du Mont-Royal E, Montreal QC
Website: http://obreton.ca/
Style: Breton, French 
Price: $$-$$$ 

Having finished my bakeries of the day, I walked past this creperie and, not remembering having seen it before, I couldn't resist popping in to see what they had; rather, I had no choice but to pop in once I spotted the words "gâteau breton" on their menu. Oh Mimi....

That being said, ÔBreton is indeed first and foremost a creperie, and even then they specialize in traditional buckwheat crepes with savoury fillings, though they do have a few more affordable sweet varieties (including salted caramel, maple syrup and homemade Nutella); however, turns out they also sell three types of classic Breton sweets: the 'gâteau' (more or less a thick cookie filled with a layer of prune paste), shortbread cookies, and Far Breton (a clafoutis-like cake with prunes). While they don't have the pinnacle of Breton baking -- the heavenly kouign-amann -- it was nevertheless a real find!

My personal favourite being that gâteau breton ($3.70/half or $6.90/whole), I had to give this one a try. After all, I don't actually recall ever buying one from a bakery; the only time I've had one was baked my mom, but it was delicious. Driving my fork through the hard cookie-like cake, I found it... healthier-tasting than I was expecting. I believe wholewheat flour was used. Of course, a cookie filled with prune paste is already almost as healthy as you can get -- and this wasn't very sweet; considering that a traditional recipe involves almost equal parts eggs, sugar, butter, and flour, I didn't taste that quintessential Breton richness of butter and egg. Despite being good and I probably didn't need that richness, in some ways, it didn't really feel like I treated myself to a sweet "cake" at all.

Rating: **1/2