Auntie Barb's Bakery

Bakery: Auntie Barb's Bakery
Address: 217 Cranbrook St N, Cranbrook, BC
Website: facebook
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

I missed this and all bakeries in Cranbrook the first time I drove through, so here was my chance to grab at least one stop. Maybe next time, I'll grab the other?

Auntie Barb's is a bakery cafe right behind the highway with a small selection of bread and baked goods like pies, carrot cake, danishes, cinnamon buns, etc. It seemed more like a cafe due to the large seating area, limited selection, and saran-wrapped squares and bars, which never have that fresh or appealing look. However, I've already my note on the use of plastic wrap elsewhere, so I won't repeat myself.

One of the items that weren't plastic wrapped were the danishes, so I grabbed one of these and, despite all preconceived notions regarding that good ol' saran wrap, was pleasantly surprised that the danish was good. Quite good and better than first expected. The dough soft, it had good icing and, overall, taste and texture made this a pleasant experience. More than that - it also happened to be fresh! 

Rating: ***   

Boulangerie Rauk [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Boulangerie Rauk 
Address: 422, Ninomiya Street, Saigyo-ku, Fukumoto-cho, Kyoto 
Website: http://rauk.okoshi-yasu.com/
Style: Japanese 
Price: $$ 

My final bakery in Kyoto, Boulangerie Rauk was more or less down the street from where I was staying the second time around, so I'd been plotting to visit it for a few days before I took the plunge. More often than not, French baking words are misused, but in this case, Rauk is indeed a boulangerie in that they're almost exclusively bread-oriented with most items leaning towards savoury, though there are a couple pastries like croissants. Maybe, despite the snippets here and there, they're not overly "French", but this small bakery still churns out more rustic breads and definitely more visually-appealing buns than their commercial counterparts, with somewhat higher prices than average. Judging by some sort of award rankings posted around the store, they also... take part in competitions? Or is it simply one of these "top pick" things?

Sweet items seem to be limited to one corner of the bakery, and when I was there - in the late morning - many trays were empty, whether they were sold out or not ready yet. For whatever reason, I decided instead for an item with one of those gold medal signs next to it (though this hadn't done too well in the past): I picked out the green tea bun with walnuts and red bean (183 yen). Well, I picked out green tea from the label and didn't quite catch the red bean. Truth be told, I'm not a red bean fan, so this was disappointing. And despite the fact that green tea, red bean and even walnut is associated as sweet ingredients, the bun itself wasn't sweet at all and had the consistency of a dinner roll. I also think more of a mass would have been better than just whole beans and chunks of walnut thrown into the dough. Oh, and what I took for powdered sugar was just flour; I swear, this would have been better sweeter. Definitely not what I was expecting.... A bad choice on my part, yes, but still I left unimpressed.

Rating: **

Fomi's Bakery

Bakery: Fomi's Bakery 
Address: 6049 BC-6, Winlaw, BC 
Website: n/a 
Style: Canadian, Russian
Price: $$

I do love stumbling on bakeries that shoot up right to the top of their class, and Fomi's Bakery -- a cozy bakery and cafe serving some old-fashioned Doukhobor Russian food in a rather unlikely and unassuming location down a driveway right off Hwy 6 -- has to be the best bakery in the Kootenays and the only 4-star bakery for hundreds of kilometres.

Operating out of a house, this small, colourful bakery counter past the wooden seating area features a classic - and fairly large for a rural bakery - selection of bread and baked goods like cinnamon buns, doughnuts, and cream-filled treats behind the glass. Along with a few surprising and less common finds.

I started out with two single items (don't even remember what the second one was anymore) but as soon as I went to the cash, I spotted the must-have item and immediately changed my mind: the poppy seed snail ($6.50). There was no doubt about me leaving with this one; the worker recommending it to me didn't change a thing. Consisting of seven small-ish interlocking "snails", this was amazing from start to finish. I loved the consistency of the dough, the poppy seed mass with just a hint of cocoa, and that thin layer of glaze, with its fantastic slight crackle upon biting into it, covering the entire top. Mmm... the moment I saw it, I knew this would be a winner. And it was. This is, yes, BC's best poppy seed baked good!

Also purchased was the deliciously fried, fluffy blueberry fritter ($2.50). It's not that easy to find fritters with anything besides apples, so this was a nice change; good amount of fresh fruit and that yummy glaze over top. What a bakery!

Rating: ****

Ferraro Foods

Bakery: Ferraro Foods
Address: 850 Farwell St, Trail, BC
Website: http://ferrarofoods.ca/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

So I actually made the drive to Trail, intent on checking out the only bakery in town (that being the Trail Pastry Shop)... and found it inexplicably closed when it should have been open. Wonderful. How I hate when that happens! Having parked the car to decide what to do next, I saw a small group of people coming out of Ferraro Foods with trays of bite-sized pastries and squares and thought it was worth a try.

Therefore: Ferraro Foods is the local independent grocery store with a second location in nearby Rossland. Like many local supermarkets, they have their own, quite small bakery department, though I was a little disappointed they didn't have the lavish selection that those massive trays promised me (and, come on, there should have so been more Italian stuff!). Most items are pre-packed and spread across a couple tables, though they do advertise that these items are made by them. Some items are sold individually, but the selection is fairly limited to muffins, danishes and possibly a couple doughnuts. A lot was already sold. There's no real dedicated bakery counter, however, so it doesn't really feel like a bakery.

Their big fluffy cinnamon buns ($3.99 for a 2-pack) did look pretty good, though. These were typical, tray-baked buns coiled up with ooey gooey cinnamon mass and covered with a nice layer of icing. They looked rich and they certainly lived up to expectations; in fact, they were a bit too sweet for my liking, but the taste and texture was pretty good. I still felt pretty bummed about missing out on the actual bakery in town, though.

Rating: **1/2

Fresh from the Farm

Bakery: Fresh from the Farm
Address: 3790 Casorso Rd, Kelowna, BC
Website: facebook 
Style: Doughnuts 
Price: $$

More than a year ago, I was geared up to try spudnuts (potato doughnuts) at a bakery that sold them only on Thursdays. I went there, so ready, and found out they didn't bake spudnuts during the summer. Crazy logic... suffice to say, I was very disappointed and have been secretly pining after spudnuts since then. As such, I was super excited when some sort of 'fresh spudnuts' sign was set up outside this farm/produce market on a Saturday afternoon. This was definitely a decision that required no thought.

 So, while Fresh from the Farm doesn't have much in terms of baked goods, and thus not quite a bakery in the truest sense of the word, they do have spudnuts. These come freshly fried and lightly sweetened on top and... oh boy, biting into that moist, spongy dough is definitely an experience. The texture and that difficult-to-pinpoint taste are definitely unique and classic yeast doughnuts just can't seem to replicate it. It's so good!

Rating: ***1/2

Kyo Baum [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Kyo Baum
Address: 248 Gionmachi Kitagawa, Higashiyama-ku, Kyōto
Website: https://pastry-shop-434.business.site/
Style: Baumkuchen, Japanese 
Price: $$$ 

The dessert of the moment, at least on this side of the Pacific, seems to be baumkuchen: German "tree cake" that's slowly baked on a rotating spindle, with one layer of dough being gradually added onto another to create the look of tree rings. Baumkuchen are indeed everywhere; they even come factory-packaged and can be bought in convenience stores!

 Taking it to a more elegant level is Kyo Baum, a Kyoto pastry shop that seemed to be all the rage while I was there. In any crowded place, you were bound to encounter someone touting the distinctively branded bag. Like most Japanese pastry/sweet shops, everything available for purchase is already packed in pretty boxes and are stacked in piles throughout the store. Individual portions are not possible, nor is it possible to get anything freshly packed. In addition to those famous baumkuchen - sold in two sizes - Kyo Baum also sells matcha ice cream desserts, matcha cookies and one or two additional, multi-pack matcha treats. It wouldn't be "Kyo" without the matcha, I suppose.

The baumkuchen (1166 yen for the 3.5 cm) consists of four different layers: one soy milk cake layer surrounded by two layers of matcha cake with a thick matcha glaze along the outside. It certainly looks lovely and unpacking it from its air-tight bag gives you a yummy scent blast of matcha.

The texture is very spongy - far more spongy and a lot less dense than traditional baumkuchen. Despite that lovely aroma, the cake itself (besides the thick, koicha-like glaze) didn't really have much matcha taste. Actually, it didn't have much taste at all.

Most of all, however, I couldn't get rid of that pre-packed impression. With just two locations in Kyoto, theoretically it shouldn't taste commercial... but it did. This was a grand Cake Tour finale, a farewell to Japan treat and one I'd been looking forward to those entire three weeks and it just didn't make the cut.

Rating: **1/2

Cabin Fever Junction

Bakery: Cabin Fever Junction 
Address: 7026 Pioneer Ave #2, Agassiz, BC 
Website: https://www.cabinfeverjunction.com/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $-$$ 

It's open, I finally found it open! I've driven through Agassiz a couple times now and, spotting this bakery that doesn't look closed down completely, and each attempt has met with disappointment: closed, closed, closed yet again. Finally, driving past the last time, I didn't even bother checking if it was open, but I noticed cars in the parking lot and... people coming out of the bakery! A quick turn-around and I was able to confirm: Cabin Fever Junction is actually open and fully-operational. Well, sometimes. Though they do seem to have regular hours listed online. I am so very confused....

Nonetheless, Cabin Fever Junction is a real country bakery, complete with wooden screen door, jars of jams and homemade fudge. And of course, they also happen to be a bakery cram-packed with breads, cookies, baked goods, and cake slices -- so much so, that there's barely any room the stand in it, much less when there's somebody already there. All items are labelled, only some are priced.

 This time around, I was in the mood for a butter tart. It'd been awhile, after all. So I grabbed two ($1.00/each, tax included). Probably would have grabbed something else if I'd known the price before paying.... Naturally, the butter tarts weren't very big. Okay, petite would be a good descriptor; they were small and, given the price, that was pretty understandable. Personally, I think paying more and getting something slightly bigger would have been better, since so little filling made it dry out upon baking. I mean, it did have this lovely, bubbly crust, but digging into it, it had turned into an almost taffy-like consistency. Good taste, but too sticky and chewy for a butter tart.

Rating: **1/2

Mountain Nugget Chocolate Company

Bakery: Mountain Nugget Chocolate Company 
Address: 1938 Columbia Ave, Rossland, BC
Website: http://www.mountainnugget.com/
Style: Chocolate 
Price: $$$

Now, why wouldn't you take the 3B detour for the sake of new bakeries? With the actual bakery in town not yet open, I had to make do with popping into this chocolate shop that also happens to make its own chocolatey (and otherwise) ice cream and a very limited selection of baked goods. Despite the fact that their website lists more than one pastry, and that not just revolving around chocolate, in my case, that limited selection was relegated to one item: the pain au chocolat ($3.60).

Still, it's a nice way to get a 2-in-1 combo: try their pastries and their chocolate. On the outside, it definitely looked exciting with its flaky, multi-layered French dough with a little hint of chocolate right in the middle: a promise of good things to come? Not so much.... Biting into it, I did get that great crunch, but for a place that makes their own chocolate, it was really lacking -- especially considering its cost -- and/or there was too much dough for you to really taste anything but. For a chocolate store and anticipating that 2-in-1 combo, I was a bit disappointed.

Rating: **1/2

Sandog In Kobeya Fresh Bakery [Mimi's World Tour]

 Bakery: Kobeya Fresh Bakery
Address: 68, Higashiriomicho, Kawaramachi Dori, Shinchō, Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto  
Website: http://www.breads-studio.com
Style: Japanese
Price: $$ 

One of the most frustrating bakery experiences for me on my Japan trip was stumbling upon one bakery and then happening to find another location elsewhere... and then realizing it's yet another one of those chains with a billion locations nationwide. While not as prolific as, say, Donq, which truly is everywhere, the unimaginative name ("Fresh Bakery") and logo had me deceived for a minute or two, until I found another basement location within pretty much fifteen minutes from each other. Though, to be fair, the detailed signs with English descriptions definitely scream franchise bakery. *sighs* Oh well...

Sandog In Kobeya Fresh Bakery is one of three bakery offshoots of the Breads Studio brand. Looking like they're almost exclusively relegated to high-traffic areas like stations and basements of department stores, they seem to serve their single purpose: offer basic, well-priced food for people on the go. They're not aspiring to be a French-inspired boulangerie or pastry shop of any kind, even with the few fancier items like danishes and cream rolls. Baked goods are simple and quite doughy: lots of buns, even those cream rolls looked pretty bready. In a sense, the English descriptions didn't help all that much since I still didn't know what to take....

Realizing circling the bakery area a few more times wouldn't help me find an answer, I settled on the cinnamon twist stick (173 yen). Yes, I'm not quite sure what in that off-white powder was the cinnamon and what was the sugar, but the taste was there, though perhaps the texture wasn't the best -- I discovered I really was not a fan of this superfine, semi-powdered sugar topping I encountered in several bakeries. Looking past that, the dough was not bad: soft, moist with a bit of chewiness. Nice amount of sweetness. Pretty good. Maybe, after all, I was a little harsh on Fresh Bakery?

Rating: **1/2

Wheatberries Bakery

Bakery: Wheatberries Bakery
Address: 818 Gibsons Way, Gibsons, BC
Website: http://www.wheatberriesbakery.com/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$$ 

If there's a Sunshine Coast bakery, it's Wheatberries; after all, they have locations in both Gibsons and Sechelt, which just doubles your chances of popping into one (they also operate a booth in the hospital), though having only visited the Gibsons location (which appears, at any rate, to be their main one), I can't say whether they all have the same baked goods or not.

Nevertheless, Wheatberries is really more of a bakery cafe with a large wooden seating area, an array of drinks and sweet and savoury items as well as light meals designed for eating on the spot. Of course, they also sell the typical bakery goodies with shelves of bread behind the counter, full-size pies scattered, and baskets of different flavours of scones. Yes, Wheatberries does seem a bit heavy on the scones, which aren't my favourite baked good, though they have a bit more in the way of cookies and a handful of squares and tarts. Mostly simple, old-fashioned Canadian baked goods. Items are labelled, but nothing is priced, which I always find a bit frustrating.

Going with one of the "fancier" items in-store, I picked out the apple and almond tart ($3.75). This was rather pretty with its crust of slivered almonds around the outside and the three slices of apple arranged on top the slightly chewy almond mass and shortbread shell. Kind of wish there was more fruit than those three slices of apple, but the overall taste was very good and I did like that added crunch with the tart shell and almonds. A nice place to pop into right on the highway.

Rating: ***

Bear Country Bakery

Bakery: Bear Country Bakery
Address: 32423 Lougheed Hwy #106, Mission, BC
Website: https://www.bearcountrybakery.ca/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

Driving through Mission, it just wouldn't seem right to overlook the bakery in town. That bakery is Bear Country (complete with "Warning Entering Bear Country" signs and log font, which I thought a cute and clever touch), a newer bakery about a year or two old. A bit of a surprise given there are no other bakeries in Mission - is that possible?

Still, this bakery, located in the middle of an otherwise dull plaza, have a small, albeit fairly varied selection of Canadian classic (squares, danishes, icing cakes) with a bit of Italian flavour in the form of cannoli. Most items are labelled and priced; service is friendly.

 However, having stepped into "bear country", what's better than going with their bear paws ($2). I'm not sure if it's supposed to be their signature item or not, but of the baked goods, it was the most intriguing. This consisted of paw-shaped flaky dough with a creamy almond mass on the inside and sprinkled with almond chunks on top. The concept was definitely a good one and it beat those chocolate-dipped bear paws or claws, but the dough fell a little flat, in that it wasn't as crunchy and flaky as it should have been. It was more on the soft side and, without any distinct taste of its own, that paired with the almond mass made it a bit on bland side. Alright, but I would probably take something else the next time around.

Rating: **1/2

Wälder [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Wälder
Address: Rokkaku Dori 452-102, Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto
Website: facebook
Style: Japanese
Price: $$-$$$

Sporadically dotted along a landscape of more commercial bakery franchises throughout any big city in Japan are the more rustic independent bakeries. Walder, or Wälder, happens to be one of these tiny, hole-in-the-wall bakeries aspiring to German konditorei greatness. Except for whatever reason, this compact space right off the intersecting grid of shopping streets in downtown Kyoto seems to evoke Grimm's fairy tales more than any sort of German bakery... Inside, on the other hand, the baked goods tend towards being French-inspired with artisan baguettes, petits fours, galettes and danish-like tarts atop French pastry shells. Of course, you also have some of the more Japanese items like weird, square-shaped baked goods, red bean buns, and those extra thick loaves of bread. Prices are a bit higher than most bakeries. 

I really should have tried one of the lovely looking danishes, but it being my third bakery that day, I wanted to go for something a bit cheaper, and I did want to see how this artisan, more European-style bakery compared to the competition: yes, I took the melon pan (172 yen).

This melon pan didn't have the flavour variations I had encountered elsewhere and featured a lovely lattice-shaped crust on top. This, however, left quite considerable gaps in between where you weren't able to appreciate that topping which is so essential to the melon pan with every bite. Still, I did like the top with its sort of streusel-like taste and consistency; the bun was on the airier side with a more understated flavour. Tasty, but couldn't manage to beat the other contenders in town.

Rating: ***

Mandala Bakery and Convenience

Bakery: Mandala Bakery and Convenience 
Address: 1506 Queen St W, Toronto, ON
Website: n/a 
Style: Tibetan, Indian 
Price: $$ 

Now, if anyone has been following my posts, they'll know I have a particular soft spot for more obscure, hard-to-find ethnic bakeries. I do love exploring the world through baked goods, and so imagine my absolute delight to find a newer Tibetan deli advertising themselves as a bakery in what is known as Little Tibet, a small pocket within Parkdale, in west Toronto. I'm in the neighbourhood once a month for my Tibetan fix and I must have walked past this a few times before actually noticing it.

 Inside, Mandala is indeed more a convenience store/deli/mini-grocery store than an actual bakery and even then, this probably more refers to their selection of savoury items like pakora, samosa, patties (sadly not the Tibetan kind) than their case full of Indian-style sweets right next to the cash. These are sold at a set price of $1.49/100g and are simply labelled by their names; for those familiar with Indian sweets, they'll recognize many of them: gulab, carrot cake, burfi, etc.

While sweets aren't perhaps my favourite treat, I just had to give these a try. With the help of the man behind the counter, I grabbed a total of six items ($4.30 with tax).

These were, in order from favourite to least favourite: the moist orange-coloured, carrot-based sponge cake ball - the only one I forgot the name of - soaked in sugar syrup; dense khoya milk cake with one part cream and a sort of crumble; the classic and without a doubt the most well known gulab jamun, moist and spongy with sugar syrup; fudge-like barfi in regular and chocolate versions (personally preferred regular); and another dense, fudge-like ball-shaped one known as pera (this being the white version), which rounded out the set.

I did like the spongy, sugary ones the most, though I liked the different textures in the milk cake; those ones resembling fudge... not super fond of, but that was a matter of personal preference more than anything else. And while I may not be substituting my sha balay and bodh ja with sweets anytime soon, what a surprising find!

Rating: ***

The Bakery

Bakery: The Bakery 
Address: 5500 Wharf Ave #101, Sechelt, BC 
Website: http://lovethebakery.com/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

While The Bakery may not score that many points on name creativity, they do get an extra special for being open longer than their online hours! A mad dash from the ferry to make it to this place in time was given up about halfway and it was with a heavy heart that I admitted defeat: ten minutes too late. I simply wouldn't make the 5pm closing time! Turning the corner and driving through downtown Sechelt, I spotted The Bakery and was ready to let out a sigh of disappointment when I realized they were open - yes, open! More than that, there was no indication that they were closing. A bit fearful to run in and get something nasty like "you know we're closed", I was even more stunned to be treated with a smile and told that I could take as much time as I needed in choosing what I wanted. Perhaps they really were open for half an hour?

Nevertheless, taking a look at their display cases, I found they had a quite a bit of squares, tarts and cookies, even if all the baskets which I assumed had held baked goods were empty. Quite a bit of gluten-free options as well, for those who are interested.

I, for one, was aiming for something else and how unique is a rhubarb lemon tart? ($3.75) You've heard of strawberry rhubarb, you've heard of lemon, but I find that rhubarb as a standalone cake filling is almost exclusively relegated to bakeries specializing in European baking from a handful of countries, and even then it's a rare find. I'd never seen it paired with lemon, but it made a lot of sense: both were nice and tart. The shell was delicious and of the right texture. Maybe I thought the lemony frosting with the candied peel was a bit... much, but a tasty treat and a fantastic surprise that the ferry didn't manage to take away from me!

Rating: ***

Denden [Mimi's World Tour]

Bakery: Denden 
Address: 604-0000 Sanjo Dori, Kamikawarachō, Nakagyō-ward, Kyoto 
Website: n/a 
Style: Japanese 
Price: $$ 

Another bakery located along the Sanjo shopping street is Denden, a warm, homey, somewhat cram-packed bakery with a classic Japanese exterior and wooden accents inside with fake fruits and vegetables along with silly animals in wooden boxes scattered amidst baked goods presented on simple white plates, baskets and sheets of parchment paper. It can get a bit awkward when it comes to seeing what's available and lining up to pay, but nonetheless, the baked goods certainly look more small scale and feature more of a European flavour with flaky French pastries, rustic buns both sweet and savoury, and even little flatbread pizzas

While Denden does have some of the Japanese bakery classics like melon pan and red bean buns, I decided to try one of their decidedly more Western items: the cinnamon apple bun (183 yen). This was as ooey and gooey as you'd expect it to be with fresh slices of apples in the middle of a soft, pull-apart cinnamon spiral. Warming this up a bit in the microwave made this smell and taste very good: a bit of a cross between a cinnamon bun and apple pie. My one issue was that there was a bit too much unevenly distributed icing pooled on top (which was in itself a fairly unusual thing for Japanese baking, which is usually not overly sweet), which led to even more ooey gooeyness and too much sweetness for my liking.

Rating: ***

Chestnut Springs Organics Bakery

 Bakery: Chestnut Springs Organics Bakery

Address: 42300 Yarrow Rd, Chilliwack BC 
Website: https://chestnutsprings.ca/
Style: Canadian, Organic 
Price: $$-$$$ 

Deciding to fly out of Abbotsford airport, I was looking for a place to spend the night in or around Abbotsford so the drive wouldn't be too big the day of. Not at all a fan of big chain hotels on the side of the highway, I stumbled across the Chestnut Springs Cottage on Airbnb. Having never been to or driven through the small town of Yarrow (officially a part of Chilliwack), I thought it would be a great opportunity... well, okay, the main thing that attracted me was the fact that with every stay you got a gift certificate for breakfast at the bakery next door. That bakery is Chestnut Springs Organics Bakery. 

Truly a chance not to be missed, I was not only outfitted with a $30 (!!!) gift certificate, but upon entering the cottage, I was greeted with a whole bag of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. A part of me sorely wished I could... trade it with another flavour at the bakery, seeing as I'm not a fan of peanut butter anything, but the thought was a super nice one. And the cookies were actually quite taste, with a nice texture and complexity that made the peanut butter a little less obvious. Also not pictured was the fruity and flavourful raspberry muffin.

The following morning, I went equipped with my gift certificate and came out with breakfast for two, an extra treat and some leftover cash for next time. ^^ The bakery itself is small, yet surprisingly very busy with most people ordering drinks and the small counter area selling bread, baked goods, select desserts and ready-made sandwiches - and it's organic, which is nice!

The cinnamon buns weren't ready yet, which would have been my first pick, so I settled for the almond tart ($4.50). A nice slightly flaky, dense shortbread crust with a few slices of jellied apples and slivered almonds on top with a dense and chewy almond mass on the inside. Very good.

I also decided to try the lemon loaf ($4.00-4.50; price not listed). This was a moist and spongy pound cake with just the right amount of icing on top and a nice, not overly sweet lemony taste with every bite. Simple, yet very good -- which can be said with all the baked goods tried.

Rating: ***