Goldfield Bakery

Bakery: Goldfields Bakery 
Address: 14301 Front St, Barkerville, BC
Website: http://www.barkerville.ca/
Style: Canadian 
Price: $$ 

Should I confess that the main reason I initially wanted to go see Barkerville was to visit and review Goldfield Bakery? Yeah, maybe not. Still, in keeping with the whole 19th century Gold Rush theme of the park, of course this bakery has to be historical and old-fashioned with pretty glass-covered shelves behind the counter and a fresh whitewashed interior - it's so cool. The goods, on the other hand, somewhat under-performed. I mean, display cases that should be devoted to some classic baked goods were instead either empty or touting things like sausage and pickled eggs. I didn't come all the way to Barkerville to get sausages and pickles from a bakery! *glares*

Fortunately, the situation wasn't that dire. Goldfield has several varieties of cookies, some squares and... the doughnuts were sold out. On a rainy, miserably muddy day. Who snatched them all? I tried a white chocolate cranberry cookie ($1.50), rhubarb square ($2.50) and a jelly bar square ($1.50). The cookie was fairly good: nice proportion of white chocolate chips and cranberries. Maybe it could have been a bit chewier (and accordingly not so thin), but the taste was good. It's not often you get good, not overly sweet cookies from a bakery. Tasted homemade.

The jelly bar immediately cracked in half in the paper bag. :( I liked the shortbread bottom and the icing lining the sides, but why so little jelly, especially when they appear to make it themselves?

Probably the highlight was the rhubarb square. Personally, I wouldn't have taken it had it been properly labelled "coconut rhubarb square" but the chewy baked coconut layer did grow on me eventually and seemed to strangely complement the sourness of the rhubarb. Maybe not extremely well, but it worked. More gold dust than gold nugget, but Goldfield was still the best place to stop in Barkerville.

Rating: **1/2