Sweet-o-One

Bakery: Sweet-o-one
Address: 50 Doncaster Ave #5, Thornhill ON 
Website: http://www.sweet-o-one.com/
Style: Cakes, Russian 
Price: $$ 

Wanting to expand my range of cake shops, especially my go-to location went downhill years ago and nothing has really come along to replace it, I decided to check out some new places. One of them is Sweet-o-one, a cake shop located in an out-of-the-way industrial plaza with a very small selection of cakes and cake slices that gives the large, eerily silent space an empty look to it. Nonetheless, cakes are what I would call simplified versions of classic, multi-layered Russian tortes with an undeniable focus on meringue cakes; personally, not liking meringue cakes, there were too many and not enough variety among the non-meringue ones.

Another disappointment was that the most appealing cake for me - the Sugarplum (a.k.a. Anechka) - is only available as a whole cake if you place a custom order in advance. Why!? It's not much different than the other honey cakes which were in stock....

In the end, I grabbed the "Ideal" ($31), though I confess I was already gearing up for disappointment with the simple honey walnut cake with dulce de leche buttercream between the layers. Especially since it didn't look like a celebration cake. I feel like a little more effort could have been taken to decorate it. It wasn't a slab cake. Serving it as a birthday cake, the appearance fell a little flat. I grabbed a slice, took my first forkful and... changed my mind. Yes, it could still be improved in terms of the decorative aspect, but this was really good. I loved the honey walnut cake! This was one of the best honey cakes I've had and the dulche de leche, though rich and needing something to break it up a little, was surprisingly delicious. One of the very few cakes that I could just keep on eating without getting tired of it!

Rating: ***