Victoria K Cakes

Bakery: Victoria K Cakes
Address: 24-1450 Clark Ave W, Thornhill, ON
Website: facebook
Style: Cake, Russian
Price: $$$ 

 Always on the lookout for new and amazing cake places, I chanced upon this place while checking directions for another bakery. Located in a corner of one of those nondescript plazas, Victoria K Cakes is a Russian patisserie in the truest sense of the word in that they only really sell cakes (both full-sized and individual slices) and a small selection of pastries, cookies and baked goods.

However, I was here for the cake this time around. The cake slices served as a good guideline for determining how the inside of the large cakes looked like; I was a little disappointed that many did not have the multiple thin layers of cream and cake that is, in my opinion, so typical of Russian cakes. One thing worth noting, though, was the fact that they had a lot of fruit cakes - finally! Most bakeries have a lot of chocolate and maybe one fruit cake if you're lucky, so it was nice to see so much selection. On the other hand, I found Victoria K expensive; expect to pay on average $10 more than a good cake from a quality bakery! The thing is, the big cake isn't even a deal compared to buying individual slices, though it should be.

Personally, I would have gone with the Anechka honey cake with prunes, but I'd received a special request not to get "another honey cake". Instead, I took the vanilla cranberry ($41) because it had that elaborate multi-layered construction I'm so fond of. Cutting into it, I liked the crepe-thin layers of cake, but was disappointed that the cranberry was relegated to only the tip of the cake, with other slices having a less equal division, so the cake was mostly lots of vanilla cream with some tartness in one or two bites. Too one-dimensional. For the price, the outside also could have been made to look nicer.

Yes, I was there for the cake alone, but when I spotted the poppy seed bun ($2.49) I had to give it a try. From the outside, it didn't look like much; actually, it looked pretty doughy, but looks were deceiving in this case. Thin, poppy seed-loaded layers of tasty dough - this was definitely the highlight of the show and good enough to improve the overall rating after that cake!

Rating: ***