Pâtisserie 27

Bakery: Pâtisserie 27
Address: 401 Jane St, Toronto ON
Website: http://www.patisserie27.com/
Style: French, Japanese
Price: $$ 

Holy-moly! *-* I've found myself another spot to get myself some delectable French treats, this time a little closer to where I am! A little out of the way from the Jane-Runnymede bakery strip (one of the highest bakery per capita ratios in the city, that's certain) is this little, unassuming shop with, at first glance, not much in it. At second glance, you want to rob it of all its treats. XD

I discovered Pâtisserie 27 after having scoured a few food sites for bakery ideas. I got a few on blogto.com and this was one of them (though the others they did got me showing up to empty, closed down businesses :/): the result of a meeting between a Torontian man and a Japanese woman at a French culinary institute, I believe. And this is one yummy result!! I sometimes get this gut feeling that I *need* to check a place out and so I was gearing up for this place for awhile now. Not in the mood to venture further into Toronto on a cold day, I braved the wind and came here. The city's take on Pâtisserie Sadaharu Aoki, 27 is a subtle fusion of French and Japanese, with neat inventions in the form of tasty-looking cakes, pastries ($4.95) and Japanese flavoured macarons (the only variety I saw that wasn't sold out yet was a Japanese lemon ($1.50-1.95)) In addition to this, they have traditional French staples like various viennoiseries, madeleines, etc. In terms of price, prices are clearly written and quite reasonable (though the pastries are more, as in all French patisseries), especially given that we went bakeries along Bloor afterwards that were nowhere near as fancy (and amazing) and they wanted $2.50 for their danishes and $2.00 for macarons. Worth the walk or.. well, we should have taken the bus from the station. -.-

Bringing my purchases home, I swear, all I needed to do was look at them while taking photos to know they'd be amazing. Look how you can actually see the layers of the dough in the danish! That's skill. And biting into it, you can taste the skill too.

The first item was the Davide ($2.25), a danish rolled with high-quality dark chocolate bits and maple syrup -- the lovely golden colour failed to show up well on camera. If it means anything, the brothers that ate these thought they were bought at The Danish Pastry House, because they couldn't believe anyone else could make such a perfectly flaky danish. It blew them away and in the words of one brother: "This is what a danish is supposed to taste like. Perfect score!" Okay. ;)

They ate theirs before I ate mine, so this was.. exciting news. ^^ I was getting impatient~! For my purchase, I got the Gâteau Basque ($3.50 for an individual; $12.00 for cake-size -- available weekends only), something I tried for the first time in Paris. Pff, looking back at the photo from my first time, the difference between the two is shocking. Cracking into this buttery crust and finding layers of almond paste, spots of pastry cream and chunks of cherries, I wanted to squeal! Exactly like it should be! And then the taste... omg! When the description said "cookie dough", I was thinking something hard and crumbly, but the dough, especially the outer layers, was the texture of the most perfect chewy cookie. Whoa! ... Again, this thing just oozed with expertise: cracking open this buttery, hard crust and having this soft, chewy filling on the inside... *swoons*

Final word: this place is incredible! Whether you try some of the original pieces or stick to the classics, I think you'll agree. A bit of heaven in Runnymede/Bloor-West! ;)

Rating: ****

Baked Goods by Kristin H.

At Home with: Kristin H. 
Location: Iceland

I always wanted to put this up and never got around to it... So, sometimes the Cake Tour doesn't just involve visiting bakeries. After all, the idea is to find the tastiest baked goods, not where they can be found, and sometimes people (that is, home baking) can wow me with their baking in the same way the best bakeries/pastry shops/cafes can. :) I can still remember my grandma's crumble pies and yeast cakes made with fruit picked from her backyard garden. Or my godmother's amazing slab cakes or super soft, prune-stuffed rożki (rugullah) which, try as I might, I can't find even a decent imitation (both in bakeries and in terms of recipes) anywhere!! Sometimes you need to try someone else's baking (especially when you're short on bakeries and cash~ though it doesn't serve any purpose here except for nostalgia's sake...)! ^-^;;

Actually, I only got this whole idea after this picture; I asked permission to take it and I must have looked like the biggest lunatic there is, so I'm putting it into good use. :D This summer, while I was volunteering in Iceland, Kristin came to stay with us (that is, our host -- she was his sister -- and the other workers) for a few days and in that time, she cooked our dinners. When one of the other workers told me she was in the process of publishing a cookbook, I was impressed but it wasn't too shocking. She could cook. And as part of every meal, she made dessert. Or just baked during the day.

Once, while I was working, she ran over to the makeshift station in the garage, asking me if I wanted to join her in the house since she had just made cinnamon buns and they were fresh from the oven. I sometimes wonder if people know who they're talking to... O___O Suffice to say, you didn't need to ask me twice. XD Waiting for me on the kitchen table were two heaping bowls of hot, small cinnamon buns with more coming out of the oven and an urn of freshly made coffee. If you don't know it already, I'm in love with Scandinavian cinnamon buns and, simple and unadorned as they were, these were heavenly.

Another time, dinner was concluded with the announcement of whether anyone wanted a slice of hot rhubarb tart (the rhubarb coming from the garden out back) with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top (sadly, I didn't have the courage to take the photo). Whoa, can you guess who jumped at that chance? And who was the only volunteer who eagerly and in a transport of bliss accepted the offer for seconds? .__.; Delicious crumbly tart stuffed with soft chunks of rhubarb and topped with crumble. Mmm... I was actually craving rhubarb (something I don't normally eat) so much after this delicious tart that I *had* to have a rhubarb cake in Tallinn!

It's so ironic how I was hunting for bakeries and the baked goods I ended up enjoying the most were the ones that Kristin made for us. It still makes me a little sad/mad that she disappeared (i.e. went home) one day after dinner without saying anything to anyone; I really wanted to thank her and let her know how much I (and my stomach) appreciated the chance to try her tasty food and amazing baking! Now I can only wish her good luck on her cookbook.

Thanks for the goodies! :)

Nader's Grill and Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: Nader's Middle Eastern Grill and Bakery
Address: 3900 Grand Park Dr, Mississauga ON
Website: http://www.naders.ca/
Style: Middle Eastern
Price: $$$ 

The brothers have a whole bunch of lunch spots throughout the city and Nader's is one of them. Part burger joint, part sit-down restaurant, they also have a "dessert corner" where you can buy baklava, cookies, and less traditional offerings like cakes and ice cream. Despite the sign itself and the "our" bakery on the website description, I'm actually not sure what, if anything, is made by them, since platters along the tops of the counter feature the name of a bakery in Toronto.. or Scarborough (somewhere else, at any rate ^^;;) and they have little else in terms of selection. Comparing them to other places, they don't have so much variety and the baklava is less elaborate, maybe more simple, homemade-looking? However, it also happens to be the second most expensive in the city (Mona takes gold for priciest), with both cookies and baklava at $27/kg.

Still, during their last lunch trip, they came back with two boxes of goodies. Yay! ^_^v Just as a semi-guideline, both boxes together cost around $9. In the first, they picked out some date cookies, tiny little treats made with a hard, crumbly dough and stuffed with a (small) bit of date paste. These were fairly tasty and quite different from the commercial cookies like mammoul  (which are still very good, mind you ;P), both in taste and texture. The opinions were actually divided 50/50 as to what was better: this or the baklava. Me, well, I'm really not so much the honey-and-nuts gal and I do love dates... :3

Secondly was two types of baklava: the layered one, albeit less elaborate than usual, was the traditional one with pistachio (also crushed on top) and the smaller ones were cashew baklava (on the left-hand side), which, for us at any rate, was something new. I can't say I'd ever heard of it elsewhere, so one brother thought these were the highlights of the group, saying it was something different, unique. On the other hand, the other brother claimed they tasted too much like Chinese cashew cookies and the nuts didn't match the baklava. They're quite good (it's hard to do something gross with baklava, isn't it?) though certainly not the best both from what I've had and what's also available in the city.

Rating: **1/2

Korea Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: Korea Bakery
Address: 689 Bloor Street West, Toronto ON 
Website: n/a
Style: Korean
Price: $

 [Well, this place has been boarded up for the past few times I've come to Koreatown. In the fall, there were blinds and a sign, so I thought that maybe they had closed for vacation or something, but it looks like, after all, this place won't be reopening. Another bakery gone. :(]

I was in Koreatown yesterday and thought that I might as well pop into pretty much the last remaining bakery I have to do in this section of Bloor (though I would like to add the walnut cake place too... I've had it a few times and it never dawned on me to do a cake tour of it. Scandalous.)

Anyways, Korea Bakery is a fairly small bakery with a similar format as other Korean bakeries (like BnC down the street), with various sweet, mostly cream-filled buns wrapped and sitting in various baskets. In addition to this, they have several bags of pre-packed cookies, a small assortment of cakes and a few steam buns, sold as a pack of six. Despite not having any prices, these guys are really as cheap as you'll get in terms of Korean baked goods (at least in the buns; not sure what anything else costs), which usually average around $2 for a bun. At $1.25 each, they're a steal! :)

The buns are pretty much the same varieties as you'll see everywhere else, stuffed with red (sometimes green) bean paste, pastry cream or custard, but these guys seems to have a lot with peanut butter and mocha cream, two things I haven't seen so much of in other bakeries. So if you're a fan of peanut butter, check it out.

For myself, I settled on a bun, specifically the "Netherland Bread" ($1.25). Why? I don't know; maybe I'm just uh, craving some Dutch baking. :D Though, I'm not exactly sure what makes it Dutch, but I'm assuming it's the swirl of almond paste on top? Anyways, swirl of almond paste with the bun cut open and filled with a custard resembling the fluffiness of choux cream, not thick pudding. This in itself was a good thing and the bun had a light feeling (though most like deceiving ;D); however, what the cream had in fluffiness, the dough itself lacked it. Korean dough, I find, it quite dense and really soft. Biting into a bun is like.. laying your head on a pillow. XD The dough here was a lot more airy and didn't have that moist softness I've come to expect. It wasn't at the peak of freshness either, but it was alright; I think what it really needed was a little more softness and less of an Italian bread texture, which doesn't suit the purpose.

Besides this, I picked out the red bean doughnut ($1.25), deep-fried, sugar-coated doughnuts stuffed with red bean paste and, as one brother explained, lacked the richness and *pow* that so amazed him at Bakery Nakamura. The red bean paste, in particular, wasn't -- purely in his words -- "beany" enough.. "and with Korean stuff, I'm always afraid of biting in and finding an omelet". O.o Nonetheless: it was alright, but not great.

Overall, I was actually a little surprised to find that my Koreatown stops didn't do as well as I had expected, with both not coming close to the cloud-like softness and freshness of Royal Fauchon, which is the place to beat.

Rating: **1/2

Clarkson Scottish Bakery [RIP]

Bakery: Clarkson Scottish Bakery
Address: 1715 Lakeshore Rd W, Mississauga ON
Website: n/a
Style: Scottish
Price: $

I don't know why, but I really wanted to check this place out. Maybe it's just to cross "Scottish" off the list (or, rather, add it onto the places I've visited ^.^)? Maybe simply for the uniqueness? I'd never tried Scottish baking before, and I was curious, though -- to be quite honest with you -- I was expecting nothing more than meat pies (to be sure, those *were* there) and a lifetime's supply of... scones. In every flavour imaginable. Maybe some pound cakes... XD But man, do I ever love surprises!

Nestled behind the plaza at Lakeshore and Clarkson (I did miss this the first time; you need to actually turn on Clarkson Road N and then go to the back.. it's in the downstairs area, above a restaurant), this small bakery actually had more sweets than I imagined and share the place equally with a wide assortment of meat pies and pasties. And, even more amazingly, I had a hard time choosing what I wanted simply because... I could have everything there! O_O Add on top of that stunning, stunning prices: individual items are $1.50 or less; whole pies for $5.50! Clearly labelled with names and prices, I ended up with a whole bunch of stuff. I actually bought a bridie (beef and onions) and Cornish pasty (meat and veggies) (both around $3) and a loaf of bread ($2.30) too to go ahead and try everything -- you can afford it! :)

So, I was really itching to chomp right into these treats! And they didn't disappoint. First up were three tarts (well, it was one tart per person): the iced ones were a Fern Tart (with the fern ;P) and the other a Blackwell Tart (both $1.30/each). Wanting to know which I would rather eat, I did some research and as both sounded equally good, I cut the two in half. According to online recipes, the Blackwell Tart is supposed to be filled with a sort of pudding (the photo looked more like bread pudding than the vanilla variety) whereas the Fern Tart was stuffed with an almond-coconut-marmalade mass. So, my two halves actually... I don't know if there was supposed to be a difference, but I think they were the same. O.o For all that, they were really good and reminded me too much of Scandinavian almond tarts for me to turn that into a complaint.

Along with them was the rhubarb tart ($1.30 for a small; $5.40 for a large pie) which was also really good and the favourite with both brothers. Slightly different dough than your typical pie (soda-based??), but it's definitely worth getting a big pie. I'll remember that for next time.

Besides this, I got myself a currant square ($1.40; apple also available), two layers of slightly denser dough with a crust of sugar on top just jam-packed with soaked dried black currants which literally burst with flavour with every bite. Mmm... this was SO good!

Lastly, there was the Eccles Cake ($1.55), a type of turnover, one could say, made of hard, thick dough and stuffed with mincemeat (an assortment of dried fruits) The brothers had this one; they liked the taste of the filling and thought it overall quite good, but slightly too doughy.
 
Still, this can be shelved under 'a great find'. I actually think I might have every bakery in Mississauga covered, either being already reviewed or on my "to visit" list (20+ spots ._.) and this was one of the very few remaining that I was really looking forward to and I'm so happy that, for once, it actually went beyond any of my initial expectations!

Rating: ***1/2

Akko Cake House

Bakery: Akko Cake House 
Address: 4040 Creditview Rd, Mississauga ON 
Website: n/a
Style: Chinese
Price: $

[Hello again! Before I begin with this week's (and last week's) stops, I thought I'd pop in and let you know I have two new pages to introduce, mainly my Cake Tour Map (seen here), which took three weeks to create, but I hope it was worth it! It has all stops, complete with interactive map and custom markers (with all necessary information). Wow, how neat is that! *-* And because this wasn't enough Photoshop fun for one weekend, I decided to make a separate suggestion page, because um, why not? Sure you can comment on any possible review and make a suggestion, but it's... not the suggestion box. ^^;;;; Both can be accessed at any time through the side bar *points* And check out the cake icon on the browser bar... yes, when I have a shortage of bakeries, I truly have NO life]

Anyways, this was suggested to me in the summer and I finally popped into this established Chinese bakery on a Sunday afternoon. This in itself wasn't very smart, since the bakery was literally emptied out and only a few bins remained, with all the leftover buns crammed into two compartments. In some way, this is good since you know they bake this stuff every day, but it was hard picking something out (that didn't have meat in it, on top of that!).

Nonetheless, as an intro, somewhat contrary to the name, Akko Cake House is indeed a Chinese bakery and, like all Chinese bakeries, their focus is on meat/savoury buns or flaky pastries and egg tarts (online comments claim these guys have some pretty good ones). Tucked into the fridge by the cash, they do have some cakes, but I can't say I was overly thrilled with the two we tried many years ago (one reason why I didn't really return): one was a sort of fruit cake which was pretty much sponge cake stuck together with Cool Whip. This is a fairly standard 'recipe', but I don't think I can recommend it from any place. I don't know if they still make it (even the cakes were sold out when I was there!), we had one that was a lighter version of the standard birthday cake was a mango mousse cake, with a sort of mass of mango and maybe condensed milk? It was alright, but as a Cake House, Akko is certainly not 'great' value -- at over $20, you can pay that elsewhere and get an amazing cake. There are, however, several options (and not many exist in Mississauga) if you don't want to go the traditional, frosted birthday cake route.

As a bakery, they're not bad. Actually, they're probably one of the best Chinese bakeries in the city (though there aren't that many besides supermarkets) with plenty of selection (according to the labels that were on the ledge), both sweet and savoury alike, and, at almost everything under $1, amazing prices. They may be slightly smaller than the supermarket versions, but for that, they're fairly generously filled and pretty tasty.

From the two or three sweet things left, I picked out: a walnut bun ($0.80), stuffed with a walnut mass and brushed with egg on top. This was good and a big hit with brother#1 who claimed that this is probably the best bun you can get in the area.

Next up was the famous almond cookie ($0.90). On the hunt for the best almond cookie (this is brother#2's great idea), he said this one came pretty close, tasting like it came from a bakery... not sure what that's supposed to mean, but I suppose it wasn't commercial-tasting or -looking with parts brushed in eggs and actual slivered almonds in sight. And it wasn't neon yellow! :P Another hit.

Lastly, I settled for the sponge cake ($0.80), which ended up being not the greatest I've had, but still good, especially with the bit of a crust from the brushed egg. A little too brown and the bottom of the cup also had this scorched dough feeling; the dough itself was slightly dry, going with the 'too long in the oven' theory. I suppose I know why there were so many left. :| Somewhat of a miss.

Overall, Akko Cake House is quite good and probably beats anything in the city in terms of taste and price when it comes to Chinese baking.

Rating: ***