Bakery:
Applewood Bakery
Address:
1077 North Service Rd, Mississauga ON
Website:
n/a
Style:
North American, Portuguese
Price:
$$
[Yay! Back to some local finds and keep looking out for even more! :)]
Applewood Bakery is really tucked away (unless you live in the area, that is) and I forgot about its existence even when I made my exhaustive "bakeries still needing a visit" list, but a drive along the QEW reminded me instantly that I still needed to make my way over here. And make my way I did... though some manoeuvring was needed. The sign on the outside makes this look like it's been an institution on the plaza for quite some time, although the newer interior gave me the instant impression that it must have changed hands along the way. Possibly? Nevertheless, I was expecting a more or less traditional North American (squares and cookies) sort of place, so I was pleasantly surprised (ha ha this sounds awful, I know, but ethnic baking will always reign supreme for me .____.;;;) to find they were also a Portuguese bakery, even though they don't sell that many Portuguese baked goods, besides the famous custard tarts and some bread. The traditional Canadian goodies -- butter tarts, pies, cinnamon buns and a variety of home-baked squares and cookies (they also had puff pastry strudels which look eerily familiar to the place I suspect doesn't make any of their stuff, thus somewhat... confusing and disconcerting me) -- does seem to be the centrepiece here, but in this case, this was in no way a bad thing, simply because they actually had a fairly impressive selection of it, not just lacklustre stuff like... brownies and chocolate chip cookies. :/
I picked out three items (around $2.50/each -- not too cheap considering Portuguese bakeries are usually great value and it's nothing overly special; no prices are listed on anything) for sampling this time around and didn't leave me disappointed. First up was simply taking cue from the man in front of me: a pretty large chunk of apple cake, which proved to be my least favourite (though one brother claimed it was the best): very soft sponge cake prone to crumbling apart with chunks of apples adhered by a cinnamon sugar glaze/gloop. For me, there could have been more apples and less of the gloop, possibly a little less dough as well in comparison to the topping, but in taste, it was really taste and definitely something new in comparison to the same apple filling that can be found anywhere and everywhere.
Second on the list was the date square, my favourite. Loaded with dates and topped with tons of oats, this had the perfect moist, chewy texture you expect from this sort of thing. Mmmm.... I could have another one of these, that's for sure. ^^;;
Lastly was well, I'm not sure what it is, but it was another tasty one. Crunchy slivered coconut in this chewy, quite lemony dough that was... not that easy to describe. Lol. It does come as a surprise as the brown dough just doesn't look like it'll have anything citrus-y about it, but there is it is. Oh, this is really coming out wrong, but ahem, the lemon-coconut square was another noteworthy discovery, and in fact, Applewood Bakery really did turn into an enjoyable visit -- ha ha ha it better, after that navigation. :D Don't expect anything fancy or overly elaborate, but it's great for what it is: a bakery serving plenty of simple, though tasty treats.
Rating: ***
I also took a slice of apple strudel (not sure if I would necessarily call it a strudel, but 'apple cake' will work too; $1.10) which was, in addition to being cheap, was quite tasty. The dough was different; softer and and just not puff pastry, to put it simply. Plenty of apples, a little sponge cake layer on the bottom and dough wrapped... around. I liked it.
