Bakeries – Page 25 – Michael Eats

PB and J Goodness at Bake Code

Published on April 10, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 4910 Yonge Street, North York
Website: http://bakecode.com/

Hey. Do you like croissants? Of course you do, who doesn’t? How about peanut butter and jelly? Again, I’m going to have to assume the answer is yes. Of course you like PB and J. You’re not a crazy person.

Well then, you’ll be pleased to hear that Bake Code has a PB and J croissant, and yeah, it’s good. How could it not be?

It’s not even that the croissant is that great. It’s fine. It’s a bit too dense, and it’s not quite as flaky or as buttery as you’d like; it’s a decent, middle-of-the-road croissant. But then they fill it with an absolutely absurd amount of peanut butter and strawberry jam, and how could that be bad? It can’t be.

The crispy croissant, the crunchy peanuts on top, and the gooey PB and J turn out to be an irresistible combination. It almost feels like cheating — you could put gobs of peanut butter and jelly into pretty much anything, and it’s going to be delicious. But tasty is tasty.

Decent meat pies from Nadege

Published on March 31, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Address: 3401 Dufferin Street, Toronto
Website: http://www.nadege-patisserie.com/

I just got a couple of meat pies from Nadege in Yorkdale — beef bourguignon and chicken basquaise — and they were both fine. they were so middle-of-the-road that I’m having a hard time mustering up the enthusiasm to even write a few words about them, but this is a food blog. It was food. Let’s do this.

They both had the same puff pastry crust, which was light and flaky, if a bit dry. Like everything else about these things, it was fine.

They heated them up for me, but clearly not enough, because they were vaguely hot in some places, and lukewarm in others.

The beef bourguignon had big, tender cubes of beef interspersed with carrot chunks. It wasn’t bad, but nothing about it particularly stood out. There just wasn’t much going on, flavour-wise, and the sauce was nonexistent — it was just dry chunks of beef and carrots.

The chicken basquaise had big chunks of chicken interspersed with pieces of peppers (red and yellow peppers, I think? I ate this just a couple of hours ago and it has already almost completely faded from my memory). Like the other pie, it was a bit bland. It was also entirely sauce-less, and the chunks of chicken were kinda dry. But it was fine.

I know I’ve said “fine” an awful lot, but it’s really the best word to describe these things. By tomorrow they will have both entirely receded from my memory, like they never existed.

Cheesecake by Heirloom

Published on March 13, 2018October 20, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Cheesecake is good. You know what’s better? Cheesecake dipped in chocolate and nuts, and covered with chocolate and caramel sauces.

Cheesecake by Heirloom was in the Concept section of Yorkdale (I’m a bit late posting this, and it’s now gone — super useful blog post, I know, but supposedly they’ll be selling cheesecakes again at a different location in April), and it’s pretty great. I mean, how could it not be? They start with a good quality piece of New York style cheesecake, then they cover it in all the aforementioned stuff.

And all that stuff is quite good. It’s incredibly sweet and rich — maybe to a fault. It’s not a subtle dessert. It’s probably not something you’d want to eat all the time, but man, it’s delicious.

Pastry Perfection at MoRoCo Chocolat

Published on March 2, 2018March 2, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 215 Madison Avenue, Toronto
Website: https://shop.morocochocolat.com/

People: this is not a drill. The chocolate hazelnut croissant at MoRoCo Chocolat is mind-blowing. It’s the best pastry I’ve had in a long, long time, and yes — I’m including my recent ten-day trip to Paris. It’s an all-timer.

Everything about it is amazing: you’ve got the croissant itself, which is buttery and flaky and delicious. There’s the perfectly crispy sweet hazelnut topping, which is basically like the topping of an almond croissant, only with hazelnuts, and which goes perfectly with the rich, chocolately filling.

And the icing on the metaphorical cake? The absolutely astonishing custard, which might have been the best custard I’ve ever had.

And I mean, who expects custard in a croissant like this? It’s weird, right? But good weird. The best weird. It’s what pushed this over the top and made it one of the best damn things I’ve eaten in such a long time. It was creamy and rich, with a flavour that I can only describe as the platonic ideal of custards. It’s the kind of custard that makes all other custards taste like garbage, because it’s so damn perfect.

It took something that was already delicious and made it crazy delicious.

I’m not sure why you’re even still reading this when you should clearly be driving/walking/sprinting to MoRoCo to buy one. Just be warned: after taking a couple of bites and realizing that this was the best thing ever, I promptly went back into the store so I could buy another one or two (or three). But that was it. Apparently they only make one or two a day. So get there early. It’s worth it.

Ladurée

Published on February 23, 2018 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

The macarons from Ladurée were delicious. You probably shouldn’t eat them.

I got four of them, and they cost about 15 bucks with tax ($14.92, actually), and seriously: get the hell out of here with those prices. I don’t care if you’re using the highest of high-end ingredients, there’s no way to justify charging $3.73 each for these tiny little things.

They are quite good, though. I tried hazelnut, pistachio, salted caramel and coconut lime.

They were amazing; maybe the best macarons I’ve ever had. The texture was the perfect contrast of crispy, airy, and creamy, and the flavours were uniformly great. Even the coconut lime, which I was kind of skeptical about, was top notch. It had a really satisfying coconut flavour, with a mild zinginess from the lime that never overwhelms.

But those prices? Nope.