Tag: Butter Baker

Delicious Soft Serve at Butter Baker

Published on by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Butter Baker
Location: 140 Amber Street, Markham
Website: https://butter-baker.com/

The last time I tried Butter Baker, I had a croissant that I wasn’t particularly crazy about.  I figured I’d try the soft serve this time, and it was thoroughly delicious.  So clearly, that’s the thing to order.

Butter Baker

I think the flavours rotate, but when I visited, they were serving a swirl consisting of plain frozen yogurt and a sorbet with passionfruit and… some other stuff.  The guy described the flavour to me, and I immediately forgot.  I know, I know — great blogging, very helpful.  You’re welcome.

Butter Baker

Whatever it is, it’s quite good, with the slightly tart sorbet balancing quite nicely with the sweet yogurt.  That sweetness is maybe a bit too amped up, but that’s a minor complaint.

Lemon Meringue Croissant from Butter Baker

Published on by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Butter BakerLocation: 120 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://butter-baker.com/

The lemon meringue croissant from Butter Baker is one of those things that I saw on Instagram and immediately had to eat.  And yes, I know: this makes me part of the problem.

A very strong argument could be made that social media (Instagram in particular) is making our cuisine appreciably worse by incentivizing restaurants to serve visually innovative food in which the actual taste is an afterthought (e.g. Sweet Jesus).

Butter Baker

And that’s absolutely the case here.  I mean, look at that!  It looks so impressive!  But it gets less impressive once you start actually eating it.

For one thing, it’s almost impossible to eat without getting sticky meringue all over your face.  But let’s set that complaint aside, because a lot of cupcakes are just as hard to eat without making a mess, and only a monster would argue that a cupcake isn’t great.

Butter Baker

The two main issues here are that the croissant itself is merely okay, and the lemon curd  filling is completely bland.  The latter point is especially egregious; the whole appeal of a lemon meringue pie is the delightful way that the tartness of the lemon curd is offset by the sweetness of the meringue.  But here, the curd is disappointingly anemic, with a limp sugariness and almost no sour bite.  Because of this, the whole thing comes off as one-dimensionally sweet and boring.

I will, however, give Butter Baker props for the use of creamy Italian meringue over frothy, dull French meringue.  This is correct; French meringue is for jerks.