Tag: cream puff

Tasty Desserts at Bakerbots Baking

Published on by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Bakerbots Baking
Location: 1242 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Website: https://bakerbotsbaking.com/

Bakerbots is affiliated with Bang Bang, which serves some of the best ice cream in the city (I’ve written about Bang Bang roughly a billion times on this blog, and while it’s been a while, they’re still great).  So, of course, it’s a top-notch bakery.

Bakerbots Baking

They used to be in a teeny-tiny location that was about the size of a generous walk-in closet, but have since moved to a much larger spot on Bloor (they even have a few seats!).

I think the assortment of desserts might be slightly larger than before, but it’s also possible they’re just more spread out now.  Either way, they have a very tempting variety of cakes, cookies, pies, and other tasty stuff.

Bakerbots Baking

I ordered the key lime puff, which features a choux pastry stuffed with whipped cream and key lime pie filling, topped with Italian meringue.

It’s hard for me to not compare a pastry like this to the amazing Choux Lab, and no, it’s not as good as that — but it’s close!

Bakerbots Baking

The key lime filling is nicely tart and very creamy.  I’m not sure if this needs both whipped cream and meringue, which I think dilutes the lime flavour a bit too much, but that’s a minor complaint.  The filling is delicious, and the nicely crisp choux pastry complements it well.

Quick Bites: Barbershop Patisserie, Bloom Cafe, Bang Bang

Published on by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Raspberry almond bread budding from Barbershop Patisserie
Raspberry almond bread budding from Barbershop Patisserie

I’m a big fan of Barbershop Patisserie; I’m also a big fan of bread pudding, but alas, the bread pudding at Barbershop isn’t quite as amazing as you’d hope.  It’s perfectly tasty (I don’t think Barbershop is capable of making something that’s outright bad), but it has basically no custard flavour, and the level of sweetness is so restrained that it borders on bland.  Still, the combo of the almonds and the tart raspberry is a big winner, and it certainly wasn’t unpleasant to eat.

Vanilla Cream Puff from Bloom Cafe
Vanilla Cream Puff from Bloom Cafe

I recently mentioned that the delightful Choux Lab actually reminded me quite a bit of Beard Papa, a Japanese cream puff chain that left the GTA a few years ago, taking a little piece of my heart with it.  Well Bloom Cafe is even more Beard Papa-esque; they specialize in the exact type of Japanese cream puffs they used to sell at Beard Papa.  Alas, I’ll have to stick with Choux Lab to fill the Beard-Papa-sized hole in my heart (and stomach) — the cream puff here could have been tasty, but it was obviously filled way too far in advance, and was pretty soggy.  It didn’t help that it was filled with what tasted like plain sweetened whipped cream instead of delicious custardy cream like BP.

Pumpkin / Cookie Butter at Bang Bang
Pumpkin / Cookie Butter from Bang Bang

Let’s end things on a more positive note.  I’ve written about Bang Bang many, many times on this blog, so I’ll keep this brief.  Bang Bang: still great!  The flavour I recently had, which combines pumpkin and Biscoff cookie butter, is legitimately among the best scoops of ice cream that I’ve ever had.  The two flavours work so well together, and the ice cream itself is amazingly rich and creamy.