French Macarons

DUO PATISSERIE & CAFE

December 5, 2014September 16, 2019Leave a comment

230 Commerce Valley Drive Unit 4
Markham, ON
www.duo-patisserie.com/

Duo Patisserie & Cafe is probably the best new shop to open up in Markham, a great French patisserie. Duo opened up this past October and it hasn’t had a lot of media coverage yet, their website is still under construction. The cafe is located on Highway 7 and Leslie Street, super convenient for all us uptown kids.

The interior is super clean and modern, the walls and furniture in all white. You can even look into their kitchen to see their production. The duo behind Duo are Rocky and Eric, two best friends. Eric makes the pastries and Rocky is front of house manning the coffee bar.

Their selection of croissants that day were plain, ham & cheese, honey twist, pain au chcolat and almond, the prices range from $2.50 – $3.50.

They have a beautiful selection of plated desserts, everything is made in house and they use the finest ingredients with some products even shipped from France. Duo also sells french macarons ($3.00 each) with flavours like oolong, matcha, and earl grey. I didn’t have a chance to try any but I’ll probably make another very visit soon.

I got the Mont Blanc and Hazel to go.

The Mont Blanc ($7.00) was perfect, I’ve never had a Mont Blanc with so much chestnut puree and whole chestnuts. The short bread tart filled with vanilla sponge, a dome of whipped cream and encased in ultra smooth chest puree.
The Hazel ($6.00), chocolate mousse on top of a thin chocolate round and a short bread disk with sesame seeds. The mousse had a super intense dark chocolate flavour, Rocky mentioned that the chcolate was imported from France. I liked the sesame seeds on the short bread, it gave the dessert extra texture and another flavour profile.

I had a bite of the plain croissant and it was flaky and light.

I like how Duo puts a lot of thought into their packaging, instead of using paper bags for their croissants, they opted for wax paper ones to keep that disgusting grease stain from seeping through the bag. I also noticed that they had take away boxes for single desserts and their macaron boxes are awesome as well.

Hunger Games

April 10, 2013Leave a comment

My sister and Chris sometimes like to play a little game called Hunger Games, this is not what you think it is. Basically they go around downtown Toronto going to different places and stuffing their faces with food. This Hunger Game is quite different from the one novel or movie.

Philip recently came back from his 2 month vacation and we decided to play our very own version of Hunger Games.

“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour.”

Our first stop was Guu, Guu recently started opening for their lunch crowd with set meals that range from $8 – 15. You can find their daily lunch special on their twitter page, they update everyday.

I got the Gyu Don, sukiyaki beef on rice topped with a half boiled egg, $8.80. Everything was delicious but not outstandingly so.

Philip got the Chirashi Don for $14.80, there was B.C tuna, salmon, scallops and salmon caviar.

Both dishes are served with miso soup and different pickle items.

Then we ended up at Paulette’s, my last visit here was with Philip as well. I felt like the first time our chicken was less greasy, I’m also not a big fan of cakey donuts so I opted to skip the donut part of Paulett’es. You can read about my last visit here!

You can read about my last visit here!

But since we decided to skip out on the donuts at Paulette’s, we headed all the way to the west end to Glory Hole Doughnuts. This is my second time visiting Glory Hole Doughnuts and I must say their donuts are still gigantic and delicious!

Philip and I spilt 6 and my choices were the Stuffing with bacon, Peanut Butter Chocolate Banana and S’mores. My favourite hands down was the Stuffing, it was savoury, sweet and everything you would look for in stuffing! It had chucks of cranberries and flecks of rosemary throughout the donut but I could do without the bacon, in fact I just picked off all the bacon.

Philip’s choices were Rum Raisin Twist, Stuffing with Bacon and the Blood Orange. Philip loved all his choices. and Here’s the post from my first visit. The menu changes seasonally so take a look at their website before going. They took off their Lemon Meringue donut (which was my favourite from my last visit), they said it was just too much work but they might bring it back as a special.

Our last stop for the day was Butter Avenue, this was my first time here so I got half a dozen macarons to try.

The flavours I got were White Chocolate Strawberry, Matcha, Chestnut, Earl Grey, Sea Salt Caramel, lychee raspberry. I love the light, Asian inspired flavours here and they weren’t too sweet. Their macarons are $2.25 each which isn’t a bad price compared to Ruelo which range from $3 – $5 (black truffle macaron). Butter Avenue in my opinion might have the best macarons in Toronto but I still have a lot of places to still try.

I didn’t get a chance to try any of their cakes but everything looked too good to even eat!

LA BAMBOUCHE

February 20, 2013September 16, 2019Leave a comment

1712 Avenue Road | Toronto, ON
http://labamboche.ca/

I know I’ve been neglecting my blog for a while now but with the holiday season over I finally have time to update and get my eat on again! I’ve been crazy busy with baking and family this past Christmas so I haven’t even had time to go out to any new restaurants but here it is, I finally made my way to the famous La Bambouche!

I got three macarons: blood orange, pistachio and strawberry champagne. La Bamboche serves up one of the best macarons I’ve ever had and my favourite was the pistachio one, it was packed full up pistachio flavour and it even had some pistachio paste in the filling.

The strawberry champagne was light in flavour but still absolutely delicious. The macarons are well priced at $2.35 each.

As for the cakes I got something with green tea mousse, a chocolate raspberry mousse dome, and their mont blanc.
My favourite was the Raspberry Chocolate, it was tangy and sweet at the same time.

Definitely going to try to visit La Bamboche more often!

BOBBETTE & BELLE

January 18, 2012September 19, 2019Leave a comment

1121 Queen Street East | Toronto, ON
http://www.bobbetteandbelle.com/

Bobbette & Belle has the cutest bakery I’ve ever seen, bright, elegant and very Victorian! Everything about Bobbette & Belle is so well put together, from their retail store to their website and blog. Groupon had a coupon for $20 worth of goods for only $10.

The wall of goodies! From cookies, brittle, meringues to marshmallows!

The selection of french macarons! From left to right: chocolate, pistachio, vanilla, chocolate hazelnut, raspberry, cassis, salted caramel and passion fruit.

Wall of display wedding cakes, so gorgeous! So much detail put into their cakes.

Top going clockwise: Red velvet, strawberry and vanilla. The cupcakes were extremely moist and dense. The butter creams were soft, light and fluffy; just perfect. For the vanilla cupcakes you could actually see the little specks of vanilla bean throughout the cake.

I also got some cupcakes to go, salted caramel and mango passion fruit. Along with the cupcakes I got a pack of chocolate marshmallows and a sticky toffee pudding!

LEMON TREE PATISSERIE

November 12, 2011September 17, 2019Leave a comment

St. Lawrence Market, Lower level | 93 Front St. E. | Toronto, ON
http://www.lemontreepat.com/

We headed down to St. Lawrence Market one early Saturday morning to visit the farmer’s market also I wanted to check out Lemon Tree Patisserie myself! After wondering around a bit, we headed downstairs and my mission to find the little stall was on. After much shoving and dodging (super packed on Saturdays), we found it! A cute little table with a sign was set up right beside another store. We were greeted with big smile from the creator (it’s nice to see independent bakers and for some reason I’m more willing to support them).

I got 6 macarons for $10, quite a steal if I say so myself. She was selling 6 flavours that day: vanilla bean, salted caramel, cinnamon brown butter, pumpkin spice, earl grey…and one I don’t remember.

My favourite was the salted caramel but it had a slight hint of bitterness (probably from over cooking the sugar a tad bit?). All the other flavours were quite mild, you had to think about which flavour you were eating to actually taste the flavour of each macaron. They were nice but I would probably not trek downtown early Saturday morning to get one of them. If you’re ever downtown on a Saturday morning, head over to the lower level of St. Lawrence Market and taste her macarons for yourself!

P.S. She also sells cake pops and other goodies but this particular Saturday she only had macarons…or maybe I was just too late.

THE HURST BAKERY

October 30, 2011September 16, 20191 Comment

15543 Yonge Street | Aurora, ON
www.thehurtbakery.com

My lovely friend, Kate, came to visit me at work today and brought me some goodies! I’ve never even heard about Hurst Bakery but it’s been around since 1986 (holy moly!), the bakery is owned by a husband and wife couple and everything is made on premises.

Kate got me four macarons: salted caramel, chocolate, lemon poppy seed & a purple one (didn’t really know what flavour it was).

I think my favourite was the lemon poppy seed, I love the lemon poppy seed combination but I’ve never seen it in a macaron form. At first I was a little skeptical but it was great!

She also got me the apple & spice muffin, a nice balance of spices with a hint of sour cream. It was super moist and delicious,I’m not really a muffin person but this one was really good. It’s baked in brown parchment which makes it look more rustic. (well it looks more rustic in my mind)

I will definitely trek up to Aurora to visit this bakery one day. Thanks again Kate!

Nadege Patisserie

October 9, 2011Leave a comment

Nadege Patisserie
780 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON
http://www.nadege-patisserie.com/

I was blog surfing one super late night or early morning and I stubbled upon a fashion&food blog. She did a review on Nadege, and I knew I had to try it out for myself.

Just along Queen Street West, I would advise you to just take a walk down Queen Street because there are plenty of great little shops that sell awesome things.
You walk into a super minimalistic space, everything was white (white walls, white shelves, white uniforms etc.) except for the lovely creations and the “Nadege” sign just behind the counter.

I got there around 5:30pm so the selections of desserts and croissants weren’t that great but there it still took me a good 15 minutes to decide what I wanted.

Plenty of macarons though. Love the colours!

I got a bunch of things to go because I had to pick up a special someone from the airport.
From top going clock wise: first I got the Raspberry Tart which is a raspberry crème brûlée with fresh raspberries. probably my favourite dessert of the night. Then it’s the Salted Caramel Tart which is exactly what it sounds like. I thought it was too much caramel (or too rich) and if anyone knows me, they’ll know how much I love caramel anything! Lastly I got the Earl Grey Grapefruit Tart, an early grey scented tart topped with fresh grapefruits. I liked it but probably not enough to order it again.

I also got lychee and rose flavoured marshmallows! They were incredibly soft like a cute little pillow of cloud! I LOVE cute things but unfortunately they tasted more like soap, somewhere disappointed. How could I go home without trying some macarons? The flavours I got were: pistachio, chocolate, rose, pumpkin (flavour of the month), and salted caramel! All the flavours were mediocre, all except the salted caramel; hands down the best salted caramel macaron I’ve ever had.

I would definitely go back to Nadege again, probably during the summer time so I have more time to browse and they have a giant patio facing a little park. If you’re in the neighbourhood you should absolutely check it out, lovely french pastries and I heard the croissants are amazing too!