Saturday, April 08, 2006

Seattle: bakeries

Le Panier

Pain au raisin: one of my favourite basic French pastries which is so hard to find in the U.S. This was a staple of our French bakery purchases back home in Auckland. This version was very flakey though not as buttery as I would prefer. Still excellent, especially when eaten sitting on a bench at Victor Steinbrueck Park watching the ferries coming and going on Elliott Bay.

Croissant au fromboise: very flaky as croissants should be, but intensely messy as the jam squirted everywhere.

Sandwiche avec pate de campagne was pleasantly reminiscent of the sandwiches found everywhere in Paris.

Chocolate macaron: my first taste of a macaron, this was pleasantly, not overly, sweet. The outer shell was soft and cakey and the ganache very chocolately. A good first experience.



A Piece of Cake

A hot dog bun, from this bakery in the International District was breakfast twice. With soft and slightly sweet bread in the Chinese style, this was a very good rendition of this classic.

Three Girls Bakery

A raspberry scone had a good texture and good balance of richness from the scone and tarness from the raspberry. The amount of flakes covering my clothing after I have eaten a croissant are pretty much how I judge croissants. This almond croissant was not messy enough by this measure.

Chocolate drop: a rich chocolate ganache on top of a shortbread-like base, this looked so beautiful, but was a little too sweet and rich for my tastes.








Dahlia Bakery

Coconut pie bite: this is an amazing pastry - creamy, not too sweet though not much coconut flavor, with an excellent contrast between the creamy filling and the shards of chocolate/coconut. As you can see it is also beautiful.





Meringue tart: the very rich, slightly sweetened caramelized meringue was a great contrast to the tart very lemony curd underneath. The caramelization added extra flavors and sweetness and is so beautiful. It's hard to tell from the photo but the meringue was about 2 inches high. I ended up deconstructing the meringue, and only eating about half of it as it was just too rich. Declicious when eaten alone the next morning.

The Crumpet Shop

A toasted crumpet with manchego is not the most traditional of toppings but was very good. The crumpet was a little denser than expected, but as my only previous experience of crumpets are grocery store crumpets back in New Zealand which are much lighter and fluffier, this may be normal. This is a very pleasant store with the crumpet baker and baking clearly visible from the dining area. It also sells all kinds of tea, honey and British goods such as Marmite.

Gelatiamo

Not a bakery but as I sampled the tiramisu from here rather than their gelato, I'll write about it here. This was my belated birthday cake and so I was a little disappointed. While it looked very pretty, the cake was a tad dry. My fault probably for buying it at 6pm.

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