Wednesday 5 September 2012

My Visit to Bunner's Bakery in Toronto August 27 2012


Some of you may have gathered that I've been away for a few weeks. My son and his wife live in Toronto and earlier this year we had the most fantastic news - they were expecting their first baby, our first grandchild. We had already decided to visit them this year since 2012 is the year of my husband's 60th birthday and our 35th Wedding Anniversary but this news was the icing on top of the cake! 

On 20th August we flew out and met our beautiful new grandson, only a few days old. So many wonderful moments! Whilst I am hugely delighted that my son and his wife are very privileged to be living in Canada, we miss them so much and this holiday was therefore so very, very special. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be sharing some of the wonderful "adventures" we were lucky enough to experience during this visit.



During the past few months I've been looking out for gluten-free places to eat and shops to visit on our travels and at the very top of this list was Bunner's Bakery. When we arrived at the bakery, I was as excited as a small child in a sweet shop! You see, we don't have gluten free bakeries in the North of England and if they do exist, they are nothing like this one. Not only is the bakery gluten free, it's also vegan which means all of us can enjoy the beautiful baked goods I have seen so highly recommended on the internet.




Those reports didn't let me down and I spent a small fortune! In the picture above you can see some of the tasty baked goods they skilfully create. On the top shelf and from left to right are chocolate cupcakes, strawberry cupcakes, red velvet cupcakes and a solitary vanilla cupcake. Pictured below these you can see some double chocolate brownies on the far left and curried chickpea savoury pockets to the right.  On the bottom shelf are some gorgeous Butter Tarts. I bought one of each of the cupcakes and later in the day I tried the chocolate cupcake.



The texture was perhaps just a tad drier than I would have liked though the flavour and taste made up for any slight loss of moisture the cake had suffered during the baking process.  But I did manage to persuade my lovely husband to let me try a mouthful of his strawberry cupcake.



A texture like silk, a wonderful natural strawberry flavour and icing which was just sweet enough! In a word, YUM!
 


We couldn't resist buying one of the huge, sticky cinnamon buns they had displayed around the corner and which we shared the following day. It easily divided into four and tasted as good as it looked!
 The bread also looked too good to pass by so we tried a loaf of their three seed bread.



Doesn't it look delicious! It definitely lived up to its appearance! Here is a picture of it sliced before we ate it later. I can definitely recommend it!


We were also tempted to buy four of the chickpea curried savoury pockets we thought would be perfect for lunch.



The pastry was the crumbliest, melt in your mouth gluten free pastry I have ever tasted and the filling was perfectly spiced! Oh and we put the four double chocolate brownies we chose in the fridge for later in the week!


So, if you're anywhere near to 3054 Dundas Street West in Toronto, I highly recommend you pay them a visit! You won't be disappointed! BUT ring before you go.  We paid them a visit later in the week to buy more of their savoury pockets but they had only just gone into the oven at 10.30 am and we couldn't wait the half an hour it was going to take to bake them.