Over the last few decades grocery stores have moved farther and farther away from in-store produced baked goods to premixes and mass produced products from centralized factories.
There’s certainly been some health and safety concerns driving that decision. Donut fryers being a perfect example. Nasty business getting burned frying doughnuts.
But have you tried a grocery store donut lately? It’s fu**ing terrible.
Economics play a role in this move as well. It’s expensive to have a bunch of journeyman Baker’s working in your store.
And certainly there are efficiencies from mass producing product in one location for many retailers.
Technology is improving and there are some products that are actually quite good. There are some fine all butter croissants and Danish to be had from your local grocer.
But the mass majority still are not professional baker quality products.
This has opened the door though for the small bakery to make a comeback and we’re seeing more and more of them pop up around the Greater Vancouver area, much to my applause.
I wish I was a bit younger with more energy and could open my own Bakery. Far too old for that now though.
But I can use my knowledge and expertise from 36 years in the industry to figure out some of the better options for higher-end baked goods in the city.
Today I am trying Beaucoup Bakery, located in the St Regis Hotel on Dunsmuir.
It’s bright and colorful inside and very much feels like your in a small patisserie in Paris. At least from my memories of the City of Lights anyways.
By the time I arrives, around 2:00 p.m, there wasn’t a ton of selection remaining. Of Bakery products at least. They had a much bigger wall for non-edible items available than they did baked goods.
I ended up choosing a Danish and a Butterloop.
What is a butter loop you ask. I had to ask myself that as well.So it’s essentially a Vol-au-vent shell made from croissant dough instead of a puff dough, with a vanilla mousseline (custard) and a peach jam inside.To me it was overfilled. The croissant dough was flakey, but the presence of too much filling made the overall pastry difficult to eat. It was just too much, too rich. Knock back the amount of custard and jam and you’d have a really nice treat.
I also had a Citrus Blue Danish.
Nice idea, poor execution.
The Danish was over baked. There was so much moisture gone it wasn’t even pleasant to eat. Had that been a pizza dough the chew would be excellent. Not on a Danish though. The citrus custard with a fresh blueberries was very pleasant, though the citrus flavour was very subtle. However it worked well with the blueberries.
My latté was excellent, the highlight of the visit.
Good espresso flavour, not burnt, proper temperature.
Unfortunately Beaucoup Bakery did not live up to my expectations today. I will come give it at least one more try though, perhaps it was just an off day for them. It happens.
6/10