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| $2.95 each - Top L-R: red velvet, raspberry, mango | Bottom L-R: cookies & cream, chocolate, (and I think) apple spice |
The Cupcake Chronicles have become
something of a life mission. I’m still
looking for the best cupcake in Toronto, only it’s expanded – I’m also looking
for the best cupcake in every city that I visit, if they’re available.
On this edition of the CC, I try the
offerings from Bobette & Belle, a pretty well-known bakery down at the
Beaches. A lot of my fellow foodists
have been wanting to make the trip down there
to try their cupcakes and their
macarons. Making those two things is a
double-threat and seems to be an excellent way to bring in customers.
As someone in the marketing field, I must
say their branding is beautifully done.
Their products are also presented well.
But what I care about most, the quality and the flavour? Meh. Utterly uninspiring.
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| $2.00 ea. - gianduja (aka chocolate hazelnut), cassis, vanilla |
Let’s start with the macarons, shall
we? First of all, I’m really not a
macarons person so actually, I’m not a good person to judge them, although I
can spot a good macaron when I taste one.
I mean, in an entire year of living in France, I can count the number of
macarons I ate on one hand.
So the Bobette & Belle macarons were
well-formed. The technique is
there. The flavours, however, were
unremarkable. Actually, all three of the
ones I bought tasted about the same.
And, typical of macarons, they were much too sweet. I get that a lot of sugar is required for
macarons to hold up their shape. I get
that, I do. But when there isn’t much of
a discernible flavour to begin with, and the sweetness is cloying…it just
doesn’t work.
I also got a tube of chocolate hazelnut cookies from
them (which I forgot to take photo of). The packaging was very nice, and
the cookies themselves were very cute – a brown stripe sandwiched by two white
stripes on either side. But the flavour,
again, was lacking. I think there was
too much salt in them and not quite enough sugar. The butter didn’t make up for it. Also, I feel like the hazelnutness wasn’t as
outstanding as it could’ve been. Like,
it barely tasted of hazelnuts, and the cocoa contributed more to the colour of the cookie than the flavour. So that
was unfortunate. The saving grace was
the texture – not too crumbly, not too hard – that part of it was very nice.
As for the cupcakes themselves – they are
cute. The decorations are simple but
appropriate and appealing. The flavours, however,
were also unremarkable. I mean, they’re
nowhere as bad as The Cupcake Shoppe, where all they make is cupcakes and still
there is no discernible difference in any of their flavours. But the B&B cupcakes just don’t
immediately leave a strong impression of exactly what flavours they are. There’s also way too much icing – the icing
to cake ratio is very important to me.
The cake is a bit too dense for my liking – I prefer really silky,
smooth, fluffy cake bases. All in all,
really nothing special.
The pricing for the macarons and cupcakes
are on par with their competitors but the cookies were rather expensive and
completely not worth their price, in my opinion.
So…I really wouldn’t recommend this place
to anyone. Their products aren’t the
worst I’ve ever had, but they’re not exactly tasty either, and why ever waste
time having food that is not at least good?
Toronto, ON
M4M 1K9
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