Eric the Baker

Bakery: Eric the Baker
Address: 46 Carden St, Guelph ON 
Website: n/a
Style: French 
Price: $$ 

Let's just get down to it: Eric the Baker not only amazed, but it impressed so much that it was unanimously granted (i.e. by the household, I mean) the title of a southern Ontario gem and certainly one of the semi-local highlights of the Cake Tour, when in Guelph or not. Well, you have to drive there, but it'll be worth it. That's what the French do to you. :P

Backing up a bit, the brother returned the following week for his audio equipment and was to explore more bakeries in Kitchener when he found many already closed. How he ended up in Guelph is beyond me (I wasn't there for the explanation) but he contacted the other brother to find him a bakery there and the most promising was this one: a fairly small, one-man-show (run by Eric himself) bakery/cafe with a selection of baked goods that sells out quickly as well as coffee, lunch items, etc. The high number of francophone customers (Eric is a Frenchman and seems to know more than a thing or two about pastries ^^;;) is also a very good sign. Unfortunately, at around 4p.m. almost everything was gone so the choices were limited to a few more elaborate pastries. Some of these included fruit tarts (around $3/each), coming in a few varieties: here we have mixed fruit, apple, and pear (with candied orange).

By far, the pear was the best, with the pears at the right level of softness and then you have a bit of zip with the orange peel so the pear isn't too bland. With all of the tarts, the dough was really the, keeping on theme, pièce de résistance. It almost had this Danish-dough taste and texture to it: perfectly flaky and dense and so tasty. Mmmm... what a find!! :)

Rating: ****