One of Rideau Bakery's deep-fried goodies photo: Christina Riley

In December, I sometimes get a craving for my mother's shortbread, of which butter and icing sugar are the main ingredients. Each cookie is perfectly patterned since she pushes the dough through a metal press before baking them. But baking is far too meticulous for me, a happy member of a generation that thinks Blundstones are work boots and shops online for curtains rather than sewing them by hand.

Luckily, Ottawa has a few spots to sate a sweet tooth.

If, like me, you crave plain old cookies, order up a few dozen sweet or savoury shorts from Crumble (www.crumblecookies.com), which bakes in such toothsome flavours as butter pecan, parmesan with sun-dried tomato, and cheddar and rosemary. The local company even does three sizes: bites, cookies and fingers. I got a bag of the lemon cranberry, ate three in rapid succession, and then had to hide the rest of the bag.

Sometimes, though, I need to feed a special diet, so I tromp on down to Ottawa South where Trillium Bakery serves up desserts that are free of wheat, sugar, dairy, or whatever other nasty I'm avoiding on a given day. They also make a mean Chelsea bun (like Wild Oat's famous sticky buns, only less sugary and with nuts). Bread and Sons Bakery is worth a visit too, especially if the health kick you're on is all-organic.

Although I shamefacedly prefer vanilla desserts, plenty of sensible people go for the cocoa. At Stubbe on Dalhousie, truffles like no others are hand-rolled and sold by third-generation chocolatiers. They've got the usual booze flavours if that's your bag, but I like the more contemporary ones like banana, cappuccino and the sugar-dusted Stubbe Special. When I can find it in my blackened heart to think more about others than myself, I reach for fair-trade chocolate. Plenty of natural food stores (Herb and Spice, Natural Foods Pantry etc.) stock bars and squares for which the manufacturers and farmers get a fair price. Or, head to Westboro to check out Ten Thousand Villages' chocolate, dried fruit and other edible prezzies. Perfect for guilt-free gift giving.

If Hanukkah is your celebration, you probably already know about Rideau Bakery's jelly-filled doughnuts, which are delivered to area elementary schools in December. If you're long past your schooldays, however, you can drop by their storefront and pick them up yourself. My friend Erin tipped me off to the deep-fried goodies, and I gotta say, you don't need to speak Hebrew to love sufganiyot. "Easily the most popular in the city," according to Erin, RB's kosher doughnuts are indisputably soft and sugary. If you don't dig the artificial filling, they also make the ones with nothing in the middle but a hole.

In two weeks, it's business as usual - I'll write a review of a restaurant straight up. But sometimes you just need to rub your gums with the white stuff, and if that's you, these are my picks.

Rideau Bakery (384 Rideau), 789-1019

Stubbe Chocolates (375 Dalhousie), 241-1040

Ten Thousand Villages (371 Richmond), 759-4701

Trillium Bakery (209 Belmont), 730-1316

Bread and Sons Bakery (195 Bank), 230-5302

 
 

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The Secret is Out     Every time that I am in Ottawa I make a special trip to stock up at Trillium on Belmont because despite the fact that a whole lot of their offerings are without wheat gluten sugar..or other stuff I never feel like I have deprived myself of something. The stuff over there is that good and is definitely worth the extra cost given the love that is put into their goodies!
Reuven De Souza	{1 vote}	June 3rd, 2007
~Feast or famine~     I only have one piece of practical advice for you all regarding any sort of food you love--never but never get a job where you have to deal with it day in and day out. I used to love pastries, cookies and pies until I got a job working handling them. Trust me, familiarity truly does breed contempt. You might have a sweet tooth but mine might as well be surgically removed.
Pedro Eggers		June 2nd, 2007
Kowloon Market     I must concur that Savory and Sweet both can be found at Kowloon Market - and all of it home made, super fresh and even more so yummy ---- custom cakes can be ordered there too !!! A box of their baking is always an interesting and tasty treat - one can get a whole meal - a few pork / chicken / ham beef etc buns and then some of their sweet desserts (red bean etc)filling is sooo good too. Many of the local restaurants buy their baking from there ..... Most items are under a dollar ... all are reasonably priced. As an added bonus you can get the rest of your grocery shopping done there too and get lots of great surprises at very reasonable prices ....Definately worth the trip to China town
Erin Purdy	{4 votes}	February 1st, 2007
On Fair Trade Chocolate & Special Needs Baking     Thanks for the great overview of what sweet alternatives await the more adventurous Ottawa consumer! The mention of where to get fair-trade chocolate is very apt, given the cover story this week. I think that your article should have been on the same or facing page so that indeed, if there are some readers who are not suffering from "compassion fatigue" (as the "Blood Chocolate" article put it), then they don't have to read farther on to see what alternatives they can choose! Thank you for showing us that even here in little Ottawa, we can make fair trade choices, so it really is up to us to support such businesses & then start sending strong messages (as only the wallet & purse can do) to those manufacturers who are less fair. For your discussion of Trillium Bakery, however, I would like to add that avoiding some villain ingredient isn't always by choice. I know some people who suffer from Ciliac's disease -- they cannot healthily consume products with gluten, so they have to do the extra legwork to find gluten-free breads & other baked products. It's not just a health kick for some, it's a medical necessity. But again thanks for the overview of bakeries that don't benefit from the huge marketing machinery that would otherwise drive us to Tim Horton's or other such places. Yo, Stuart -- go ahead & put all the places listed in a "Best Bakery" category for next year's "Best of Ottawa Xpress". (But remember, that will be "Best of Ottawa Xpress", not necessarily "Best of Ottawa", unless you do bring back the write-in "Other _______" category.)
Brad Thomas	{11 votes}	January 3rd, 2007
Having Fun With BBQ Pork Buns................     I've found that there are two directions that baked goods can go. One is the supersweet variety for which the Rideau Bakery certainly knows what they are doing with those delicious and chewy donuts and the other is the Chinese treat route. What is the Chinese treat route? Have you ever bitten into a delicious BBQ Pork filled deep fried bun? The mixture of minced BBQ Pork mixed with a kind of Sweet Garlic Honey Sauce is delicious and makes my mouth water just talking about it. A good place to start is the Kowloon Market on Somerset Street where at around 10am each morning, the kitchen is alive with Soya Chicken buns, Tuna buns, BBQ Pork buns, Ham and Egg buns, Curry Beef buns and.........yes, Chinese donuts which are huge, gooey and delicious. Try them all. They're less than a buck each and once you've tried one, you'll have a hard time going back to Timmy's for your Boston Cream.
Steve Landry	{9 votes}	December 22nd, 2006
Sounds yummy     I had never heard of these places, except of course the Rideau Bakery, which I've eaten forever from there, the breads that is, since we lived close to Rideau Bakery on Rideau Street. Trillium Bakery is on of my list to try.
Ayse Sahin	{3 votes}	January 5th, 2007

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