I discovered The Rolling Pin Bakery at 3429 Yonge Street by accident. I was actually looking for another bake shop when I found this little piece of heaven. I thought I walked in on Willie Wonka in the chocolate factory. There is all kinds of cookies, pies, squares, artisanal donuts and gorgeous samples of wedding cakes on display. How lucky for the people who live close to Yonge Street, north of Lawrence. In a few block radius they have Bobette and Belle, Butter Avenue and now, as of June 2014, The Rolling Pin Bakery. If you love sugar and everything sweet you will have a grand old time here. This 50’s style bake shop is owned and operated by partners Vanessa Baudanza and Isabelle Loiacono. These women obviously love desserts, especially nostalgic desserts from their childhood as well as mine. They both have a background in baking, Vanessa from George Brown and The Bonnie Gordon College of Confectionary Arts, and Isabelle, the Cordon Bleu School in Ottawa and she was an instructor at George Brown and Bonnie Gordon’s school. They met and formed a bond over their love for sugar and flour and voila, the rest is history.

They make gourmet cupcakes, pop tarts, cookies, brownies, bars, donuts, pies, macarons, cakes, and even stunning wedding cakes (those need a 3-6 month lead time).They make every imaginable flavours of cakes from red velvet, to carrot, banana, chocolate, lemon, dulce de leche, coconut caramel, hazelnut, campfire …. and the list goes on. You choose your style, five choices of buttercream and your colour. They can add flowers or edible images and cut outs to customize your cake.

The cute shop has shelves with merchandise like t-shirts, mugs, jams, donut and hot chocolate mix. The place is small, charming and inviting. There is seating, so you can grab a coffee, tea or hot chocolate and the dessert of choice and relax inside, or, of course, you can take out.

Did I mention the donuts? They are over the top. They do sell out fast but you can pre- order. I saw peanut butter and jelly, maple bacon with a syringe of maple syrup, tiramisu with a shot of espresso and banana cream. You can poke, drizzle or infuse your donuts with these syringes, a trendy idea that can get messy but is a lot of fun. Do they use the very best quality ingredients in their donuts, no, but they are still better than the garden variety you find elsewhere. The pie flavours also reminded me of my youth. There was pecan, coconut cream, fruit, and key lime. They rotate different flavours, so it is hard to get bored. The cookies are not the chewy kind, (my preference) but the crispy kind. Everyone is trying to copy Momofuku’s sweet and salty everything but the kitchen sink cookie. Here they add pretzels, potato chips, espresso, graham crackers, oats, butterscotch chips and vanilla to their everything cookie. I didn’t try the pop tarts, but I think it is a clever idea.

The service could have been friendlier, maybe she was having a bad day.

The main thing is there is an astounding array of sweet retro treats that makes me nostalgic. Now I have a reason to drive north of Bloor so I can get me a fix and add some comfort as well. They take sweets to the next level.

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Shanea

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