Tori’s Bake Shop – It’s Pumpkin time

One of my favourite autumn traditions, as leaves begin to change colour, and fall, and the weather gets a little cooler, it’s time for pumpkin flavoured everything. Some people seem to react to this in a derisive way. Not me. Pumpkin flavoured beer (especially the pumpkin pie brew from Mill Street Organic), pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin pies, pumpkin everything, pumpkin cake, pumpkin curry, sign me up.

I was recently reminded that it’s been a while since we last visited Tori’s Bake Shop, and since we were renting a zipcar this weekend to drop off bags of clothing to charity, it seemed like a great time to drive over for a visit. I felt beckoned by the Pumpkin Pie Pour, and a friend had told me about chocolate croissants, so on the off chance they’d have some, we went.

No chocolate croissants when we were there, but we still managed to try a nice variety of treats, starting with a pair of savory scones. Two varieties, a sweet potato rosemary, and a cheesy broccoli. Hands down my favourite was the sweet potato rosemary (and conveniently, JC’s favourite was the cheesy broccoli.) Fluffy, flaky, and moist, with a great crumb. Look at the pastry layers. That’s some good scone.

The Pumpkin Pie Pour isn’t going to slam you in the face with pumpkin flavour, but I did like the blend of coconut cream, tea (Majestea’s Autum Pumpkin Spice), and the idea of maple syrup roasted pumpkin.

Finally on my search for pumpkin there was a solitary pumpkin muffin sitting in the showcase, and it was destined to be mine (okay, ours.) Along with a “(lisa) turtle” complete with walnut feet, and a butter tart.

The turtle’s inner caramel was a lot denser than I would have expected it to be, but once I chewed through it, it was delicious (and comparable to what I remember). Butter tart was tasty, but I realize after buying “butter tarts” endlessly after going vegan, I do it solely for the novelty of it, and never because I ever actually liked them.

The Pumpkin cupcake was something I was really looking forward to. I sliced it in half, and right away could tell this would be something good. Springy baked items are always a treat. The icing was not too sweet, but complimented the cupcake really well. You know when you bite into a cupcake and there is this imbalance of flavours or sweetness? Yeah, that didn’t happen here. It was a pretty great cupcake.

One thing I did notice and wasn’t very excited about was the cafe’s support of Movember. There is a nice big tip jar on the counter, but this month all proceeds go to Movember, so for the first time, I put nothing in that jar. Like other people, I’ve wondered why a vegan cafe would support Movember considering it is a charity that funds animal testing, offers limited support of actual men’s health education programs, and because mustaches are disgusting.  But c’est la vie, it’s probably an excellent marketing adjunct. You can also read more about a data analysis of other reasons against it on the Information Diet blog.

Later on this month Tori’s Bake Shop will be running vegan gingerbread house workshops for families every Sunday starting on November 25 (to December 23rd, 2012.) Word is that there will also be a variety of vegan friendly candies (including butterscotch and gummy candy) available to adorn your gingerbread house creations. Might be worth paying them a visit again for that. Though I will be attempting my own gingerbread house this year though I haven’t decided on classic or some kind of gingerbread awesome nonsense like the ones here on inhabitat

Information

Tori’s Bake Shop 
2188 Queen St. East, Toronto
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