PERFECT on a crisp, spring day. 🍓🥐 #saveursprintanières #spring #croissant #fraises #fromage #strawberries #creamcheese #délicieux #joëlrobuchonjapan #tokyo #sootyeats🥢 #sootyinJP🇯🇵

Parfait!! 🍓🥐

BRIEF: “Croissant dough shaped into a braid then baking in a bun pan. Inside a cherry filling topped with chocolate glaze, cocoa nibs and freeze dried cherries.” SOOT’S TAKE: I love the tart, bittersweet combination of this pastry, which makes me think that could be why I like Black Forest desserts as well 🤔. What would really escalate it to “amazing” status though would be if it were fresh out of the oven crispy flaky. Maybe I’ll come when they’re just opening next time?

Got this to go and toasted it at home before slicing and making a mess of the filling. Lovely nonetheless. Reminded me of Bailey’s.

BRIEF: “Pistachio custard filled danish topped with pistachio praline and pistachio crumbs. A must try for you pistachio lovers!“ SOOT’S TAKE: Scrumpdillyicious for this pistachio lover！

BRIEF: “Wonderfully flaky laminated danish topped with luxuriously creamy cheese and topped with fresh strawberry and blueberries.” SOOT’S TAKE: Top notch! I really enjoyed this.

BRIEF: “Red potatoes, smoked paprika mushroom, whipped ricotta, topped with grated pecorino.” SOOT’S TAKE: Nice combination with the smoked shrooms although I might’ve missed the potato in this.

BRIEF: Elle & Vire butter & caramelized sugar SOOT’S TAKE: Toasted to fresh-out-of-the-oven crispness & warmth. Just how I’ve always imagined laminated pastry should be! #IHateSoggy

BRIEF: “Inspired by Dominique Ansel, it is fluffy, crunchy and flavourful!” SOOT’S TAKE: This is definitely a notch above Brera’s other Kouign Amann which they didn’t put their name behind (and I wonder why 🤔)? My only beef with it is that it isn’t crunchy like they say it is but perhaps it had to do with my getting it close to closing?

Looks like a giant dog turd. Don’t taste like a giant dog turd. 😋

cinnamon and sugar, grapefruit and lemon zest

French dough mixed with walnuts & ASANOYA'S maple butter made with 100% pure Canadian maple sugar.

There’re a whole bunch of steps involved but damn these are good!

CHOCOLATE BABKA: Brioche dough braided with Valrhona Guanaja 70% dark chocolate 👍👍 WHITE PEACH GALETTE: Seasonal French white peaches and jasmine flowers on a buckwheat shortcrust pastry 👌 *don’t eat the flowers. MAPLE PECAN CRUFFIN: Croissant-muffin hybrid with maple cream and homemade pecan praline 👍👍👍👍🏅

My first time trying kouign amann. It was very nice with the cream cheese, especially for not having eaten in 16 h.

I finally got around to using one of the ginormous cans of guava paste @gooddayphoto brought me when she visited early this year. The most obvious application was going to be these cream cheese pastries I’d been meaning to try but for the relative unavailability of the paste here. The puff pastry was challenging to handle for the lack of a binding agent, but eventually I got it to work. It was nowhere as puffy as I would have preferred either, but it was still delicious and flaky, and it nicely complemented the tangy guayaba and cream cheese filling. So, thank you, Marie, for giving me the opportunity to briefly escape to a Cuban bakery without actually having to fly to one 😁. Now, to figure out what to do with the remaining 17 oz. of paste…😅

BRIEF: “Croissant muffin hybrid, baked, rolled in fine sugar then filled with Pistachio cream and topped with pistachio pieces. A crowd favorite.” SOOT’S TAKE: It’s generously filled and sugar-coated but part of me couldn’t help wondering if I might have enjoyed it more toasted? 🧐

BRIEF: “Dive into Merdeka vibes and say hello to our Gula Melaka Kaya Merdeka Cruffin ~ Imagine a cruffin masterpiece oozing Coconut Kaya, coconut milk, Gula Melaka & a dash of egg-citement. Topped with sugary love, meringue, coconut flakes, and a whole lot of patriotic yum.” SOOT’S TAKE: After their amazing croissant, this just seemed somewhat underwhelming. Perhaps it was because I had this to go and the whole thing had softened from the humidity? Or perhaps the attempt to balance the richness of laminated pastry with a relatively paltry amount of filling (at least compared to more substantially filled traditional kaya toasts) just let the whole thing down? Still, their croissant made me not want to give up on their laminated pastry and so I may try their other cruffins in store next time.

By no means the best kouign amann I’ve had but most certainly my first halal one.

BRIEF: “With soft cheesecake (cream cheese & mascarpone), Biscoff spread topped with vanilla mascarpone, Biscoff spread, salted caramel and Biscoff biscuits.” SOOT’S TAKE: A casualty of the ride back to Ryde. The cream cheese had all but melted in the heat and the cookie on top was soggy. Taste-wise, it was good but the swirl was clearly not at its best.

BRIEF: “Filled with ube condensed milk crème, coconut sago, topped with ube coconut buttercream & ube polvoron.” SOOT’S TAKE: Another casualty of the ride back to Ryde. Tasted better than it looked although it looked better than it tasted at the bakehouse.

Not bad.

Happy National Kouign Amann Day! I decided I wasn’t going to make any today so I was quite happy to satisfy a craving at Bakery Brera. BRIEF: “Made with 2-day fermented dough and laminated with Elle & Vire 82% French butter.”

Definitely a brioche rather than the danish it was advertised as.

Happy Kouign Amann day! This is my first attempt. Let’s just say they’re not for the faint of heart. 😅 PS. I dunno why I see Jabba the Hutt in one of these, but I do. I really do. 😳 #nationalkouignammanday #literally #figuratively #burnttips #iwasupat4forthis

Sweet red bean paste inside a soft bread encrusted with flaked almonds.

So I finally got around to trying the latest food trend in town: The Messy Bun or literally translated from its original Chinese name, “Dirty Bun,” because biting into it gets the powdered sugar or cocoa all over your face and with the latter, you can claim to have performed the Dirty Sanchez. But I digress...

This was a croissant filled with a creamy lemon custard and a white chocolate ganache and then thoroughly dusted with powdered sugar. It had promise but unfortunately it was let down by a soggy croissant (likely a result of custard overflow and overnighting). 😏