Old Post 19: Hop off the bus at the 61C Cafe

The 61C Cafe is located at 1882 Murray Ave, right on the 61C bus line route. That's actually how it gets its name.  You could hop off the bus and grab a pastry and a coffee en route to where you are headed, but should you?

While supporting local institutions is important to the Sugar Love lifestyle, in this instance, for the money you pay, you'd be just as well heading to Starbucks. 

To begin, the service was....awkward.  That's the best word I have to describe it. 

The iced latte was just ok.  It tasted as though it had far too much milk and not enough coffee.  They were out of croissants late in the day (bummer, but that's what you get when you wait until late in the day), which is the recommended pastry from here, but there was enough available to get a decent sampling.  Sugar Love tasted the Raspberry Mele, the Pound Cake, the Apricot Danish, the Espresso Chocolate Chip cookie and the Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip cookie.  In this rather large grouping, the only standouts were the Raspberry Mele and the Pound Cake.  

The raspberry mele has a crispy, sugar-coated pastry crust that wraps around a raspberry filling.  It's actually rather delicious and satisfying.  The pound cake does a pretty good job as well.  It's simply dusted with confectioners sugar and has a slight lemon vanilla flavor.  The biggest problem with this pound cake is that it is made as a cupcake, which causes a slightly odd texture for pound cake. 

The rest of the goodies were rather forgettable.  The two cookies were chocolate based doughs and just didn't have a very chocolate-y flavor to them.  They were kind of stale and dry.  The secondary flavors did not pop either.  The espresso and peanut butter just didn't come to life in the cookies.

If you find yourself stopping at 61C for coffee and a pastry, maybe just go for regular coffee, not the latte.  And stick to the raspberry mele or perhaps the croissant if they have them.  

61C Cafe's Raspberry Mele on the Sugar Lovin Scale

Taste ♥♥♥♥
Texture ♥♥♥♥
Appearance ♥♥♥.5
Overall ♥♥♥.75

Old Post 15: Allegro Hearth Bakery

Murray Ave in Squirrel Hill is a bakery jackpot.  In three short blocks, there are 3 bakeries, all offering a different type of sweet treat.  Sweet Tammy's for the kosher folks, Gluuteny for the gluten free and Allegro Hearth Bakery for the bread lover in you.

The Allegro Hearth is primarily a bread bakery.  They have multiple kinds of fresh made bread available everyday- rye loaves, boule, baguettes, etc- as well as a smattering of other baked treats.  

And that's about all there is to say about Allegro Hearth Bakery.  

In all seriousness, they are a very middle-of-the-road kind of institution.  With no website, it's hard to get to know the bakery, understand their full menu, or see what they see themselves as being.  The store itself lacks personality and is quite stoic.

The food is not much different.  While the kalamata olive bread was quite good, nothing else really stood out.  The French baguette was not very...French.  The texture of the crumb and thickness of the crust lent it more to a sourdough baguette. 

On the baked goods side, the lemon square was on the incredibly tart side and had a loose curd.  The blueberry crisp was flavorful, but definitely needed to be heated and served with ice cream to enable a truly enjoyable dessert experience.

One of their more unique items were the cookie cups.  They look like cupcakes, but they are actually made of cookie dough.  The appearance and texture though, are disconnects.  The brain tells you it will be a cupcake that tastes like a chocolate chip cookie, not a chocolate chip cookie shaped like a cupcake.   The problem with a cupcake shaped chocolate chip cookie is that it is incredibly dense and chewy and also very dry.  Not to mention the chocolate icing on top was hard. 

Overall, the Allegro Hearth was an ok bakery.  There just isn't much to it and they aren't putting out any kind of message about themselves for people to learn and respond to.  Stick to the bread and you'll be sure to get a loaf to satisfy your artisan bread craving, but don't expect to be blown away by it's deliciousness.

Allegro Hearth Bakery's Kalamata Olive Loaf on the Sugar Love Scale:

Taste ♥♥♥
Texture ♥♥♥
Appearance ♥♥♥
Overall ♥♥♥

Old Post 13: Gluttony at Gluuteny!

While at Sweet Tammy's last week, a young girl ran in looking for the gluten-free bakery in Squirrel Hill. The friendly staff pointed her two blocks up the street, just before the Giant Eagle on Murray Ave.  Not one to squander a drive on 376 near the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, as soon as the Sweet Tammy's research had been purchased, it was off to the gluten-free bakery up the street.

Gluuteny is a small store that you could easily pass while driving by, but for those in search of GREAT gluten-free sweet treats, Gluuteny is a must-have.  Their model is to sell gluten-free, casein-free baked goods.  The in-store selection is quite decent, with an array of fresh baked cookies, muffins, brownies, cupcakes, bundt cakes and different sweet loaves such as lemon.  Beyond the everyday selection, you can also special order pies and cakes when you give them at least 24 hours notice.

One of coolest things Gluuteny is doing is selling their gluten-free flour mixes, making gluten-free baking more accessible to the home cook. At $14.49 for 3lbs, it's competitive with Market District and Whole Foods prices for gluten-free flour mixes (plus you support local small business when you buy at Gluuteny!). 

Now, in an attempt to be fair, Sugar Love tries all baked goods, without regard to special dietary needs, and ranks each on Taste, Texture, Appearance and Overall Experience.  However, when you are trying a baked good for a special dietary need, you are looking for it to taste as good as the original despite the necessary ingredient substitutions, which puts the bar a bit higher for that treat. You don't want it to have a completely different texture or be lacking that buttery flavor that makes sweet treats so irresistible.

Gluuteny clears the bar with ease.  The sugar cookie was one of the best sugar cookies you'll taste- period.  Not one of the best gluten-free, dairy-free sugar cookies, just one of the best sugar cookies.  The cranberry walnut cookie had a great, moist texture with a rich flavor that was really quite complex and balanced.   It almost tasted like they used butter, but knowing it was dairy-free, they couldn't.   The apple cake was also incredibly flavorful, although it was a bit light on cake and a bit heavy on apples.  Regardless, it was certainly tasty, and though it might have been sacrilege to the dairy-free gods, it was finished with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. 

The next time you are seeking a gluten-free treat, make the drive to Gluuteny  It's well worth the trip because one dessert from this bakery will please your gluten-free and non-gluten-free audience alike.

Gluuteny's Sugar Cookie on the Sugar Love Scale:

Taste ♥♥♥♥♥
Texture ♥♥♥♥♥
Appearance ♥♥♥
Overall ♥♥♥♥1/2

Old Post 9: Make Dozen a Don't!

In terms of convenience, Dozen Bake Shop does have many more locations than most bake shops around Pittsburgh.

But more locations doesn't translate into best quality. 

You can find a Dozen shop in the Southside, Squirrel Hill, Lawrenceville, Downtown and on the North Shore in the Cafe at the Warhol.  The menus in each location will be, for the most part, the same each day, with the exception of the Lawrenceville location which also serves lunch and dinner.

For many people, Dozen is a cupcake bakery, although their menu far extends the cupcake selection. They also serve sandwiches, soups, quiches, breakfast pastries, etc.  However, they are one of three shops in town really diving into the fancy cupcake flavor realm and therefore maintain their reputation as a cupcake shop.

From the cupcake aspect, Dozen doesn't really compare to other shops in town, such as The Vanilla Pastry Studio.  The Key Lime cupcake from Dozen was just ok.  The icing was incredibly sweet- so much that it makes the back of your teeth ache a little, and the cake itself was just OK.  It wasn't overly dry, but it wasn't very moist either.  The flavor of the cake was really subtle; so much so that when paired with the Key Lime icing, it was hard to tell what the cake flavor was supposed to be.

In looking at the other pastries, you'll also find a strong tendency towards mediocrity.  The Red Velvet Gobb was pretty, but did not deliver on taste. The cake was dry and the filling managed to be sweet, yet have no flavor.  

The cream cheese danish with blueberries was also unsatisfying.  When you purchase a pastry toward the end of the day, you expect some fall off, but this went a bit too far.   The crust on the pastry was fantastic.  It was flaky and sweet and delicious; however the cream cheese filling was warm and melted and the blueberries were souring.   This pastry had either been out in direct sunlight for too long or the shop was too hot; either way, it should have been refrigerated prior to selling. 

It's tough to experience sweets that just don't satisfy the Sugar Love craving.  On the one hand, you wonder if it was just a bad baking day (they happen), or if you were getting the end of the stock (that happens too).  On the other hand, when you notice that their ratings across the board tend to be a 50/50 split on good and bad, it's hard to give the shop the benefit of the doubt.

Given the abundance of bakeries in Pittsburgh and the better cupcake shops just around the corner, you'd be better served to skip the convenience and buy a better pastry.

Dozen Bake Shop's Key Lime Cupcake on the Sugar Love Scale

Taste ♥ ♥
Texture ♥ ♥ ♥
Appearance ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Overall ♥ ♥