It’s that time of year again – my birthday, and I decided this year it might be fun to find two bakeries and pit their cakes against each other in a sugary sweet death match. But alas, I did not realize bakeries these days are hidden establishments only getting customers via word of mouth with entrances that may or may not require a secret handshake to get in. Long gone are the days of boozy speakeasies, these days it’s all about the sweets. Only those in the know can go into a diabetic coma like a king!
On this particular day I’d chosen two bakeries somewhat nearby. The first was in Peterborough and had high reviews. I love Peterborough and am familiar with the area but the bakery was nowhere to be seen. Was my GPS toying with me or was it hidden? I didn’t know but I decided to leave it be and try to find another bakery that Google suggested before I left but it mysteriously wasn’t coming up in searches anymore. I was already starting to feel like the pastry gods were out there just fucking with me. I had to drive halfway home and ask Google again before it finally stopped gaslighting me and gave me the address.
It’d be another long drive through the woods, so weird and winding that at one point I passed a near life-size wooden T Rex skeleton leaping from the tree line on someone’s property.
This bakery wasn’t in the woods though, it was on Main Street, so I figured it’d be super easy to find, right? Nope, drove right by it several times as I looked. When I did find it on a street corner it had what looked like a 3-car parking lot but it was beyond an old beaten down curb. Do people park there?? I turned up the side street it was on and found a car parked on the sidewalk, a small parking lot directly across the street saying it was only for municipal parking. When I drove down main street I couldn’t tell if there was streetside parking or not as there were no lines painted and no cars in sight, although there was one handicapped parking space marked out which seemed to imply beyond it was also parking but I honestly couldn’t tell. I drove probably an eighth of a mile up the road and found a truck parked in front if the police station. Figuring this was the sign I was looking for I parked behind him and walked to the damn bakery.
It was a really small place and I was clearly the only customer in there. The woman working there seemed very happy to see me. I asked her about her cakes and she had chocolate, vanilla, lemon, and carrot. I went for the largest (which was still a petite round cake.) It was vanilla flavored. Looking around this place also had cookies, cannolis, scones, muffins, and really a decent assortment of pastries for such a small place.
I was told this place sells out every day and I’d gotten there at just the right time – between noon and one – which was a dead zone between the morning crowd and the after church crowd. Good to know!
The cake was $22 and oddly heavy for it’s size. As it’s now autumn it was decorated with red, yellow, and brown flowers. As for the flavor it was dense and moist, anything I could have wanted for a little vanilla cake. I would like to return some day to try some of the other options, otherwise this was a sweet little place for a tasty treat if you live in the area.
