You know that smell of fresh baked bread and donuts? That hits you before even making it up the steps of La Boulangerie.
I love it when a one-bakery town in a relatively isolated region has such high standards of quality. They could cut corners here and there, or offer less variety, because where else are you going to go, but no, that just wouldn’t do. It’s a matter of principle.
And La Boulangerie in Kapuskasing (“Kap” to the locals), Ontario, is home to a bakery of principle. Bakers have worked as hard on their recipes and techniques as they have on training their staff and building a reputation, and this bakery has taught me to consider that more carefully when attempting to take photographs for The Interwebs. Sorry, La Boulangerie, I meant well! Once the innocence of my blog project was ascertained, I refocused my attentions on the meat of the matter…which was bread.
As E said “It’s like you walk in and see one shelf full of stuff, then see another one, then another one, then another one…and it’s all different stuff!” Everywhere you looked there were surprises. So many squares, pastries, donuts, breads, and cookies. As could be expected (and hoped for) in a French-Canadian bakery there were baguettes, croissants, eclairs (“a best-seller” we were told by staff), and in the freezer, a type of meat spread whose name has escaped me but is used on sandwiches or toast. Yummy!
We walked away with a ring of pull-apart bread baked in butter (YES), a cream filled powdered donut, a coconut maple square, and a flat whole wheat maple donut whose proper name escapes me (excuse my memory of a goldfish) and which was consumed immediately. We also purchased a couple containers of frozen pasta sauce and frozen beans because who wouldn’t want to avoid the responsibilities of making dinner while still guaranteeing a homemade nutritious meal?
The baked treats lasted us, well… almost 3 hours (a new record!) When each first bite validated my expectations for quality, I admit I felt quite smug.
Thankfully, we still had the rest of the pull-apart bread to get us through the week. Its crisp buttery base and fluffy white interior reminded me of angel food cake and was paired with various cheeses and spreads but I ultimately decided that something so fresh and flavourful was best enjoyed on its own, unadulterated and unadorned.
Update: We thawed out the pasta sauce many days later and had it with Israeli couscous and later with risotto. I will say that hands down this is the best pasta sauce I have ever purchased, and my standards are HIGH because I was raised in an Italian household. The sauce had the perfect balance of meats, veggies, oil, spices, and the flavour of real tomatoes. And the texture was perfect, not too chunky, not too watery. I preferred it with the risotto as the sauce had something to adhere to.
Aren’t the French/French-Canadian known for their sauces? It shows.
La Boulangerie is located at 12 Byng Avenue in Kapuskasing, Ontario.
