It’s almost farmers market season, the time of year when white tents sprout up on the Square in Canyon or the A.J. Swope Performance Plaza at Arts in the Sunset for Saturday markets. We tell ourselves we love the farmers market for the fresh vegetables and music and community.
But who are we kidding? We’re in it for the carbs.
Arts in the Sunset has already hosted its spring market, and the Canyon Farmers Market officially opens in June. We decided to get a jump on the season by taste-testing some of the small-batch, baked-this-morning products you’ll encounter there.
So in Michele McAffrey’s kitchen, we sat down amidst a mountain of locally made pastries, breads and cookies. We gathered the hungriest members of our team and ate as much of it as we could, asking ourselves: Is this good? Would I eat more of this? Does this taste like it was made by a human who cares?
Here are the results of our very scientific process. But, let’s be honest. It’s our very casual but completely official field guide to your next market haul, the baked goods you simply can’t pass up.
Extra credit goes to intern Leilani Terrazas for serving as project manager for this feature.
Simply Sweets
Simply SweetsBrandy Aguirre’s home bakery is known for simple wedding and birthday cakes, but we wanted to try her macarons. These aren’t your average grocery store sandwich cookies, but the elegant divas of the pastry world: colorful, well-decorated and notoriously hard to make.
Also, when done right, they are notoriously easy to eat.
That’s what we discovered.
Aguirre’s cookies-and-cream macaron was the overwhelming favorite in terms of taste. The chocolate-covered raspberry one had a bright, jammy explosion of raspberry in the middle and was the most attractive cookie on the plate. We loved the color of the pistachio macaron but the pistachio flavoring itself was subtle.
The Fruity Pebbles one got the attention of Preslie Bentley, the photographer for this feature. “You can taste the Fruity Pebbles and the milk,” she said.
The Banana Pudding macaron was divisive. Some of us loved the vintage banana flavoring, which reminded us of Circus Peanuts candies. Others felt it was too artificial. You’ll have to break our tie and let us know what you think.
The Pastry Nook
Elizabeth Wood’s made-from-scratch bakery is a fixture at the Canyon Farmers Market, offering everything from sourdough and Japanese milk bread to salted pretzels. We asked her to hook us up with all of the croissants, and she very kindly obliged.
We’ve learned from bingeing The Great British Bake Off that a truly great croissant is a feat of engineering. There’s nothing like biting into one and feeling the outer layers shatter into a thousand buttery shards.
We bit into a lot of them just to make sure it would keep happening.
The Pastry Nook’s plain croissant was not plain at all, unless you define “plain” as delicately buttery and flaky. It was definitely that.
Our favorite option was the ham-and-cheese croissant, which tasted like the finest kind of comfort food. The ham was real rather than processed and packaged in plastic. The swiss cheese was the right kind of gooey, and the interior paired well with the outer crusty crunch. The almond croissant was appropriately indulgent with a lingering sweetness.
We were delighted to tear into the chocolate croissant to find chocolate represented in every flaky layer. It was dark chocolate, too.
For something different, we chased all these croissants with a cream cheese danish, which had the ideal light, pillowy texture we hoped for.
The Busy Baker
Lainie Thornton’s homemade baked goods are popular at the Canyon Farmers Market, including specialty breads. We chose her Banana Foster Bread, which sadly wasn’t served to us with theatrical flames. No matter.
It was very moist, though a few in our group of tasters wouldn’t be caught dead saying the word “moist.” The crumble on top was really buttery and provided a nice crunchy contrast with the texture of the bread.
The banana flavoring was real. (Interestingly, “artificial” banana flavor actually mimics the Gros Michel—a tastier banana variety that dominated the market until it was nearly wiped out by disease in the 1950s. While we now eat the milder Cavendish banana, Circus Peanuts still uses the bolder, original flavor profile from Gros Michel.)
Brick & Elm copublisher Michele McAffrey has requested that we stop repeating the name Gros Michel, so let’s move on to The Busy Baker’s cowboy cookies. They reminded us of classic Neiman Marcus cookies, with that kind of expertly chunky, hearty, buttery texture. “These are nice and chewy,” one of us said. Not too crispy. Not too soft. There were oats aplenty and little bits of coconut.
Layer & Bloom
Alicia Ortiz at Layer & Bloom has a reputation for gorgeous wedding cakes and other custom cakes, but she’s also a regular at places like Sunset Marketown, where she serves up muffins, cinnamon rolls and other goodies.
We decided to sample her sourdough cinnamon rolls, which came with light, whipped cream cheese icing—and just the right amount of sweetness—and a lot of cinnamon in the dough. The sweetness of the sugar and cinnamon balanced well with the tang of the sourdough, giving the whole thing a delightfully complex flavor.
“I don’t like cinnamon rolls, but this is good,” Preslie said. We all wanted more.
Aussie Bakehouse
Sarah Day at the Aussie Bakehouse brings “treats from Down Under” to local people, and we’d been hearing buzz about her rolls for months. The cheese and bacon rolls did not disappoint.
These were extremely savory and very satisfying, made with real bacon rather than bits. The bacon and cheese were mixed into the layers of the dough, penetrating it with a smoky saltiness that we loved.
Then, for a truly authentic dose of Australia, we turned our attention to the Bakehouse’s notorious “Cheesymite Roll,” which contains that staple of Australian cuisine, Vegemite. For all of our taste-testers, this would represent their first exposure to the Aussie delicacy. Vegemite is a thick, brown food spread made from spent brewer’s yeast extract, blended with spices and other veggie-based additives.
The roll itself looked similar to the bacon-and-cheese roll, but the vegemite packed a savory soy sauce kind of vibe. It brought a concentrated punch of flavor, and we liked it! All of us definitely would eat it again.
Our Taste-Testers’ Fave Baked Goods:
Michele McAffrey: Layer & Bloom cinnamon rolls
Jerry McAffrey: Busy Baker cowboy cookie
Jason Boyett: Aussie Bakehouse cheese-and-bacon rolls
Preslie Bentley (photographer): Busy Baker cowboy cookie
Leilani Terrazas (intern): Layer & Bloom cinnamon rolls
Gunnar McConlogue (intern): Busy Baker cowboy cookie
