Loaf Cake

Went to VivoCity yesterday for family dinner and came across this new bakery opened by Twelve Cupcakes called Dulce and Sucre.

I've wanted to try out their loaf cakes since my ex-boss at the bakery told us (the kitchen team) about it during our monthly meetings. We all had this belief that the items sold at Dulce and Sucre were inspired by (copied) what our bakery was selling, but when I actually look at the menu, the only items that are similar are the loaf cakes and the brownies. 

They also had whoopie pies, which I was initially actually quite interested in getting as well but after seeing how flat the whoopie sandwiches were, decided to give it a miss. The sandwiches reminds me of the Nestle Toll House Cookies that I make at home, bloody recipe never works and I always end up with a flat cookie.

With the mindset that the loaves were just cheap imitations of the ones sold at the bakery I was working in, my benchmark for the loaves at Dulce and Sucre was set very high,  like anything below awesome would be horrible, like all imitation items. I have tried those from Cedele and those aren't good, at all. You can probably use those loaves to build a house, probably what the witch in Hansel and Gretel used to build the structure of her house.

So I was actually really disappointed with the range of flavors available because they only had 2 that day. Nutella and Earl Grey.

Earl Grey with Lemon Glaze and Nutella with Nutella

The presentation was really good though, it was very rustic looking with the baking paper used as liners, not something I would enjoy prepping. I can only imagine how much of a pain it must be to keep cutting and folding the parchment papers enough times so it will stay in it's folded shape and not slowly crawl out of the loaf pan every time you try to stick it in place, the worst would be when you are portioning out the batter and the parchment paper decides to fold in another direction, causing you to spill your batter all over. Happened to me many times with a loaf paper liner and it was extremely annoying.

I guess because now I am getting older, my palette has changed. In the past I would have probably preferred the Nutella flavor over the Earl Grey, but when I was at the shop, I found myself drawn to the Earl Grey loaf., but that could be because I had been baking Earl Grey cupcakes at the bakery during my last few days and it always smelled amazing every time they were done and I took them fresh out from the oven. 

Earl Grey with Lemon Glaze.

 The Earl Grey one wasn't very strong in terms of having an Earl Grey flavour, it was very subtle and the lemon glaze was just a lemon glaze really, all I could remember was how gritty it was, but that's what one should expect from a glaze. 

Nutella

Nutella one was a chocolate cake base with chopped hazelnuts folded through, really nice because I like hazelnuts so that already eared brownie points from me. The glaze is just Nutella jam sprinkled with even more chopped hazelnuts, some covered with a milk chocolate or hazelnut praline coating. 

The loaves themselves were actually really good, not as soft or as moist as the one sold at my bakery because I always have them on the day they are made, hours after coming out from the oven. They are comparatively larger than the ones sold at my bakery so it's more expensive as well and I guess another reason is because the cakes are butter based rather than oil based, once again just an assumption from the texture of the cake, and butter is always more expensive than vegetable oil because it makes cakes taste so much better, wouldn't say the same about butter being on it's own though, that just smells like a dried up sock that was drenched in sweat an hour ago.

I should probably try making this at home with the recipes I have gotten from the bakery, just use the chocolate cake and fold in some hazelnuts, I have 2 jars on Nutella at home as well. Now that I think about it, I can probably make the Earl Grey loaf as well, just need to get some quality Earl Grey tea.

Next thing I want to try are the whole cakes sold at my bakery. One day I shall get my hands on the rainbow cake and see what all the fuss is about, here's hoping to not getting chemical poisoning from the excessive food coloring.