81a Hudsons Road, Spotswood, 9391 1335
My score: 3.5/5
Three words should be all it takes to get you interested in Candied Bakery: apple pie shake. Planning a visit now? This frothy cinnamon-scented concoction is a crazy blitz of apple pie and vanilla soft serve, including chunks of apple and hunks of pastry that are too large to be slurped through the fat straw provided. It’s a dessert in a cup but drinks don’t land in the dessert stomach so it shouldn’t stop you from having cakes and biscuits too.
Candied Bakery opened last November in the safe hands of Orlando Artavilla and Toula Ploumidis, the couple who founded Sugardough nine years ago, back when you could get a parking spot in Brunswick East. Once again, the patissier/chef pair looked for a developing location and this time they landed in lucky Spotswood.
Their bright, airy bakery is a neat mix of new and nostalgic. Quality beef and tremendously flaky puff pastry jazz up the old-school Aussie minced beef pie. Housemade tomato ketchup in a squeeze bottle is rich and bitey. Sweet donuts are filled with the Italian custard that Orlando’s mum perfected for her zuppa inglese trifle: they’re super. An American influence (or more specifically, a passion for cult New York bakery Momofuku Milk Bar) shines through in the sweet and salty Crusty Brownie Pie, a dark chocolate slab with an embedded layer of sugar-crusted pretzels, and the soft serve machine which rotates flavours such as Milo and peanut butter and jelly. Kale tarts and spinach pies have a contemporary Australian edge but the brie sandwich is served American style in a basket with potato crisps. You’d be unlikely to find cheese and ciabatta of such fine character at a US diner though.
Many people grab and go (a blue cheese croissant for now, a loaf of sourdough for later) but stay a while if you can. The coffee is excellent and there are happy tunes on shuffle. Ordering at the counter makes it all the easier to be seduced by a fig danish, say, or moist vegan raspberry cake, all inviting, all freshly made in small batches. The only down side of daily baking is that stuff runs out: don’t come at noon hoping that the breakfast munchers have left you a bacon and egg brioche. But hold the tears: you can always shake off the no-brioche-blues with a blended apple pie.
See their website.
More sugar rush:
LuxBite, 38 Toorak Road, South Yarra, 9867 5888
Most famous for macarons with out-there flavours such as pandan and ribena, LuxBite also does ridiculously good cakes, like a banana-flavoured version of layered opera cake, and savoury dishes too.
Chez Dre, 285-287 Coventry Street, South Melbourne, 9690 2688
The breakfasts and lunches at this hidden warehouse cafe are well and good but you must save room for gateaux such as blueberry cheesecake and mandarin macadamia chocolate mousse cake.
Aviv Cakes and Bagels, 412 Glen Huntly Road, Elsternwick, 9528 6627
I wouldn’t come here for the coffee but I’d travel any distance for the chocolate babka.
First published in The Age, April 21, 2013
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