Sweet Bliss Baking Company is one of the cutest, sweetest, most adorable country chic bake shops in the city. Each time I visit a new cupcake bakery, I think I’ve seen it all. But as soon as I skip on over to the next cupcake shop on the master cupcake list (or just whichever new bakery that just happens to be in the vicinity), I’m met with an entirely different atmosphere and feel. Some cupcakeries go sweet and colourful, some go haute couture cupcake style, and others keep it low maintenance and simple.
Sweet Bliss Baking Company? As warm and fuzzy as it gets. It feels just like a cottage country, hometown bakery with its numerous shelves of homemade jams and preserves, wooden crates and accents, decorative mason jars, sweet daisies, and homey country decor. It fits so perfectly in the Leslieville neighbourhood and as one of many cupcake and bakeshops on the Queen Street East, it totally holds it own and sets itself apart. As well, Sweet Bliss is a great little shop to pick up cute gifts such as vintage trinkets and cinnamon bun candles! Come for a sweet treat and come for some gift shopping! I love it. I love the soft colour palette, I love the happy, sunshiney outlook the shop has, and of course, I love the mountains of delicious desserts! Sweet Bliss caters to every sweet tooth with their assortment of cupcakes, tarts (butter and lwild blueberries from Nova Scotia), cake loaves and squares (got lemon?), brownies, cookies, pies, scones, cinnamon buns (tooted as the best in the city by some!), whoopie pies, and cheesecake bars, in addition to savoury tarts (spinach) and coffee and tea drinks.
While they do sell much of their product in single servings, they sell many of their of their products in what I like to call, “sweet and hungry packs”. They have baskets full of multi-cookie bags such as raspberry jam-filled cookies, brownie bliss cookies, and ginger cookies among others. Their prices for baked dessert items range from $1.90 to $$6.95, with “sweet and hungry packs” coming in at the latter price. Cupcakes, specifically, are priced at $2.50 each which is phenomenal because there are very few cupcakeries now that have stuck with the $2.50 price point. Most have either bumped it up to $2.65 or $2.85 for the most part, so Sweet Bliss earns extra brownie points for keeping things affordable! As much as I wanted to inhale a juicy tart lemon bar or blueberry cheesecake tart, I held off on getting one and opted to stick with what I came into the shop for: the reigning cupcake.
Sweet Bliss has a variety of flavours to choose from including a pretty pink frosted vanilla, a carrot cake, a red velvet, a double chocolate, two types of coconut, and several others, and they keep their cupcakes cool in their sliding fridge along with their monstrously huge chocolate whoopie pies which are priced at $3 each. They’re actually one of the very few bakeries I know of that keep their cupcakes cool in a fridge. Aside from Miss Cora’s Kitchen in Kensington Market, nobody else does that and I have to say, given how we’ve had some ridiculous heat in the city so far this summer, it’s something I really appreciate it. I know some people think refrigerating cupcakes is a sin, but we’re not talking about putting them into the deep freeze, we’re just talking about keeping them cool and keeping them from melting right off the bat.
Their chocolate coconut cupcake looked amazing so I snagged one of those as well as a giant chocolate whoopie pie with pale blue marshmallow cream filling. They looked too delicious to pass up! And I mean it when I say that their whoopie pies are huuuuge. The whoopie pie was almost the size of my entire hand! And I know I don’t have the biggest hands in the world, but still! Not only was it big and fat and round, but it was also stuffed with the yummiest looking pale blue marshmallow cream frosting. The chocolate whoopie pies are SO fudgy (seriously, you have chocolate fudginess stuck to your fingers while you’re eating) and the marshmallow cream is so smooth, light, and airy with the delicious taste of vanilla cream. It was wonderful because the lightness and airiness didn’t translate into thinness; the marshmallow filling was creamy with just the right amount of thickness and density to keep it from being runny or mushy. It was delightful and so worth it.
And the cupcake! OH.MY.GOD. You would also think that after all these cupcakes I’ve eaten, I’d feel nonchalant towards flavours that are relatively common. Chocolate and coconut are flavours we see all the time on and in cupcakes but that certainly didn’t stop me from salivating it over the chocolate coconut cupcakes when I saw them through the glass door. This chocolate coconut cupcake is NOT your average cupcake. The chocolate cake was cocoa-y and fudgy, yes, but what makes this cupcake ridiculously amazing and delicious is the frosting and shredded coconut on top. You’re used to having buttercream on a cupcake in either the soft, whippy state or in the thick, sweet, and creamy one. Sometimes you even get some with the swiss meringue or ganache dip. How many chocolate coconut cupcakes do you know of that have CREAM CHEESE FROSTING ON TOP?! Holy mother of pearl! This cupcake was like a fudgy chocolate creamy coconut cheesecake! The cream cheese frosting on chocolate with shredded coconut was unbelievably delicious and every bite was like heaven.
Two amazing sweets from one very fabulous bake shop and worth every penny for the wonderful quality, and not to mention, size! Sweet Bliss has terrific product, a sweet shop with so much character, and incredibly nice people working in it. It took me awhile to finally check it off my master cupcake shop list, and it lived up to all my sweet expectations, and then some. I can’t wait for all the follow-up trips I plan on making in the future.
*****
Sweet Bliss Baking Company is located at 1304 Queen Street East in Leslieville, two blocks east of Leslie St. Sweet Bliss Baking Company offers an assortment of sweet treats including cupcakes, tarts, cookies, and brownies, as well as coffee drinks, gifts, and more. Hours and days of operation to be posted!
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