Holiday sweets: 7 places to find artful edible creations this season
From bûches de Noël to bonbons, local culinary artists have all sorts of celebratory goods on offer
Sweet Thea Bakery.
Mon Paris Pâtisserie.
’TIS THE SEASON TO BE TEMPTED, and local culinary artists have been as busy as elves prepping their selections of baked goods and sweet treats for the 2023 holiday season.
Here’s a glance at a few spots offering artful edible creations for gifting or indulging in yourself this year.
Sweet Thea Bakery.
Sweet Thea Bakery
If fruitcake makes you think of leaden loaves studded with fake-red cherries found on drugstore shelves, think again: the delectable English Christmas Fruitcake from Sweet Thea is the real deal, made with love in small batches from scratch. Behind the venture is the husband-and-wife duo of Thea and Laurie Mercer. The baker of the business, Thea trained at Nanaimo’s Malaspina College and went on to work at various esteemed spots, including Sooke Harbour House. Sweet Thea begins the fruitcake process way back in the summertime by soaking organic sour cherries, direct from the orchard, in brandy for weeks. Rich, dense, and deeply flavourful, these loaves go beautifully with a cup of tea, hot-buttered rum, sparkling wine, gluhwein… You name it. And that’s not all there is to the bakery’s seasonal offerings. Classic stollen is another Sweet Thea specialty. Then there are cookies—10 types, in fact, including Ginger Crinkle, shortbread, and Raspberry Jammers. FruitcakePlus.com is the place to shop online; in-person visits happen at the Mount Pleasant storefront, open straight through to Christmas Eve.
Oh Sweet Day! Bake Shop
Just off Commercial Drive on East 1st Avenue, Oh Sweet Day! is once again offering its mixed cookie boxes with shortbread in several flavours—classic vanilla, Earl Grey, dried cranberry and pistachio, lavender lemon, matcha in the shape of a Christmas tree, and dark chocolate in star shapes—chewy ginger cookies, and snowballs (walnut and pecan butter balls). Then there are whole cakes, cheesecakes, tarts, and more.
Mon Paris Pâtisserie. Photo by Nora Hamade
Mon Paris Pâtisserie
Russian-born pastry chef Elena Krasnova trained at Ferrandi l’École de Gastronomie in Paris and worked at France’s oldest and most storied patisserie, Dalloyau, which opened in 1682, before launching Burnaby’s Mon Paris Pâtisserie. Seasonal offerings this year include Noël candles, made of white, milk, and dark chocolate filled with gianduja (chocolate with hazelnut paste) and caramelized puffed rice; hand-painted milk or dark chocolate tree ornaments with two signature truffles hidden inside each one; and our favourite, holiday fruit-and-nut trees in milk or dark chocolate. She also makes a mean bûche de Noël, back by popular demand in three flavours: Jolly Raspberry Chocolate, Blissful Black Forest, and Caramel Pecan Coffee.
Beaucoup Bakery & Café. Photo by Rich Won
Beaucoup Bakery & Café
Inspired by the classic ballet, Beaucoup Bakery’s Nutcracker Sweets is a collection of bûches de Noël, bonbons, and cookies that would please jolly old St. Nick himself. “The Nutcracker is so iconic during the holiday season—we really wanted to capture the magic, wonder, and sweetness of the timeless classic with our new Nutcracker Sweets Collection,” says Betty Hung, who co-owns Beaucoup Bakery alongside her brother, Jacky Hung. Beaucoup’s 12-piece hand-crafted chocolate bonbon set features two limited-edition flavours: Pistachio Praliné with saffron-vanilla ganache and Pecan Praliné with espresso ganache. Yule logs come in three flavours: Mandarine (mandarin cake, orange whipped ganache, orange marmalade, dark chocolate mousse, and rich chocolate glaze); pistache (chocolate joconde, chocolate custard, cassis, Valrhona Alpaco feuilletine crisps, pistachio mousse, rum ganache); and calamansi (coconut dacquoise, calamansi jelly, lemon-yuzu crumble, vanilla mousse, and coconut ganache). Whimsical cookies include matcha-toffee macadamia snowballs, yuzu-almond Florentines, and halva sablés.
Thierry.
Thierry
Chef Thierry Busset has unveiled a collection of bûches de Noël consisting of sponge cake and house-made mousses and creams in five flavours: chestnut, espresso caramel, hazelnut praline, vanilla-bean passionfruit, and yuzu cassis. Then there are large cakes and tarts, ranging from passion-fruit cake and tiramisu to caramel-walnut tart (pictured) and Earl Grey cake with blackberry and chocolate. The patisserie and chocolate shop recently opened a location at Ambleside in West Vancouver, in addition to its Mount Pleasant and Alberni Street outposts.
Temper Chocolate & Pastry.
Temper Chocolate & Pastry
West Vancouver-based chef Steven Hodge has concocted an array of sweets for Temper’s holiday collection, including sugar-dusted stollen, bûches de Noël (in salted caramel, Black Forest, and chestnut varieties), chocolate lollipops (in white, milk, and dark chocolate), candy-cane bark, shortbread (in almond, walnut, and hazelnut), chocolate ornament showpieces, and more.
Notch8.
Holiday Haus Afternoon Tea
Notch8 at Fairmont Hotel Vancouver has a new themed Afternoon Tea service, taking people to the heart of the alpine with après-inspired fare. There are finger sandwiches (including smoked salmon and Emperor ham). Then there are baked goods: winter-spiced candied orange scones, classic buttermilk scones, cherry-pistachio-frangipane galette, gingerbread cheesecake, meringue festive tree with white chococlate-mint ganache, chocolate crinkle cookies with snow powder, candy-cane macarons, and more. Dining in takes place amid cozy chalet décor, but here’s the twist: The entire tiered tray of sweet and savoury bites is available to go until December 30, so you could host or show up at someone’s house with an instant holiday experience. It comes with tea; consider also a bottle of Rara Avis, B.C.’s first fortified fruit wine made from haskap berries. Its name means “rare bird”, and the inaugural release comes from West Kelowna’s Kalala Wines in limited quantities.
Thierry.
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