Hi, thanks for stopping by my dessert blog. As you can see, the title is the start of the story, generally referring to my dessert searching journey in Baltimore. People who know me would already know that I came here for my Master’s program. But until I graduated in December, I didn’t spend much time or make any efforts on exploring the baltimore city. Part of the reason, of course, is schoolworks and the pressure of finding a job. Another part is that, I’m pretty much a homebody and an introvert person. Sometimes I’d rather just stay home and watch some TV series or nice films than going out for any activities.
But meanwhile, I like sweet food pretty much. Me myself started baking while I was in high school and my mom was very supportive on my baking hobby. I’ve been baking my own birthday cake almost every year ever since. After I came to baltimore, I did previously try some cakes and sweet food in the restaurants I went to, but they are all too sweet. I was thus concluding that American sweet foods are in general too sweet for me. I mean, no kidding, Asian people take “not so sweet” as a compliment on their dessert.
The things changed as I met my friend Harshitha. She’s very good at planning, exploring the city and discovering hidden treasury little stores. One day we just came up with the topic about dessert and she recommended me several places to go. It was then I realized that I didn’t try as hard as I could to study dessert and try out pastry shops in Baltimore.
So the journey begins. I started off visiting some pastry shop around the campus – in Hampden area. There’s two pastry shop as far as I know, Harmony bakery and Maillard Patisserie. I tried both on two separate Saturdays and here’s some comments.
For Harmony bakery, I ordered a walnut brownie and an almond jam. The brownie is sweet but tastes really good. I’ve always love the mouthfeel of the blend of nuts with cakes/bread – soft with a bit of crispiness. The almond jam looks very adorable but taste rather plain. Probably I’m also not used to the taste of almond powder.
For Maillard Patisserie, I started with a strawberry pistachio galette. I was told their pistachio croissant is good, but they didn’t have that on the day I went there. This galette, however, caught my eye the minute I walked in. It just looked so irresistible. I love the pistachio sauce on it specifically, blending well with the flavor of strawberry. The whole pastry is just the right sweetness.