Monday, June 7, 2010

Locally Featured: Care's Bakery

Today I am kicking off a new section here at A Boston Food Diary- a Locally Featured section.  Each week I will bring you local businesses who are making amazing products right here in the Boston area.  These aren’t your big names…no these are those amazing entrepreneurs who are living out their dreams, and either making, producing, or promoting fantastic food products.  These are the people who take time to know their ingredients, who know that the food must taste good, and who know their clientele.    

Our first Locally Featured business is Care’s Bakery, a full service, delivery based bakery that specializes in, well, all things delicious.  Care’s Bakery began in 2006 as the owner, Carolyn Cope, started baking pies to help her reach her fundraising goal for the 2006 Boston Marathon.  She reached her goal and completed the Boston Marathon- as if that wasn’t accomplishment enough- she also “hit the ground running” with her own business, Care’s Bakery.

Care’s Bakery upholds several principles, which I want to showcase- even before I get to their amazing baked goods.  The first is that their product comes first- this is easily detected with each bite of their tasty treats, but even more so in the way that Carolyn runs her company.  Every item that she makes is obviously made with care and attention to detail.  One of the ways she does this is to ensure that she is utilizing quality ingredients, often looking to other local business for ingredients when she can.  This is one of the pieces about Care’s Bakery that I really appreciated- she isn’t just a local business herself- but supports others as well.  Local helping local- you can’t beat that!

Another chief point that I appreciate in Care’s Bakery is their commitment to be “Green” in their business efforts.  In whatever capacity they can fulfill, Carolyn commits to recycling, reusing and cutting down on waste. 

Now, let’s get to the end product.  I had the chance to try out several of Care’s Bakery’s creations- including Dark Chocolate Raspberry and Lemon Coconut cupcakes, and her famous Cherry Pie.  I’ll start with the item that Carolyn is most proud of, her Cherry Pie.  Visually, this was a gorgeous pie.  As opposed to looking like a mass produced confection, this looked rugged, and obviously homemade.  I tend to base my judgment of baked goods this way- if they look like they were made with 100,000 others- they probably taste that way.  The first cut into the pie had all of the textures you want- the slight resistance from a nicely cooked pastry crust, giving way into the gelled liquid interior.  The filling, visually was perfect- bright red, full of gorgeous cherries with just enough sauce.  It tasted as good as it looked.  The cherry filling had an incredible amount of flavor to it- making every bite interesting.  Sometimes you have a slice of pie that just doesn’t captivate the taste buds- it lies flat and while it’s a nice flavor- you aren’t itching for a second bite.  Care’s Bakery nailed their cherry pie filling however with wonderful, robust flavors, each one popping in ones mouth.  The crust had great consistency to stand up to the flavors of the filling; however, personally, I would have liked to have tasted a bit more flavor in the crust itself.  Really though- I’m nit picking- the pie was delicious.

As wonderful as the pie was though, the cupcakes were out of this world.  Though I haven’t spoken about it here on this site, I detest many of the so-called popular cupcake places around town.  I find their cake dry, their icing gritty, flavorless, or both, and all together, I have actually found them pretty inedible.  Cupcakes should be special.  Obviously they are
purchased when you are looking for a treat, a wonderful cake like treat, but don’t want a whole cake.  So shouldn’t you be rewarded for your small feat of restraint with something really delicious?  I want a cupcake to fulfill any desire I have for cake so that when I’m done- I no longer have the craving.  Care’s Bakery succeeds in every capacity.  The cake was moist and full of flavor- the dark chocolate had me reaching for a glass of milk in a very good way, and the lemon was light and refreshing.  Each had a filling piped into the center of cake, and each was delicious- the perfect relief from the cake.  I could have actually used a bit more of these fillings, but again- this was not a big detraction to these cupcakes.  The icing however...wow.  I have no idea how Carolyn and team are able to make this icing so light, fluffy, and creamy.  Every bite was smooth and delicious, completely absent of that graininess that you often find in icings.  It was as though she had whipped them until the sugar completely changed consistencies.  I could have eaten many of these little cakes of heaven- luckily I had lots of people around to help me out with them!

Care’s Bakery is my new "go to" for my baked goods needs.  I urge you all to check out her site at www.caresbakery.com .  The variety of goods that she produces is incredible, with every craving met.  Even better: if you’re feeling lazy- she delivers all of her orders free of charge no matter how big or how small an order.  Now my only question- what will be YOUR first order from this amazing, local, business? 

Care's bakery on Urbanspoon

1 comment:

pricilla said...

all this food is making me hungry big time! *drools*

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