Crave Bakery Grand Opening This Friday

May 10, 2011 by 2 Comments

Great news! Crave Bake Shop is opening a retail store in Lake Oswego. I know. I know. They should really be opening in NE Portland! That’s what I told them, too. Anyways, the grand opening is this Friday at 10:00 AM. Did we mention that Crave Bake Shop makes the best gluten-free cupcakes and cinnamon rolls ever? They do.

Here’s the press release:

You’ll Never Know These Decadent Desserts are Gluten-Free:
Nationally-Acclaimed Crave Bake Shop Opens a Store

Lake Oswego, OR— May 2, 2011

What: We are delighted to announce the grand opening of Crave Bake Shop’s gourmet gluten-free retail store, specializing in cupcakes, celebration (wedding, birthday, special occasion) cakes, cinnamon rolls, scones, cookies, tarts, doughnuts and cream puffs. Crave Bake Shop has a dedicated wheat- and gluten-free kitchen.

Where: 460 Fifth Street in Lake Oswego, OR 97034 Tel: 503.212.2979

When: Doors open to the public on Friday, May 13th at 10 am. Regular store hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10 AM to 5PM and Saturdays 10AM to 4PM.

Unique menu: Crave Bake Shop specializes in gourmet gluten-free and made-from-scratch desserts and pastries that are prepared with the premium ingredients such as sweet cream butter, pure vanilla bean extract, Callebaut French dark chocolate, passion fruit puree – and much more.

Those looking to satiate their sweet tooth can choose from a full menu of Crave Bake Shop’s popular signature desserts – like Tart Raspberry Angel Rolls, buttery Orange Currant Scones, addictive gooey Cinnamon Rolls, decadent Peanut Butter Truffle Fudge Brownies, and many other delectable treats such as Chocolate Caramel Ecstasy cupcakes—all gluten-free.

National and Local Recognition: Kyra Bussanich, pastry chef and founder of Crave Bake Shop, has been featured on the Food Network’s hit series “Cupcake Wars,” in the article “Coast to Coast Cupcakes” in Gluten-Free Living magazine, on numerous national and local gluten-free websites, several times in the Food section of “The Oregonian” (Portland), and more. They have fulfilled custom orders throughout the United States.

Bussanich is a graduate of Portland’s Le Cordon Bleu program in Patisserie and Baking. Previously, she ran Crave Bake Shop as a custom-order-only bakery.

More info: Visit CraveBakeShop.com or on Facebook, (Crave Bake Shop), or contact Jamie Hogland at CraveBakeShop@gmail.com or 503-260-7914

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Restaurant Review: The Berlin Inn

May 13, 2010 by Leave a Comment

We had heard about the Berlin Inn from both our Berlin Inn comments page and a friend, and thus we decided to give it a try last week. The restaurant is located in a house at SE 12th and Powell. This is one of the areas of town that we don’t get to much, but now that we know about this place, we’ll be visiting the neighborhood a lot more.

As could be expected from a restaurant named “The Berlin Inn,” the cuisine is German. Neither of us was very familiar with German food and on the way there, we speculated about what they would serve. I had two German roommates briefly in college and I remember them eating a lot of salami and making Beef Stroganoff (of course I only remember them doing this once, so it may have been a fluke). So when we got to the restaurant, it was obvious that a little education was in order. Luckily, our waitress was extremely helpful. The Berlin Inn serves different kinds of Fondue, various pancakes, sandwiches, salads, wursts, schnitzels, and some specialties like Sauerbraten, Swabian Pork Spareribs, and Chicken Cordon Blue. (They also serve breakfast.)

Here are some useful things to know: Schnitzel is a dish where something has been flattened, breaded, and cooked (fortunately, they can make any of their schnitzel gluten-free by breading with potato flour). Wursts are sausages. The Berlin Inn doesn’t have a separate gluten-free menu, but instead their menu has a page that serves as a guide to what on the menu is safe. You can check their menu our on their website.

Best of the Wurst and Schnitzel

After some debating, we decided to get the Best of the Wurst & Schnitzel platter. Some changes had to be made to make it gluten-free. As mentioned above, the Schnitzel was prepared gluten-free. The platter normally comes with spatzle noodles, which are not gluten-free and which we substituted with crispy potato pancakes. Going gluten-free also limits your sauce choices to a Dijon cream sauce. We weren’t complaining, though, because the sauce was awesome. So we had a Spicy Beer Sausage wurst, Alder-smoked Bratwurst, Chicken Schnitzel, grilled bratkartoffel (fried potatoes with vegetables), potato pancakes, sauerkraut & sweet-n-sour red cabbage.

Our waitress was very familiar with gluten-free issues, and everyone there was very friendly. The restaurant has a cozy atmosphere. Our food came out promptly and everything was warm enough. All was delicious, especially the wursts. Also amazing were the desserts. They have an enormous dessert tray and have a couple of gluten-free desserts. They make a cashew cream torte that is very much like a sweet lemony cheesecake. We also had a molten chocolate cake. Check out these pictures.

Cashew Cream Torte

Chocolate Lava Cake

We both thought the torte was good, although I think we would have liked it more if it had been a little less sweet. The molten chocolate cake was really incredible, though. It’s the kind of cake where the outside is crunchy and the inside is still kind of gooey. It’s amazingly chocolaty.

We really enjoyed our meal at the Berlin Inn. It was a Friday night and we were looking for something different. The Berlin Inn fit the bill perfectly. I’m pretty sure that if you’re familiar with German food, that you’ll like the food there, but if you’re not, you should really check it out! Did I mention that they have gluten-free beer? They have gluten-free beer!

Gluten-Free Safety Rating: Gluten-free friendly but ask questions.
Times we have visited: 1 (So your experience may vary.)
Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price compared to “regular”: Same.

The Berlin Inn
http://www.berlininn.com
3131 SE 12th at Powell / 503.236.6761

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Product Review: Crave Bake Shop

December 28, 2009 by 13 Comments

We were contacted by the folks at Crave Bake Shop to check out their cupcakes (see our disclosure policy here). Crave was started by a professionally trained pastry chef who, because of an auto-immune disorder, is gluten-free. They started making cupcakes last summer, and produce made-to-order cakes, cupcakes, and cinnamon rolls. They do not currently have a retail space, but they sell items at farmers markets, and take orders on their website. They do take special orders like birthday cakes, cupcake pyramids, and wedding cakes. The best piece of news is that their kitchen is dedicated gluten-free. Woo hoo!

Crave Gluten-Free Cupcakes

In the picture above is (left to right, top to bottom): Lemon Bar, Peppermint Patty, Snickerdoodle, Skinny Vanilla Latte, Lavender Outrageous, PB&J, Peppermint Patty, PB&J, Lemon Bar, Candy Cane, Snickerdoodle, Gingerbread. These are mini cupcakes or “shooters.” Crave also makes regular-sized cupcakes.

Normally when you order from Crave, they sell their cupcakes by the dozen per flavor. Since they wanted us to try out a bunch of different flavors, we got a box with quite a bit of variety, which they said were extras left over from the orders they put together on that day. We felt really lucky to get a bunch of different kinds to try, because they were all very interesting and delicious.

Yes, before I get into the descriptions of the cupcakes that we got, I should say that they are really awesome. You would never know that they’re gluten-free. The flavors are amazing. The cupcakes are adventurous. The cake part is light and fluffy. The icing part is light and creamy. These are the best dessert items I’ve had since a particular mind-blowing Panna Cotta I had in Venice during our recent trip to Italy. They’re also different from most store-bought cupcakes in that they don’t use shortening. So if you’re the kind of person who makes frosting with butter, these are going to taste like homemade (except that they’re more fancy than most of us will make at home).

So let’s talk about some of these. The descriptions in quotes after the names are from their website.

Gluten-free cupcake

Lemon Bar: “lemon cake topped with lemon cream cheese icing.” – It definitely has a more lemony taste than your usual lemon cake. This was one of my favorites, but then I love lemon anything.

Peppermint Patty: “chocolate peppermint cake with dark chocolate peppermint ganache” – Tastes a lot like a peppermint patty on top of cake.

Snickerdoodle: “cinnamon vanilla cake topped with cinnamon buttercream” – This may very well have been our favorite. It’s really just amazing. The flavors go so well together. Although it looks like it has a lot of frosting on it, the frosting is so light that you never notice.

Skinny Vanilla Latte

Skinny Vanilla Latte: “vanilla cake soaked with espresso syrup, topped with fat free meringue topping” – Very clever and inventive cupcake.

Lavender Outrageous: “lavender-infused vanilla cake with lavender buttercream” – Definitely for fans of lavender. Other than lavender candy, I don’t think I’ve had a lavender confection. Fortunately, this is far better than the candy!

PB&J: “vanilla cake with jelly center and peanut butter french buttercream” – Yes this tastes exactly like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (except sweeter and with butter).

Candy Cane: “vanilla cake with crushed candy cane pieces, topped with peppermint buttercream”

Gingerbread: “gingerbread cake topped with cinnamon-cream cheese frosting” – This tastes exactly like freshly baked gingerbread men did when I was a kid. Exactly like it. For a moment I was transported to the kitchen of the house I grew up in. It’s rather uncanny.

Crave Skinny Vanilla Latte Cupcake

Here’s a picture of the Skinny Vanilla Latte with a couple of bites out of it, so you can see the texture. We were told that these cupcakes freeze well, so of course we had to test it. We had a little trouble thawing them out in the microwave, because it only takes a couple of seconds, but they definitely do freeze well.

We also got to sample their cinnamon roll, which was really amazing. I’ve been mourning the loss of cinnamon rolls since I became gluten-free. New Cascadia Traditional has a gluten-free cinnamon roll (which I reviewed here) but it’s disappointing. Crave’s cinnamon roll has lots of cinnamon and has an amazing frosting. I was wishing that they had brought us more!

If you check their website, you’ll see that they have some really adventurous flavors. Persian Love Cake, Orange Tarragon, Venetian Crepe, Wow! File this under miscellaneous: We asked if they had a favorite gluten-free restaurant in Portland and they said Andina and also the Outback Steakhouse. They are working on a new website that will have more information about their products and which is expected sometime early 2010. We’re looking forward to more from Crave Bake Shop.

We want to know: Have you had any of Crave’s goods? Are there other places in Portland Oregon to get great gluten-free bakery items? Let us know in the comments.

Times we have visited: 1 (so we feel OK about our score.)
Overall rating: 5 out of 5 stars – wow!
Price compared to “regular”: Not sure

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