The Bench Bakehouse

Bench Bakehouse is located in El Mercato along Commercial Drive and is such the hidden gem. Each of their pastries are based in house daily and they have an assortment of treats to choose from. Not only do they offer flaky croissants, gooey brownies, chewy cookies, crunchy granola, fluffy scones but they also make marshmallows in house!

At the Bench Bakehouse, you can grab pastries to enjoy around the shopping centre, or you can buy some of their pie shells, scones, or croissants frozen to bake at home for yourself.

Kouign of the Empire

We visited for the hot chocolate festival. The Kouign of the Empire was a spiced white hot chocolate with cardamom and orange blossom. The hot chocolate was rich in flavour and had just the right amount of spices to balance out the sweetness of the hot chocolate. The delicious drink was then topped with a house made cardamom marshmallow to take it over the top. Unfortunately, the drink was so hot that the marshmallow melted in it but we’re sure it was delicious.

The Polar Vortex

There were quite a few strawberry hot chocolate offerings at this years hot chocolate festival and The Polar Vortex was one of them. This strawberry hot chocolate was made with dark chocolate and fresh strawberry puree. While it was sweet, the richness of the dark chocolate helped cut some of the sweetness. I loved how the strawberries added a pop of flavour and tartness to the drink as well. This was then all topped with the most magnificent brownie ever! It was fudgey, chewy and all the things you would want in a brownie. The only down side was that there just wasn’t enough of it.