Stuart's Bakery

This is a bakery located in the Granville Island Public Market (they have also recently opened another location on Kingsway) that produces a large variety of cakes, including several different flavours of cheesecakes, pastries, cookies, and various other treats. I've gotten to sample their Chocolate Decadence, Canadian Maple Cheesecake, Turtle Cheesecake, and Carrot Cake. The quality of their desserts does not seem to be the highest: I did find some of their garnishes and creams to have some stale, freezer-burned flavours. However, I did still enjoy all of their cakes, with their Canadian Maple Cheesecake being the standout. The prices are also fairly reasonable. I'd definitely recommend checking them out.

Chocolate Decadence ($5.50):
4/5
This consisted of layers of chocolate cake sandwiching layers of fruit preserves/jelly, that's topped with a layer of frosting and coated by a layer of chocolate. The cake itself was tender and moist, while the fruit was quite tangy. I can't really figure out what the fruit is: I initially thought that it was cherry, but it had a yellowish colour, so maybe it's some kind of citrus. While I personally would have preferred a chocolate mousse in place of the fruit, its acidity did work well in balancing the sweetness of the chocolate. I did not care too much for their frosting, which I found to be greasy and a bit stale.

Canadian Maple Cheesecake ($5.50):
4.5/5
This consisted of a maple-flavoured cheesecake on top of a crust, and is decorated with cream and a white chocolate maple-leaf garnish. I absolutely loved the cheesecake: it was firm, dense and tangy, with a wonderful fragrance of maple. The crust was also tender and cut easily. I did find the cream and garnish to have a slightly stale, freezer-burned flavour, but that is only a minor issue.

Turtle Cheesecake ($5.95):
4/5
This consisted of chocolate-flavoured cheesecake on top of a chocolate crust, and is topped with chocoalte frosting, chocolate, pecans and caramel. Again, the cheeesecake was dense and firm, with a nice chocolaty flavour. While the garnishes didn't have any stale flavour this time, the caramel was strangely bland. While this cake is certainly quite tasty, I did not feel that it lived up to the name of "turtle" cheesecake; it's just more of a plain chocolate cheesecake with a few extra garnishes.

Carrot Cake ($5.50):
3.5/5
This consisted of a carrot cake that's covered in a layer of cream cheese frosting and studded with walnuts. The cake itself was quite good: very moist, chocked full of carrots and raisins, and had a nice cinnamon scent. I was not very impressed by the frosting however, which was just sweet and did not have the tang that I enjoy from cream-cheese frosting, and was also a tad greasy. The nuts tasted fresh and lent a nice bit of texture.

I bought this (forgot its name) and was surprised to know that it tastes like "Otap" -- a Filipino puff pastry. The only difference is Stuarts' is chewier and sweeter. My mom and I enjoyed it. We even went back a few days after to buy more.

Tasty bakery with a wide selection. I'm a sucker for their Decadent Chocolate Cake, Decadent Chocolate Mousse, and Fresh Fruit Tart.

Most of their desserts are around $5 so it's pretty pricey...

Great Cheesecake. They have a huge selection of pastries to try and the service was good. Cheesecake is my fav, so I tried the Caramel Apple Cheesecake. Amazing!

Good desserts, so-so bread. Stuart's makes some great individual desserts. When my wife and I are on Granville Island buying items to make a fancy dinner, we also like to pop over to Stuart's for a couple of their New York style cheesecakes. We don't make whole cheesecakes at home any more because we don't need the calories, but Stuart's single-serve is just right. Suitably dense, good flavour on the chocolate variety. I had a caramel-topped chocolate mousse last night that had more than a centimeter of dulce de leche layered on it -- not that there's anything wrong with that! (As long as I only eat one...)

OTOH, I bought a loaf of Stuart's levain bread one time that had good texture, but almost no taste. Boring.

I didn't know this place had a connection to Max's Deli on Oak and 15th until I wrote this review, but now I can see the connection. I find both places to be stronger with their sweets than their savouries.