Backhaus

Overall: Superb

# of visits: many

Top tier all-around bakery. Serves laminated pastries, scones, brioche, bread and other sweets. The best and most consistent croissant lamination across the board. Seasonal ingredients and flavors. Stunning quality. Not having even nit pick on anything I've tried. Pick what your heart desires. All is in "best of the best".

Walking from the front counter to the backyard garden, you can see their open kitchen where the lamination machine is right behind the glass along the corridor. We caught it running during one visit. That's where the pun "Butter goes left, butter goes right" is from. Can't help appreciating the amazing lamination. So airy so perfect.

Best of the best

Plain Croissant - The best way to admire the perfect lamination. Strong gluten in the honeycomb layer gives a nice chew. Thin crispy crust. Buttery but light.

Pistachio Raspberry Croissant - This is what wins me over. The culmination of twice-baked croissants. Perfect consistencies of pistachio and raspberry jam. Pistachio has a bit of chunkiness wrapped with runny jam. Raspberry has a bit of seediness otherwise silky smooth. Perfect balance of the two flavors. Gooey jamy center while super airy base. Top nut berry mixture is baked to a crispy biscuit dusted with freeze-dried raspberry and grounded pistachio.

Almond Croissant - Similar features as Pistachio Raspberry Croissant

Speck & Egg Bowl - Square croissant base topped with speck and egg. Layers are still very distinct even under the weight of toppings. Excellent flavors.

Brostock - This is the first time I've had brostock. It's a brioche slice double baked and topped with almond strudel and berries. Consider a cross between almond croissant and brioche loaf bread.

Sweet Galette - Instead of the traditional pie dough as galette base, not surprisingly they use laminated croissant dough. That's why you can see thin flaky layers instead of crumbly non uniform layers. Soft cheese filling and fruit topping go very well.

Apple Turnover - Flaky crust. Soft tender apple cube fillings. I like the ratio between crust and filling. It's very generous amount of apple fillings wrapped inside perfectly laminated crust. There is no soggy dough and no leaky apple. The filling is not sweet more of the true flavor of apple. We had it right after Pistachio Raspberry Croissant. In contrast, it tastes quite mild. Not a complaint though. Just a less sweet solid breakfast pastry.

Porridge Bread - Chewy caramelized crust. Airy moist crumb. It's not common to see such big air pockets in porridge bread as fermentation is not as easy to develop with the addition of oatmeal. Amazing nutty flavor from oats. Ever since I started baking bread myself, my taste becomes more and more picky as over time I've developed a specific preference for how dark the curst and how moist the crumb. It's rare that I can get bakery bread to my liking. This bread is so perfectly executed that I have to admit I enjoy it even more than the best one I make myself.

Ciabatta - Chewy crust. Super airy crumb. Perfect for cheese platter, sandwich, you name it.

Honorable mentions

Seeded Rye - It's gluten-free 100% rye. That's why there is no air pockets. Instead, it's filled with seeds and packed into a brick shape. It's definitely not my favorite type of bread. That's why I leave it out of "Best of the best". But as far as ration-like super hearty rye bread goes, it's probably one of the best.