If you live in the Emerald City area, you’ve undoubtedly heard of The Essential Baking Company. Their loaves are in stores seemingly everywhere.
But did you know that the Baking Company is actually a company? Like with a storefront and a real live bakery that you can eat in?
I did. And I had been there before. But my pal Jen had not, so when we embarked on our now infamous mini-food tour of Seattle, we needed to stop here.
Their Wallingford shop is completely cute—brick, craftstman-style woodwork, wrought iron here and there. Very Seattle.
Inside, as my friend so aptly put it, “it looks like a bakery should look.” It’s bright but rustic, and smells completely and totally and insanely good.
So. The breads. You can buy a loaf in nearly any local Seattle grocery store. Yes, they’re good. But the bread is not what we came for.
We unfortunately didn’t come either for the three-cheese pizza tucked neatly into little individual paper sacks…
…or the single-serving quiches. Which looked and smelled divine and were cute to boot.
No, my friends, we came for goods of the sugar variety. And variety is what we had to choose from. There was an array of assorted pie/tart/cake concoctions….
…that I wanted to shove in my mouth without breathing. Fortunately, a thick layer of glass prevented me from doing so.
They weren’t so careful with the cookies, however. They left them right out in the open, dangerously close to RDG’s little paws. But which one to choose?
This one would do nicely: a double chocolate cookie. The gal behind the counter informed me that they tasted like a brownie. And before she could finish her sentence I screamed out something resembling “I’ll taaaaakeee one now please thanks WOO HOO I got a cookie!”
I reached out my hand to receive it but she graciously put it on a plate for me. All my manners go out the window when baked goods are involved.
So how was it? Dense, a bit on the chewy side, but moist and very rich. It certainly crumbled like a brownie. And tasted like one. And fit nicely into one corner of my belly, just like all good brownies should.
My pal Jen was taken aback by this cuter-than-all-get-out mini lemon meringue pie.
She needed it. And at Essential Baking company, they do this miraculous thing: you give them money and they give you sugary treats. It’s like a reward system for knowing how to locate your wallet.
She completely swooned over this little guy. I may have snuck a taste or two. And lemme tell ya, this was one heck of a tart. The crust was crisp but not hard, the lemon curd tasted fresh and light, and the meringue was as velvety and satisfying as whipped cream. De-flippin-licious.
Thanks, EBC, for the mid-afternoon pick-me-up. You are essentially delicious. You may now send me a variety pack of delicious treats on a weekly basis. Thanks bunches:)
Sincerely,
-RDG
