Tosca Pâtisserie is a French bakery in George Town that specializes in unique flavors of Bordeaux's canelés. Penang locals are known for their love of delicious food, whether it's savory dishes like char koay teow or sweet pastries like those from Paris. At Tosca Pâtisserie, you can find a variety of canelés that are sure to satisfy your sweet tooth.
In this island location, there are many bakeries that produce good macarons, impressive kouign-amann, and even exceptional croissants. However, very few of them provide satisfactory canelés, a French pastry that is known to be difficult to make. That is, until Tosca Pâtisserie came along.
Being a true Penang native, we always make sure to indulge in delicious treats. That's why we headed to the pastry shop to try out some caramel desserts and share our thoughts with you in this review.
Atmosphere of Tosca Pâtisserie
In 2023, Tosca Pâtisserie started operating and has established itself as a go-to place for canelé pastries, located in the center of George Town in Penang.
The location of the cafe is similar to many other hidden gems in George Town. It is located in an old heritage shophouse on Lebuh Cintra, blending in with the surrounding old shoplots and Asian eateries. Finding a parking space in this area is always a challenge.
Since the shop's main focus is on takeout orders, it is small in size and has only a few seating options available for customers who want to stay and enjoy the cozy atmosphere for a bit longer.
The interior design of the bakery has a Scandinavian style with light colored wood and simple, straight lines. The space feels clean and inviting, especially during our visit when it was decorated for the holidays. The Christmas decorations included a beautiful tree adorned with ornaments and miniature Santa hats on canelé statues.
Experience the exquisite flavors of French pastries at Tosca Pâtisserie.
The canelé is a famous dessert from Bordeaux, France, and a highly sought-after treat from Tosca Pâtisserie. Despite being made from basic ingredients, these small pastries can be tricky to perfect due to the complex techniques and precision required in their preparation.
The outcome? Small treats with a rich bronze color and a beautiful shine, thanks to a well-designed copper mold that shapes and names the canelé. When you slice one, you'll discover a creamy center filled with vanilla bean and air bubbles. It's truly a stunning sight.
It's important to understand that canelés should not be evaluated using the relatively less sweet taste preferences common in Asian cuisine. These treats are inherently sweet, with a crispy exterior giving way to a creamy center that can be quite addictive.
Flavorful canelés
The reason we were interested in Tosca Pâtisserie was because of its special and unique flavors of canelés. We were also intrigued by the opportunity to try a French dessert that was close to authentic in Penang. This was possible because the owner of the pâtisserie had received traditional training at a well-known culinary school, Le Cordon Bleu in London.
Our box of 4 mixed-flavored canelés was brought to us with a recommendation from the waitress to let them defrost for 5 minutes before eating. She advised not to wait longer than 7 minutes, as the canelés might lose their crispiness and flavor. We followed her advice to ensure we had the best tasting experience with these pastries.
One way to determine the quality of a pastry is to assess how well it stands out on its own, without any additional toppings or enhancements to enhance its flavor. We began by trying the Classic Canelé, which looked appealing with its honeycombed center and perfectly caramelized crust. Fortunately, its taste lived up to our expectations.
Intrigued by the unique Christmas flavor, we decided to try the Pistachio Canelé, a festive treat topped with a single roasted pistachio.
This dessert is filled with a pistachio ganache in the center, which has a strong nutty flavor that contrasts nicely with the sweet canelé base. The buttery richness of the ganache blends perfectly with its light and fluffy texture. It disappeared quickly because it was so delicious.
We decided to try the Raspberry Canelé, a holiday flavor, that had a vibrant raspberry ganache filling that contrasted well with the vanilla center and chewy crust.
After expressing admiration and delight multiple times, we decided that this was our favorite so far.
The anticipation for the Teh Tarik Canelé grew as it was saved for last, following the success of the previous flavors and the unique combination of a popular local flavor with a traditional French dessert.
Regrettably, after taking a bite, we were disappointed as the ganache was overly sweet and lacked the familiar taste of teh tarik that we were expecting.
Even though the end result was not as impressive as we had hoped, we were very pleased with the whole experience. It just goes to show how irresistible French pastries can be.
Almond cake with a seasalt caramel flavor.
The upcoming dessert is another cake, but it is not shaped like gumdrops. Tosca's famous cake, the Seasalt Caramel Almond Cake priced at RM30, almost stole the spotlight from the canelés.
The large size of the cake and the abundant caramel stripes that kept the almond slices in place made us unsure if it would be too sweet, but we were pleasantly surprised by how wrong we were.
The cake crumb remained firm and intact without being as hard as a rock, each bite was moist and delicious with a crispy topping of almonds.
The taste was the standout feature – the strong salty flavor of the sea salt caramel was a pleasant surprise, enhancing the sweetness and preventing it from becoming overwhelming. It was truly heavenly.
This generous portion of golden hunk is perfect for sharing as a dessert, but we understand if you want to keep it all to yourself.
The decision
The only thing we would have preferred is if the flavored canelés were infused with flavor throughout the entire batter, rather than just having flavored ganache in the middle of vanilla-based canelés.
However, the pastries we got from Tosca Pâtisserie were delicious, especially when enjoyed with a bold cup of coffee.
Location: 74 Lebuh Cintra, George Town, 10200 George Town, Penang. The store is open from Wednesday to Monday from 12pm to 8pm and closed on Tuesdays. For more information, you can contact them at 011-2323 7317 or visit their Tosca Pâtisserie Facebook and Instagram pages.
Images captured by Jia-Ju
Image on cover modified from: The Smart Local Malaysia
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