Stuffing Our Faces at Edible Flours

Vancouver has an awesome new bakery! Edible Flours opened this past Saturday and boasts all vegan and some gluten-free items. If you're in Vancouver, I highly recommend making your way over to Kitsilano to treat yourself to a cupcake or muffin or scone or cookie or whatever. You won't be sorry. You'll find the bakery at 2280 West Broadway at Vine, right next to the London Drugs. They're open every day except Mondays. You can get more specific directions and hours here.

I really wanted to get down there on Saturday, but the day was chock-full of other things so we didn't get to help celebrate opening day. We did fit in a snack break while running a bunch of errands on Sunday, though. Sunday was such a warm, sunny, gorgeous Vancouver day that even running errands was quite pleasant. Stopping for a little sugar rush didn't hurt the enjoyment of the day, either, that's for sure.

Here's the deal. You can walk in and buy anything in the case and you can get a tea or a smoothie or a coffee or something to go with it. There are a few seats so you can eat inside if you want or take it with you. If you need a whole cake or a dozen cupcakes or something, you can also place orders for those things, which is super awesome.

We bought one of almost everything. In our defense, we were also picking up a few things for a friend who had to work and couldn't make it over. Also, I was just really excited and I wanted to try everything.

On this plate of yummies, you have a strawberry scone, a vanilla cupcake, Sunday's special - the maple glazed cinnamon doughnut and a bunch of chocolates. We'll talk about the chocolates in a minute.

First, I need to say that I am incredibly picky when it comes to eating other people's baked goods. Usually whenever I've been presented with a vegan cupcake that was purchased somewhere it's dry and dense and doesn't really taste very good. That makes me sad because that's not how the cupcakes I bake turn out and it's disappointing that there are people selling vegan cardboard and passing them off as cupcakes. The frosting is something I typically find full of sugar and tasteless. I usually just scrape it off because I'm not a fan of eating a pile of greasy sugar. No wonder the omnivores think our vegan treats won't taste very good!

None of those things are true about Edible Flours. I think this might have been one of the best cupcakes I have ever eaten. For reals. The cake itself was light, moist and fluffy and full of flavor. I can tell that maple syrup is being used to sweeten it and that gave it such a wonderful taste. The frosting had a faint lemon flavor. Not overpowering, just a hint that went so well with the vanilla-maple goodness of the cake. It wasn't just a greasy pile of sugar, either! The frosting was creamy and light and didn't taste overly sweet. So good! James got the cupcake for himself and gave me a bite just to taste. I kept making him give me more, it was so good. I actually spent most of the afternoon reminiscing about how good that cupcake tasted. Holy cow. There were a bunch of cupcakes, some gluten-free and some made with wheat flour.

The scone wasn't overly sweet and trying to be a muffin as I find most scones to be. It was a real scone with real pieces of freshly sliced strawberries in it. Delicious. The doughnut appears to be a baked doughnut if I'm not mistaken. It was quite tasty, a little bit like cake in itself with a nice maple glaze and a dusting of cinnamon on top. There were a few other flavors of doughnuts, but we only tried this one.

Yes, this is a picture taken inside the chocolate bag. James thought it was funny that I took the picture this way. I haven't eaten the chocolate yet. I'm saving these for an afternoon tea break today. The round one is a chocolate chai thing, the rectangular one is chocolate raspberry and the lumpy one is chocolate peanut butter. They look amazing, I can't wait to try them.

Here are some of the things we took to go. Another one of those glorious vanilla cupcakes for Erin, a chocolate gluten-free cupcake, a chocolate chip cookie and a lemon cookie. I haven't eaten the cookies yet, either. Those are probably going to be dessert tonight after dinner. They look fantastic, though. We'll see if I can hold out that long before eating them.

We ate the chocolate cupcake last night and it was also delicious. You won't believe this is gluten free. I mean, it is, but it doesn't taste like it. I can faintly taste a bit of rice flour in the mix, but just barely. This is a fluffy, flavorful cupcake. If you're avoiding wheat, you've just found the best thing ever about living gluten-free in Vancouver.

I will definitely go back here again and get some more yummies. It's funny, our old place was only a 15 minute walk from here and my old workplace was just down the street. Now I'm across town so I'll have to make a special trip to go to Edible Flours. It'll be so worth it, though. Yum!