The Pastry Olympics

One of my most popular posts from Torino was my Pizza of the Week post.  I've had a request from Howard to do something similar here in London. 

Unfortunately, being on the midnight shift, my first meal of the day at the NBC commissary is usually left-overs from earlier in the day.  I end up eating a lot of (mediocre) pizza and (very good) french fries chips.  The exception has been whenever they do battered fish - awesome!

The good news is that the overnight shift means that I am here when they serve breakfast with all the fresh (baked on site) pastries.  The normal breakfast menu (eggs, bacon, beans, hash browns, bagels, etc...) are OK, but they've brought in a company just to do organic pastries, soups, salads, sandwiches, muffins, and cookies, and they are amazing!

So, without further ado, here are the unofficial results from the Pastry Olympics...

In 8th place, we have your basic Cinamon Danish.  This is more of a store-bought mass-produced pastry (not made by our on-site pastry specialists).  It was OK, but just...

In 7th place, the Apple Danish.  Again, better than the Cinamon Danish, but still your generic grocery store variety (looks better than it tasted)...

In 6th place, our first entry from the on-site bakery, an organic Praline Danish.  Flaky and crunchy, this was good, but could have used more flavour...

In 5th place, a deceptively simple looking Brioche.  This was very good (much better than it looks)!  It is just a bun really, but it has a lot of egg and butter, and has a wonderfully soft and chewy center with great flavour...

In 4th place, and this was really a close contender for the bronze, we have an organic Pain-au-Chocolat, which is kind of like a chocolate croissant, except that it is square shaped.  Flaky layered pastry and rich chocolate pieces - yummy (especially when still warm from the oven)...

The Bronze medal goes to a classic Banana Chocolate Muffin.  Soft, moist, warm, with great chocolate and banana flavour.  Muffins don't get much better than this...  (technically not a pastry, so could be controversial that I put it in a medal position)...

The Silver medal goes to a traditional organic Croissant.  No gimmicks, just ultra-light crisp and flaky pastry that melts in your mouth, with a soft, chewy, doughy center.  Trying to eat one of these is a challenge because the pastry is so flaky it practically falls apart in your hands...

And the Gold medal goes to the ultime organic Almond Croissant.  Same great qualities as the traditional Croissant, but add a generous topping of sliced almonds and icing sugar, with a center filled with an amazingly delicious sweet almond butter paste.  Out of this world taste, and very, very decadent...

There is another amazing breakfast item produced by our baker, but I couldn't allow it to compete in the pastry event because it doesn't qualify, but this is one of my favourite items here...

This is fruit and granola over amazingly rich yogurt (no non-fat, sugar-free stuff here).  I've had several of these, and don't think I could ever get tired of them (even with the blueberries).

I also had to disqualify the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, as that just would not have been fair...