Royal Bakery

Green Tea Cake (top)

Green bean bread (bottom)

Royal Bakery

Although the front window features a wizened monstrosity that might just be Miss Havisham's wedding cake, the rest of Royal Bakery's glass cases are filled with fresh and attractive Korean-style breads, tarts, and cakes.  The green tea cake is a delicate sandwich of sponge and whipped-cream frosting with a mild but appreciable bitterness--ideal (green) tea party fare.  For breakfast treats, there's a range of soft, yeasty buns buns filled with velvety jam made from beans of every available hue.

The Royal Bakery

15210 Aurora

Shoreline, WA 98133

206/362-5188

Indian Sweets & Spices

Indian Sweets & Spices

Another strip mall treasure trove, Indian Sweets & Spices offers groceries, toiletries, a weekend lunch buffet, and a great selection of succulent mithai, Indian confections made fresh on the premises every other day. Whereas many mithai I've had in the past were almost narcotically sugary, ISS's are not quite such a piledriver to the pancreas. They have a mild sweetness that allows flavors like cardamon, saffron, pistachio, and rosewater to flourish.

Here are a few of the dozen-or-so varieties usually available (although I've done my best to match names to pictures, note that ISS is a relaxed place where it is perfectly acceptable to point at whatever you want):




ISS's most popular sweet, gulab jamun, is also a good choice for mithai-curious first timers. Plump, doughy balls of Indian cottage cheese are given a thin brown skin in the deep fryer, then soaked in spicy honey syrup.











Chum chum are essentially oblong gulab jamun, slit open lengthwise and stuffed with flavored, sweetened cream cheese.












Jalebi are big looping swirls of blaze orange dough, deep fried and soaked in sugar syrup.











Gajrela is a North Indian carrot cake, particularly popular in winter. The pudding-like carrot base is topped with pistachios and khoya, a creamy "cheese" made from reduced milk.










Kalakand is a tender, crumbly fudge made from ricotta-like cheese, condensed milk, and sugar, topped with crushed pistachios.





Other choices include laddoo (made from chickpea flour), burfee (creamy slabs topped with edible silver leaf, flavored with rose water and kewra water, a distillate of pandanus flowers), and in the freezer, rasmalai (milk-soaked dumplings flavored with dried fruit and saffron).

ISS sweets range from $5.99 to $7.99 a pound--and they're so dense and moist that a pound notches up quickly. I've found that an assorted box is fun to take along to a party; cut each sweet into smaller pieces so everyone can have a taste.

Indian Sweets & Spices
18002 15th Ave NE
Shoreline WA 98115
206/367-4568

Kittyhugs Baking Company

Kittyhugs Baking Company

Although named for the owner's cat's tendency to give affectionate embraces, the Kittyhugs Baking Company is no crazy cat lady enterprise. There's no fur flying in the kitchen and no whiff of anything less pleasant than vanilla and hot butter.

Located in a bright, airy storefront in Shoreline's North City neighborhood, the bakery began selling to the trade in the summer of 2004 and opened its doors a year later to retail customers. Kittyhugs' products range from the familiar to the comforting, and are baked from scratch and to order. The menu lists cookies, brownies, scones, muffins, quick breads, coffee cakes, cheesecake, tarts and fruit pies--nearly 100 different items, all (with seasonal exceptions) available to pick up given at least 24 hours notice. A more limited selection of the smaller items is offered for sale to walk-in customers on Fridays and Saturdays.

It pays to stop by early on retail days for the best selection--or for any selection at all, since Kittyhugs will close early if the baked goods sell out (I learned this the hard way). On my last visit, they were down to one brownie and out of red velvet cupcakes. I opted for a vanilla/vanilla cupcake (pictured above) that would be the star of any bake sale. The cake was fluffy and not too sweet, practically groaning under the weight of a generous whorl of vanilla buttercream frosting; whatever your personally preferred cake:frosting ratio, too much (good) frosting is always preferable to too little. It was also fresher, bigger, and, at $1.35, over $1 cheaper than the wares at Seattle's more glamorous cupcakeries.

Kittyhugs Baking Company
1508 NE 179th Street
Shoreline, WA 98155
206/361-5740

Wholesale Monday-Friday, 8-4
Retail Friday 3-6, Saturday 9-2