Bakery comparison: Carol's Pastry Shop and Mrs. Backer's Pastry Shop

Carol's lemon tart, eclairs, chocolate donut, maple bar, wedding cookie  Everything was good but the pate choux shells of the eclairs was great. The filling not so much.  Carol's Pastry Shop was established in 1948 in the Salt Lake valley in the sugarhouse area.  Find out more at their site: https://carolspastryshop.wixsite.com/carolspastry

Mrs. Backer's was established in the Salt Lake valley in 1941 in the downtown area.  Find out more at their site: http://www.mrsbackers.com/    Mrs. Backer's chocolate donut, eclairs. wedding cookie, maple bear donut  (continued below)

 

Mrs. Backer's pink sugar cookie, macaroon (coconut based-not the French sandwich macaron cookies), fancy cakes-german chocolate and pineapple rum chocolate.  Everything was great except the maple bear and chocolate donut which were just good.  

We're probably going to stick with Mrs. Backer's Pastry Shop for the most part. We did a taste test of eclairs from all over the valley including Mrs. Backer's Pastry Shop, Carol's Pastry Shop, Granite Bakery, Schmidt's Bakery (which does have the best marzipan cakes in the valley in our opinion!), Leslie's French Pastries, Eclair French Pastry (where the eclairs are $5.00 each and about 20-30% of the time the filling has been curdled inside-do not recommend but should probably try them again), V & R Bakery (which have some of the best danish pastries I've ever had along with rustic breads, cakes, amazing individual deserts,etc...),  and some grocery store eclairs.  Dan's grocery store use to have really good eclairs at some of their stores but now they tastes like the same prepacked filling that is used by grocery store bakeries and even some little individual bakeries.  

Mrs. Backer's eclairs won over-all for their pate choux, house made pastry cream, and chocolate ganache. 

Sunday Randomness #73 : Anniversary Inn Logan, UT (Three part post) Part one

Anniversary Inn has multiple locations - two in Salt Lake City, one in Logan, and the fourth in Boise, ID.  We recently stayed at a few rooms at their Logan location.  I like the pictures on their website but I wish sometimes that those pictures displayed more of the detail and breadth of the themed quality of the rooms.  So here we'll share a  few PG rated posts of our pictures.  PG because these rooms are designed for adult patrons - more a "look and don't touch"  says the ambience of the rooms.  

The first night we stayed in the Hollywood Romance room which came with complimentary sodas and pre-popped popcorn in the popcorn bucket.  (The popcorn machine in the picture? That was just for show.)  We paid the extra $5 to get the bite size dessert sampler plate with brownie, lemon bar, raspberry chocolate, and magic bars. They give you a bottle of sparkling cider in your room and deliver a full breakfast for both people the next morning as part of the room price.  In the past they also gave you a couple of slices of complimentary cheesecake but now it's a $5.00 add-on.

 

The petals and champagne flutes with Hershey kisses, rubber duckies, and bath bomb were a surprise from Buffy's park dog friends parents. https://www.anniversaryinn.com/logan/room/5-hollywood-romance-theater-

I had a crazy idea to dress up for each of the rooms-a rich robe and fake rose made for a cute costume for the Hollywood Romance Room at Anniversary Inn in Logan, UT.