Despite this being one of the best cinnamon buns I had ever had the pleasure to eat, I found myself in somewhat of a quandary. I do, you see, love cinnamon buns, but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to enjoy this one.
I don’t normally have a sweet tooth, but when I do enjoy sweet things I want them to be dense and super super sweet. I want them to be moist and heavy and filling, like a sticky toffee pudding. Or stick-to-your-bones satisfying and fudgy, like a big slab of carrot cake with a thick layer of icing on top.
This particular cinnamon bun hit the spot. It was dense and bready, but not dry. It was earthy and deep and sticky from the cinnamon and sugar and, best of all, it was topped with an overly generous dollop of tangy cream cheese frosting. Even better, it didn’t make the unforgivable error made by other, lesser, cinnamon buns, of incorporating nuts into the dough. Nuts, when incorporated whole or chopped into a dessert, are the work of the devil. Just when you think your slice of cake or morning pastry is perfect, along comes an unexpected walnut or almond to ruin the surprise. It’s like “hey, I know you were enjoying that, but I just wanted to remind you of those little bags of snacks you get for free on airplanes with your drink”. In this form, nuts taste of nothing but themselves. They are selfish and attention seeking and are rightfully deserving of our unending disdain.
But it was the nuts (or lack of them) that caused my dilemma on this occasion.
Indulge me for a moment. Imagine you have been going to the same hairdresser every month for the last five years. The hairdresser, let’s call her Sara, always does a bang up job, gives you a little head massage when washing your hair, provides biscuits for your dog (who you generally bring with you and who Sara doesn’t mind having around) and generally leaves you feeling great every time you visit.
One day, just before you enter the salon, you find out from your friend, who recently started patronizing the salon on your recommendation, that Sara has an interesting hobby rearing pedigree puppies. Great, you think. I like dogs. Sara likes my dog. But, it turns out, Sara doesn’t just rear pedigree dogs for people who like cuddles and long walks. She rears them for an altogether more worrying purpose.
Dog fighting.
Yes, that’s right. Sara the hairdresser who drives a Mini Cooper with a flower next to the steering wheel is a callous, cold hearted bitch who loves seeing dogs rip shreds off each other. On the weekends, she organizes invite only events at her house where bald right-wing sympathizing men bet wads of dollar bills on whether Sir Woofs a Lot or Mr Wolfman will maim one another.
Now, do you find a new hairdresser? Dog-fighting-master-of-ceremonies Sara does such a good job. And the last time you went elsewhere for your monthly cut, it looked like you had just been in an unsuccessful fight with Edward Scissorhands. But now, every time you go and see Sara, your haircut feels dirty and tainted. The massage doesn’t feel as good. And you have stopped taking [Fido/Mr Wolfman/Sir Woofs a Lot] along out of fear for his safety. Even though he liked the biscuits.
Returning uneasily to my cinnamon bun, I began to wonder if it was that good after all. The problem, you see, was that the baker was a bully. As widely reported, it was alleged that he had beaten a homeless man in front of his store one day, before then fleeing his own country to set up a wildly successful bakery in Hong Kong.
Just my luck, I thought, chomping down an increasingly the cinnamon bun with an increasingly sour stomach. The bloody baker is a bloody bigot.
A few days earlier, sitting contentedly in the Causeway Bay branch of A Happy Pancake, the famous Japanese soufflé pancake chain, I was having no such issues. Mainly because I bloody love Japanese soufflé pancakes, particularly from this chain, where they come topped with a scoop of sweetened cultured butter and as much syrup as you dare pour on. It used to be a treat reserved specifically for trips to Tokyo, until the owners realized that they could extract my cash on a semi-regular basis by opening a branch closer to my home.
I generally wolf down the happiest of pancakes with a smirk on my face (and syrup on my chin), whilst also chastising myself ever so gently for not drawing out the pleasure over more than 5 minutes. The fact they take about 20 minutes to cook, temperature gunned every 3 or so by the chefs to check the egg whites are just so, heightens my sense of anticipation to the point where, when they do arrive, I can barely contain my glee. These things are pillowy, sweet pancakes of joy.
The contrast with the increasingly hollow tasting cinnamon bun at Baked was marked, as I chewed the last delicious bite. Just as a garden full of weeds can make a rose look more beautiful, one apparently bigoted café owner can make an otherwise perfect cinnamon bun taste like shit.