Buns From Home
“Every pain has a particular scream.” Celine
For the past few weeks, the ramifications of an invasive knee surgery have prevented me from wandering too far. It’s a cruel twist of fate. The ravages of anaesthetic, muscle wastage and convalescence mean that I have never needed the soothing caresses of baked goods more. The same forces have rendered me incapable of placing myself in their soft and homely hands. My brain feels like Notting Hill looks: as the sedatives it is still soaked in make reality seem distant and unfamiliar, the streets are infused with a kind of static by the pervasive mist. People seem pixelated.
I have selected a café without a seating area. A second monumental failure of planning in as many posts. It’s a bold strategy: Buns From Home’s creations will have to work twice as hard — unsupported by a warm cafe environment and the glowing humdrum of a busy counter. The service is smiley, eager and adapts to my clumsy order. When I stutter and make a mistake or two, the beaming face on the other side of the plexiglass is more than happy to implement my revisions.
I walk to a nearby church garden to consume my plundered delights. The irony that Buns From Home do not provide a homely environment to eat one’s bun is noted.
The foccacia is closer to a croissant than a loaf; thin, distorted layers of crumbly pastry rather than cavernous holes in a doughy expanse. If one forgives the departure from the archetype, it is a subtle and sumptuous iteration of ancient flatbread. A crusty casing scattered with salt and rosemary provides my top teeth with a satisfying textural crunch — which compliments the buttery oiliness that my tongue discovers beneath the sultry, soft underside.
Satisfied but not sensationalised by my savoury starter, I turn to the sweet.
The first feeling the tiramisu bun evokes is fear. It is nearly three inches high and appears to contain a swimming pool’s worth of coffee flavoured, dairy goo. My eyes flick towards the wooden utilises that I picked up in case of need — but my pride intercedes and I attack the walls of its encasement with panicked ferocity. I am rewarded for my bravery.
My top teeth encounter the same pastry used in the focaccia I have just consumed — but here it is balanced with an airy, sweet cream. The bottom set come across the surprise of a coffee soaked biscuit, hiding like a fugitive beneath the filling. It is a beautifully arranged and structured set of flavours — a concerto of the smooth sweetness of the goo, the firm sugariness of the casing and the bitterness of the coffee base . My second bite reveals a further surprise that lurks at the epicentre — a miniature ladyfinger that adds another modulation to the composition.
The remainder disappears in a few rabid mouthfuls: the sheer size of the bun prevents modesty because stopping may disrupt the security of the grip established to take the initial bite . Church-goers leaving some service behind me gawk at the sight of a crutch-wielding youth dressed entirely in black devouring his breakfast like a lion does their carcass.
The lack of a seating area in Buns From Home is a detraction — the pastries’ unwieldy size would benefit from a prolonged consumption aided by crockery and utensils. Thankfully, the buns are of a quality that is sufficient to ameliorate an inclement outside world. The patisserie’s sweet offerings exceed their savoury creations — although the the same cake building block of dense and crispy croissant-like layers provides a unifying theme that each end of the spectrum of flavour can utilise for its own delicious ends.
I was fearful before this review that a disappointing experience would be the scissors that snipped my tenuous connection to continuing this blog. Thankfully, the hearty decadence of Buns from Home have renewed my fervour — and provided the encouragement to continue to traverse the obstacles posed by my impediment and find more brief lights in the existential void.
