Bleeding Heart Bakery

Posted by Edmund in Bakeries & Sweets, Chicago, Featured Articles | 3 comments

Bleeding Heart Bakery: Local, Sustainable Punk Rock Pastry.

Specialty: Organic Baking, Cupcakes.
Location: 1955 West Belmont Avenue, Chicago, IL 60657.
Price: $2.75-$3.25 for the gigantic cupcakes.

I’ve never been a fan of “organic” bakeries. Too often, bakeries use that idea of “organic” ingredients simply as an excuse to downplay their mediocrity, utilizing “fresher” but ultimately less tasteful ingredients. Moreover, they frequently look gimmicky, trying to pitch their organic baking style with a low-key but more “natural” décor that is nevertheless just a bit bland.

That, however, is definitely not the case here.

When I went into Chicago’s Bleeding Heart Bakery, I liked nearly everything I saw. It didn’t come off as your typical organic bakery, having discarded the simple setting for something a bit more modern and entertaining. It was young, lively, and colorful, making it the perfect place for a student to go and sit down for a couple hours to do some work. It would, in fact, be more akin to a nice coffee shop than a bakery.

Unfortunately—and here’s why I said I liked nearly everything—I didn’t get a chance to eat inside because of their policy that you cannot take photos of the food inside the bakery. The shop just had to be too good to be true, I figured. If the treats were as good as they looked, then the owner should have had nothing to fear from the dissemination of photos, which would only complement a positive review and amount to free advertising.  Ready for the inevitable, I headed over to enjoy my treats at the local park across the street.

Here’s the irony, though: These baked goods were, in fact, the best I had in all of Chicago. Everything across the board was top-notch. I got 2 cupcakes, a cake ball, and a brownie, and not only was nothing bad, but I would actually highly recommend every single one of them. Everything was moist, flavorful, and properly sweetened. Even the frosting on the cupcakes didn’t strike me as cloying at all. Instead it was light and creamy, with very pronounced flavors (cream cheese tang in the red velvet, intense chocolate in the ganache).

The quality of the goods really stands out because of that respect for bold, but balanced, flavors. When I ordered a s’mores brownie, for example, I tasted every single component of a s’more: the chocolate, the marshmallow, and the graham cracker. Why the owner doesn’t want photos spreading is beyond me, because most bakeries can’t even produce treats half this good.

And, to top it all off, everything was incredibly cheap. I got 4 large, filling baked goods for under $8. Organic shops are typically an excuse to charge an arm-and-a-leg, but here you get fresh, quality ingredients at an absolute steal.

The best part, though, was neither the flavor nor the price. Instead, it was an intangible—something I like to call “style.” You may have noticed Bleeding Heart’s slogan in the title of this review: “Local, Sustainable Punk Rock Pastry.” And I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell “punk rock pastry” even means. Well, I really don’t know myself. What I do know, though, is that this pastry has some attitude. Forget sissy flavors and names; instead, you’re going to get some oddities. Expect cupcake flavors like lemon lavender; coconut with sweet Thai basil, mango, and fresh mint; and even sweet pea and fresh mint with sour cream. Those are just some of the so-called “Fancy Schmancy” flavors—and only the ones from July, no less!

Even the simple treats, though, are done differently. At Bleeding Heart, it’s not just a red velvet cupcake. It’s instead the Red Velvet Revolver, and it looks more like a red velvet cupcake sandwich, with a tangy-sweet frosting placed perfectly between two layers of cake. As for the dark chocolate ganache cupcake, it comes packed with a cream-filled center. As a final example, the s’mores brownie carries huge layers of marshmallow and graham cracker stacked on layers of rich fudgy brownie. Everything is big, bad, and intense, both in flavor and presentation.

I’m still a bit puzzled by the idea of kicking up plain, old-fashioned, boring organic baking with the idea of punk pastry. All I can say, though, is that it works. I’ve never seen organic baking that’s quite so interesting or flavorful. This is a fantastic bakery with phenomenal prices and a great setting. Need I say more?

What I Tasted

1. Vanilla Cake Ball: A bit of a sugar rush, but great nonetheless. The exterior is fantastic. It’s coated with vanilla cake crumbs, I think, but they’re on the rather hard side, giving a really satisfying sweet crunch, like with hard sugar. The interior, on the other hand, is extremely rich, creamy, and smooth, making for a great contrast. It has a slight thickness but it’s not mushy at all, so you really feel as though you’re eating something with substance. The vanilla flavor is heavy and buttery, so it goes down smoothly but hits you hard on the palate. Small and dense, the way I like it. 4.4/5.0
2. S’mores Brownie: This is a pretty monstrous brownie (in a good way), both in size and taste. First, the chocolate. This brownie is somewhere between a fudgy and cakey brownie, but it’s more on the fudgy side, so expect a real denseness. The chocolate flavor, in fact, hits you like a rock, but it’s not overpowering in anyway, largely because the cocoa and sweetness are so well-balanced. That flavor reminds me of a dark milk chocolate—rich and smooth, but without too much sweetness. That works here because the brownie is so heavy that if it weren’t so balanced, it’d be pretty tough to eat. Adding to that balance is a gooey, semi-solid texture that’s nearly flawless, as the inside actually does taste like slightly melted fudge, so it goes down smoothly. Finally, there’s a ton of extra chunks, like chocolate cookies/oreos, which both add more of a chocolate kick and provide a great crumbly crunch. As for the s’more taste, at first I didn’t really taste it at all, but once you eat through the center, you notice that there’s actually a whole layer of graham cracker dough in there. It’s chunkier, grittier, and clumpier than the chocolate, and it’s not perfectly distributed throughout the brownie, which is a shame, but it does add a slight spiced cookie-like flavor that can be enjoyable. I still find that the chocolate dominates the graham cracker almost completely, but with chocolate this enjoyable, that’s not really a problem. Oh, and the crunchy chocolate top—perfect! 4.5+/5.0. I, in general, don’t like to finish all the food I eat when I’m reviewing, but this behemoth was just so good, I couldn’t resist. Decadent but very balanced for a fudgy brownie.
3. Red Velvet Revolver (Red Velvet Cupcake): Definitely one of the better red velvets I’ve had in a long time. I like the way it’s presented with a cream cheese frosting sandwiched between two layers of red velvet cake. That frosting is very nice, too. Unlike most frostings, it’s not overly heavy, gritty, or thick. Instead, it’s airy and light, with a pronounced, but light, cream cheese flavor throughout.  To be fair, it can get a bit too light, as though it’s whipped (I hate whipped cream—it’s almost flavorless), but there’s so much flavor here that it doesn’t matter. The other problem is that it’s way too sweet, although the cake does balance it out somewhat. As for the cake, it actually does taste like red velvet. It has that slight cocoa in there, but it’s very buttery and moist so that you get that delicious butter taste on your palate as you eat it, like with a really good pound cake. I love how balanced it is, too. For once, you can taste everything in the cupcake, from that delicious butter, to the cream cheese, to the sugar, to the slight cocoa. Finally, the muffin top crunch is just fantastic, and it’s only amplified by the fact that you get 2 of it (since the frosting is sandwiched between two layers of cake)! 4.4+/5.0
4. Dark Chocolate Ganache Cupcake: This is one intense ganache, and it’s done very nicely. The ganache is a bit too much to put in your mouth all at once, but the flavor is right on: very intensely dark and bittersweet, with a big cocoa accent. The cake itself is moist and incredibly buttery, just like the red velvet, helping to add some richness to the heavy cocoa taste. And there’s an added layer of white cream or whipped cream on the inside in the center, I guess to add some balance. I really couldn’t taste it much so I can’t say much about it. Overall, though, the cupcake is excellent, specifically if you love dark chocolate. If you’re not a chocoholic, this will almost certainly strike you as too chocolaty. 4.3/5.0

Scores

Ambience: 4.0/5.0
Taste: 4.4/5.0+
Value: 4.7/5.0
Overall Score, as a café: 4.4+/5.0
Overall Score as a bakery: 4.6/5.0