After being very pleasantly surprised by the "fruit mousse pastries" (aka trompe l'oeil pastries) at Altadena Bakery in north Burbank, we were bringing dessert to a potluck so I looked for a slightly closer option for us, landing on Crumbles Patisserie, located in Glendale, off of Glendale Blvd. and Lexington.
Let me just cut to the chase: they may look similar but this was a great lesson in realizing that there's levels to this stuff. The pastries at Crumbles looked good but the mousse was way inferior compared to what I had at Altadena: the texture wasn't as creamy but more importantly: most of the flavors just tasted artificial. Like the strawberry mousse inside the strawberry pastry tasted like "strawberry flavor" not like what you'd want from fresh strawberries. Ditto for the lemon mousse inside the pear pastry or the vanilla from the pink, 9×9 one. It wasn't awful or anything but it was one of those "looks better than it tastes" deals whereas what I tried from Altadena both looked and tasted awesome.
The best thing out of this batch, and even that was still kind of mid, was the apple, where the filling tasted like apple pie thanks to some added cinnamon.
by soulsides
Dining and Cooking