From time to time we do enjoy some tasty cookies. In fact, probably a little too often! Maybe we haven't quite left the Christmas treating time behind us yet.
There's quite a few places offering home made bakes but we saw the English Cake Company and, being real fans of some English treats, we decided to try some of theirs.
The English Cake Company
2a Suleiman Terrace
Colombo 00500
Tel. 011 250 1344
Website: www.tecclk.com
Facebook: @TheEnglishCakeCompany
Instagram: @tecclk
They also have an outlet in the lower ground floor of One Galle Face mall.
Menu:
The English Cake Company make a range of cookies (or biscuits), cakes and pies, as well as a few savoury bakes such as bagels. They also have a restaurant serving some dine-in meals.
There is a wide range of cakes available including cheesecakes, loaf cakes, layer and upside down cakes. The pies available include apple, banoffee and key lime, as well as lemon, salted caramel and tiramisu tarts.
The cookie selection includes chocolate chip as well as a selection of brownies, flap jacks, chocolate caramel shortbread and more.
They have some quite unique items on offer and browsing their website will make your mouth water!
Ordering:
The items can all be ordered online via their website, for pick up or delivery. It's a nice and simple process, click on what you want and select the number of items or any extras.
A limited selection of cookies, brownies, combos and some frozen meals are also available through Ciao, the people who arrange deliveries twice weekly from around 30 small bakeries and outlets. We ordered from Ciao and decided to try chocolate chip cookies, raspberry white chocolate cookies and some bagels.
The Food:
Clockwise from top left: bagel; chocolate chip cookie; raspberry & white chocolate cookie; all three.
The bagel: this was the one that we were particularly glad to find, as we have hardly seen these available anywhere. And it did not disappoint. The bagel was large, a generous size, and not too firm though it was easy to slice. As for the taste, it had a light, savoury flavour, quite delicate, a hint of onion. With some cream cheese, it tasted great!
Most chocolate chip cookies that we see are almost perfectly round, with a scattering of small, identical tear-shaped chocolate drops. The English Cake Company's, however, looked genuinely home made. It was more irregular in shape with different sized chocolate pieces; some small, almost flecks, and a couple of large chunks bursting through. It was surprisingly soft and shed barely any crumbs as I took a bite, there was no crunch at all except from the larger chocolate pieces. The taste was surprisingly light, until the taste from the chocolate chunks came through. If you like a full-on chocolate assault from your cookies, this one is not for you, but if you prefer a more subtle, rustic cookie flavour then you might want to try this.
Finally the Raspberry and White Chocolate cookies. This had an even more home-made look to it, a plain cookie with what looked like a raspberry exploding out of it, below a chunk of white chocolate. This cookie too was soft, without being gooey, and also a rather light taste, but this time there were two flavours that followed, the delicate white chocolate and the sour-sweet raspberry. This was a nice cookie, we preferred it to the plain chocolate chip, partly because there was ultimately more flavour but also just because we are fans of white chocolate, and raspberries!
Overall, we did rather like these. The bagels were a success, they were pretty good with the right mix of taste and texture. The cookies had a nice, natural and home made flavour to them, a somewhat subtle taste rather than overpowering. We felt that the cookies were a bit soft, they would benefit from being a bit crunchier, but that was a personal preference.
Prices
We took advantage of a "cookie combo" deal through Ciao, getting three of each cookie for Rs1,000. Normally these sell on the website at Rs150 each and the bagels are there at the same price.
If you want something more than cookies and bagels, The English Cake Company sells slices of cakes from Rs240 to Rs400, cheesecakes mostly around Rs590 per slice and the tarts and pies from Rs360 to Rs400 per slice.
Summary
We did enjoy these. The bagels were a treat with cream cheese and other additions. The raspberry & white chocolate cookies hit the mark. We liked the plain chocolate chip the least, partly because the flavour was a bit subtle and partly as they were so soft, but that is, again, personal preference; we have no doubt that others will love them.
We are definitely looking forward to trying a few more items from their menu before long.