Oh snap! Yummy pastries at Gingersnap

Turkob and I were walking up to Irving Park and Southport on our way to Asado to get some fresh coffee beans when we stumbled upon a cute little bakery just a few doors down.



Maybe it was the cutesy girly decor that drew me in, but I wanted to check out Gingersnap. I don't make it a habit of walking to Irving Park Rd., so I was surprised to learn that this shop has been here for two years. The front counter has covered dishes of a variety of pasties such as croissants, scones, and cookies. They also had a board behind the counter with additional goodies like quiche. They serve local coffee and also hot chocolate. The front of shop is pretty small, only one table and a counter along the window. Most of the premises is the kitchen, good sign!



Already armed with our cup of coffee from Asado, we decided to forego Gingersnap's coffee, but get a few complementing pastries to enjoy with our coffee. We decided on a ginger cookie and a croissant. The ginger cookie was dense and had a strong fresh ginger flavor. It was amazing with the coffee. A sip of coffee mixed with the cookie had flavors that played well off each other, and I was tasting flavors that you couldn't taste just with the coffee or just with the cookie. The croissant was a standout. It had a crispy shell on the outside dark golden in color, and the inside was light, flaky and buttery. It held its shape when you bite into it too. The croissant was definitely something the shop is proud of because we asked about it, the woman behind the counter, who we later found out was Jennifer the owner, told us, "some shops in Chicago will buy croissants and sell them to you. We make them here." I also dug that they sell some high end ingredients. I purchased a bag of Belgian chocolate chips, can't wait to make my next batch of chocolate chip cookies.



After this initial visit, turkob and I went back this weekend via Divvy to try out some more. We opted for two sweet and two savory pastries.



The sweet ones (to the left) are a chocolate croissant and a rhubarb almond bostock, and the two savory ones (to the right) are a bacon cheddar scone and a meyer lemon and ricotta herb whirlaway. The bostock was a surprise as the pastry was soft, but the border crust was quite crisp. Though I preferred the plain croissant, the chocolate croissant had the same delightful crispiness and flakiness that the original had. I love the variety and their use of seasonal ingredients like rhubarb. They also make cakes to order, I need an excuse to get one now. I'm very excited to have stumbled upon this shop.

Gingersnap Sweets and Such
1416 W Irving Park Rd
Chicago, IL 60613
(773) 697-8529

I was finally able to sample some of their pastries yesterday. I thought the plain croissant was very good -- not Bad Wolf quality, but still impressive. I liked the chocolate croissant too although I thought that the chocolate could have been spread out a bit more - the chocolate baton didn't seem to have melted at all. There was also a tasty and amazingly tender lemon-cornmeal shortbread cookie and a dense, butter cake that I thought was pretty good. Overall, some nice stuff that should serve the neighborhood well.