$10 shopping trip: Sweet Lorraine's Bakery

If you've been snuffling around the Charlotte food scene long enough, you surely are familiar with the Adele's oatmeal fudge bars: Layers of oaty goodness with a thick chocolate layer in the center. They used to be wrapped in endearingly homemade-looking plastic and piled up at cash registers all over town. CPCC baking instructor Geoff Blount bought the recipe and kept the squares alive for years. I think he still makes them on contract.

So I'm always happy to see another decadent-dessert raise its head. I'll nominate The Sweet Lorraine from Sweet Lorraine's Bakery, which just opened a few weeks ago at 220 East Blvd. (it's in the mustard-colored big, old house near the intersection of East and South).

The bakery is a family endeavor, owned by baker Christine Guerriero, an alum of French Culinary Institute in New York, her dad Chuck and her sisters, Michelle and Stephanie. It's named for their mother, Lorraine, who died in 2004.

The bakery does everything from cupcakes to breads to cookies. The specialty, though, is the Sweet Lorraine, available in a single-serve size for $3.50 or as a dense, larger version that would serve 6 or so for $11. It's a round cake/cookie hybrid with a brownie layer on the bottom and a chocolate chip layer on the top. Christine created it in honor of her mother, who apparently loved both brownies and chocolate chip cookies.

For a taste of the Sweet Lorraine wares, I asked the nice girl behind the counter to pick out three things for 10 bucks:

1. A Sweet Lorraine (left), $3.50. It's really good, with a dense texture and a pleasing soft area in the center that's a little like raw cookie dough. It's not really raw, but had that kind of pleasure to eat, if that makes sense.

2. A single-serve Chocolate French Toast bread pudding, $4. Even cold, this was decadent, with a caramel-like sauce drizzled on top and a good, dense texture. Warmed up, it would be the bomb.

3. A generously big Blueberry Lemon Muffin, $2.50. It had a really good bite of lemon, and a nicely tender texture without the gumminess that can plague big bakery muffins.

All in all, a nice place to stop in for a treat or pick up some things to take for a special occasion.

Closed Mondays. Open 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, until 8 p.m. Friday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. www.sweetlorrainesbakery.com.

No good bakeries in Charlotte?

When it comes to magazine and web sites doing "best of" Southern food lists, we in Charlotte are used to the dis. No, we can't hold a candle to Charleston on a "best food city in the South" list (subject of a poll in Southern Living that will be announced in April - go, Raleigh).

But Charlotte doesn't have a good BAKERY? Maybe 10 or 15 years ago that was true, but we've had an absolute rebirth of baking. We've got Amelie's. We've got Sunflour. We've got good ol' Suarez. We've got Great Harvest and Cloud Nine, Edible Art and Polka Dot, Nona's and Tizzerts and Down Home Baking in Waxhaw. Around here, bakeries are definitely on the rise.

So picture our sadness when we got the January issue of Southern Living, with a big article on Best Bakeries in the South. Atlanta food writer Bill Addison was sent in search of great places for cakes, pies, cookies and breads. And did Charlotte end up with a toe on the list? Nope.

Addison must have driven right by here, too: He went from Atlanta to Durham, for the justifiably wonderful Scratch. He managed to find Maxie B's in Greenboro, and two in Sugar Bakeshop and Wildflour in Charleston. But apparently, our reputation as the White Bread Capital of the South wasn't enough to justify a stop.

I'd have gladly bought him a twice-baked almond croissant at Amelie's. How about it, bakery fans? If Bill Addison had stopped in Charlotte, which bakery favorite would you offer him?

Food Q&A: Where's the Danish?

Q: Why is it apparently impossible to find danish in Charlotte's supermarket bakeries (which are about the only bakeries around!) This is a breakfast staple for many of us transplanted people ...
Is it a "Southern" thing? Dave from Matthews

A: I don't know whether lack of danish is a Southern thing, but it certainly shouldn't be a Charlotte thing. The east side of the city has a long-time and well-established German-American population, and transplants from the Northeast have been coming to Charlotte for decades. And I do see a lot of Danish at Costco on Highway 51, so it's out there.

But I wonder if dwindling danish is more about changing eating habits. Most of the larger supermarkets do have more extensive in-house bakeries than they used to, so they certainly have the means. But usually when supermarkets make less, it's because they're selling less. So lack of danish might not be a function of region, but a reflection of the trend toward whole-grain breakfasts for health reasons. That message has been spreading for the last decade.

Maybe danish is down because granola is up.

Does anybody else have danish options to suggest for Dave?