Coming home from a weekend down in Puyallup we decided to take the scenic route back to Whidbey Island. That means avoiding I-5 and Seattle Traffic and driving up the west side of Puget sound over the Kitsap and Olympic peninsula’s. This is a normal decision for us because we are rewarded with a drive through lush forests with lots of water views, but we don’t usually stop until we get to Port Townsend where we catch the ferry home. This time we decided to take a detour and stop in a town we’d heard talk of, but had never visited before – Poulsbo.
Poulsbo is a quaint little tourist town on the Kitsap Peninsula which heartily greets you with a statue of a stoic Viking warrior, a nod to the Scandinavian heritage of its early European-American settlers. Poulsbo doesn’t stop there, its picturesque waterfront and shopping district make visitors feel like they are strolling through a storybook with their old Norwegian style storefronts. Thus this town has earned the moniker “Little Norway.”
We strolled around the marina and the Main Street visiting shops and talking to shopkeepers. We stopped at a local chocolate shop, an art gallery, and a bookstore finding a little something to take home in each place. The real reason we went to Poulsbo though, was because I heard about a bakery that was supposed to be amazing. If you read my last food post you know that my family and I have a thing for baked goods, but who doesn’t right!?
Sluy’s bakery, Poulsbo
Before we ever walked in we fell in love with the bakery’s blue and white facade with the big picture window filled with baked goods to lure you in. The best thing though, is the moment you walk through the door and are hit with the comforting aromas of breads, cookies, doughnuts, cakes, and the like. It is such an intoxicating smell! Do not walk in there hungry the way we did. Everything looked so good we couldn’t decide what to get, so I asked one of the friendly people behind the counter to simply fill up a box for me with whatever they would recommend. Then I noticed there weren’t any cookies in the box, so I had her get a me a bag of her cookie recommendations as well.
So, here is the list of what was selected for us. (Some of this is based on playing match with the online menu, and some of it is us guessing what it is called based on taste because it didn’t appear online):
- Cream Puffs
- Viking Cookies
- Raspberry Spritz
- Pepparkakor
- Powdered Sugar Rosettes
- Cream Cheese Snail
- Cherry Turnover?
- Maple Bar
- Chocolate Glazed Chocolate Cake Doughnut
- Chocolate Glazed Yeast Doughnut
- Crunch Roll
- Swedish Almond Pastry
- Danish Doughnut
- Apple Fritter
- Apple Turnover?
- German Chocolate Cupcake
I spent way more than I planned to, but everything looked so good! So we tried a few things outside the shop in an open air seating area across the street, but everything else we tried when we got home. And we are trying to make it a custom that we talk about special food stops as a family and give it a rating. So, here we go!
Tasting and Rating
Just a reminder everything is rated out of 5 (ex. 3/5).
Cream Puff
- Mom – I liked how light the cream and the pastry was, and I could actually taste the butter in the pastry. – 5
- Dad – It was light and fluffy and the cream was perfect. – 5
- Daughter – Very fluffy and delicious. 4
- Son – Delicious! – 5
Average Score – 4.75/5
Smiley Viking Cookie
- Mom – Not a fan of sugar cookies. Kinda dry, but the icing is good. – 3
- Son – Liked everything about it. – 5
- Daughter – Really good, but didn’t blow me away. It’s a lot of cookie. – 4
- Dad – Regular sugar cookie, nothing special. Reminds me of an Eat n’ Park Smiley Cookie. (Pennsylvania Diner Chain) – 3
Average Score – 3.75/5
Raspberry Spritz
- Daughter – It’s good. – 4
- Son – Too crumbly – 2
- Mom – Love the flavor of the cookie and the raspberry. It would go nicely with a cup of tea. – 4
- Dad – The cookie was nice and buttery, a little more crumbly than I like, and I wish the raspberry center was bigger. More raspberry! – 3
Average Score – 3.25/5
Pepparkakor
- Son – I like the chewiness. – 4
- Mom – I liked the ginger flavor and the molasses. I also liked that it was soft. – 5
- Daughter – It tastes like ginger and molasses. It taste how it’s supposed to taste. – 5
- Dad – I was just expecting more. They said it was more molasses than their gingerbread and I didn’t get the extra molasses. I could smell the molasses. I could smell the ginger, but the taste of the cookie itself was not as strong. – 3
Average Score – 4.25/5
Powdered Sugar Rosettes
- Mom – Tasted like a light and crispy funnel cake – 4
- Dad – Loved that it was light and powdered with sugar. Tasted the oil it was likely fried in just a little bit. – 3
- Daughter – Kinda tasted like a crunchy powdered donut. Too big to take in one bite. – 4
- Son – Tasted nice and the crunch was satisfying, but too much powdered sugar. – 3
Average Score – 3.5/5
Cream Cheese Snail
- Daughter – Really good, I like the cheese and glaze. But I thought it would be softer. – 3
- Son – I can taste the buttery-ness. Felt like I was taking a bite out of a bun. The cheese wasn’t soft enough. – 4
- Dad – I’m used to Danishes being softer and the cheese being creamier, liked the tang of the cheese though. – 3
- Mom – Didn’t really care for it. It was too dense, too sweet and the cheese had a weird taste. – 2
Average Score – 3/5
Cherry Turnover?
- Mom – Might be better warm. I can taste the oil. – 3
- Dad – I love turnovers and pies. Loved the flaky crust. Perfect sweetness. – 4
- Daughter – I liked that it was light and flaky. We should have warmed it up. – 3
- Son – I liked that it felt croissant like, and the fruit was good. – 5
Average Score – 3.75/5
Maple Bar
- Daughter – Yes. It’s light, it’s fluffy, and it’s maple. – 5
- Dad – It is light and fluffy. I don’t taste any oil which is great. The only thing that would make it better is if it was made with real Vermont maple syrup. – 5
- Mom – I don’t usually like maple bars, but the flavor was really good. The pastry itself was light and fluffy and not heavy and full of oil. – 5
- Son – It looked and sounded good, but it didn’t taste right. – 3
Average Score – 4.5/5
Chocolate Glazed, Chocolate Cake Doughnut
- Son – It tasted good, but the glaze felt a bit off. – 4
- Daughter – It was OK. The chocolate part did feel kind of off and it kind of tasted like that one time we got chocolate from somebody and then they put it with mint too. It tasted like weird chocolate mint stuff. – 3
- Dad – It tasted good. The density was off. A cake doughnut should be a little bit more dense which makes the chocolate taste a little bit more fudgy. It was too light. – 3
- Mom – It was good and I appreciated the lightness of it. But the chocolate flavor was off. Not sure if it was the cake or the glaze. – 3
Average Score: 3.25/5
Chocolate Glazed Doughnut
- Mom – Honestly, it was very good. Just not sure if it was the best one I’ve ever had. – 4
- Dad – Ditto. I did appreciate that I did not taste frying oil like other doughnut places to which I’ve been. – 4
- Daughter – It was good, but I could get one the same at Haggan’s (grocery store). – 4
- Son – Not impressive, but good. – 3
Average Score: 3.75/5
Crunch Roll
- Son – Crunchy, crispy, yummy, but needs a bit more coconut. – 4
- Daughter – It’s good, there’s nothing wrong with it. Not my cup of tea though. – 4
- Dad – Light and fluffy doughnut, which I taste no oil in. Like the coconut coating. I agree with Angus that it could use more coconut, maybe bigger chunks of it.
- Mom – Ditto Dad. – 4
Average Score: 4/5
Swedish Almond Pastry
- Son – (Drops a piece) Even the cat loved it! – 5
- Daughter – It was good. I tasted a little bit of cherry though, and I don’t know if there was cherry in it. – 4
- Dad – I love almonds with almond extract, because it carries a hint of cherry. The pastry itself had a Danish texture, which was really good. Not five stars because it’s not the best thing I’ve tasted from Sluy’s, but it is pretty good. – 4
- Mom – Too full to try.
Average Score – 4.33/5
Danish Doughnut
- Daughter – I don’t know what it was. It just tasted good. – 5
- Dad – It’s like a glazed doughnut Bar, except using Danish dough. So when you eat it, you can feel the layers. And that’s kind of cool; anyway, like everything else they make it light and fluffy. Really good. – 4
- Son – Not bad. Not good. Just, meh. – 3
- Mom – Still too full.
Average Score – 4/5
Apple Fritter
- Son – Yum! – 5
- Dad – I like bigger apple chunks in my apple fritters. But the dough is light and fluffy as usual so that is nice. – 3
- Daughter – I genuinely don’t know how to think about it. – 3
- Mom – Well… you know.
Average Score – 3.66/5
Apple Turnover?
- Son – It was tasty, but Dad can make it better. – 4
- Daughter – Apple and delicious sugar. – 4
- Dad – I like apple pie, this had enough apple taste and lots of cinnamon and sugar on the inside. So, I can’t complain. – 4
- Mom – –
Average Score – 4/5
German Chocolate Cupcake
- Son – Nothing to explain, just good. – 5
- Dad – Nice light chocolate cupcake and of course, the really heavy coconut on top. It hit the spot. Still not as good as that cream puff. – 4
- Mom – (Back in the game) I absolutely loved the coconut frosting on top, it was perfect. But because of the frosting being so heavy, I feel like the cupcake needed to be a little bit denser. But other than that, it was very good. – 4
- Daughter – Sadly, couldn’t make it to the end.
Average Score: 4.33/5
Verdict
The very best of the best was still the first thing we tried; the Cream Puff, with an average score of 4.75. The Maple Bar wasn’t far behind with a score of 4.5. There was a tie for the third spot at 4.33 with the Swedish Almond Pastry and the German Chocolate Cupcake. If a rating of 3 out of 5 is just average, then almost everything we tried was above average. And, half of the items we tried had a score of 4 or higher. That’s pretty good. But the question remains: Is Sluy’s Bakery a destination?
Well, the town itself is a nice weekend destination; we thoroughly enjoyed the few hours that we spent there as a family. My wife and I would love to go back just the two of us and explore more. But, the fact remains that I went to Poulsbo on a whim because I heard about the bakery, and the bakery lived up to its hype. So, I would definitely call Sluy’s Bakery a destination.
Our family would go back for the cream puffs alone, but you will likely find something that suits your taste better. Between the aroma, the food, and the quaint town you find it in, I don’t know why you wouldn’t make it a destination.