Desserts from The Buoy

The Buoy is Korean cafe and bakery in Hayes Valley.  In addition to coffee drinks, teas, and fun beverages like a black sesame or toasted coconut latte, they make a variety of baked goods, and a couple Korean inspired paninis.

"At Buoy, our mission is to elevate your mood with sweet and healthy desserts that cater to everyone. We aim to redefine gluten-free treats and offer a refreshing twist on traditional coffee drinks. Our goal is to provide you with an experience that feels both special and comfortably familiar."

The baked goods are particularly noteworthy as they mostly all use rice flour, and are thus gluten-free.  I only got to try one type of item (roll cakes) at an event I attended that featured them, but I'd love to try some of their other items, such as teh sweet pumpkin cupcake, black sesame brownie, or ssuk tiramisu.

Assorted Roll Cakes. $42 each.

Roll cakes are available in only 3 flavors: matcha, raspberry, and red bean.  They sell for $8/slice, $26 half (3 slices), or $42 whole (6 slices).  We had all 3 flavors, all full size.  The cakes were quite attractive, and the pastry chef / owner's background in industrial design was slightly evident, as care as clearly taken to the visual appeal.

Raspberry.

I started with the raspberry flavor.

The cake had a nice swirl pattern, and was actually raspberry flavored (I had assumed it was just colored, not flavored).  It was light and airy chiffon, which is just never my favorite type of cake.  I prefer denser, sweeter, more buttery American style cake.  But for a chiffon, I think it was well baked.

The filling was fairly heavy, rich dense cream cheese filling.  It was quite fruity and raspberry flavored too, with bits of berries in it.  There was something about the taste of the filling I didn't really like, and I couldn't pinpoint what it was exactly.  It was sour almost.

Overall, this was a very fruity cake, and the lightness of the chiffon and the heaviness of the filling didn't quite seem to play together well.  At least for me, I wanted a lighter whipped cream style filling to match the lighter cake style (or a denser cake to match the cream cheese style).  I wouldn't get this again.  **.

Matcha.

Next up, matcha.  It too had a lovely pattern in the cake.  It too was intensely flavorful, this time, full on matcha.

The cake was similar light chiffon, and quite matcha forward.  Lovely, I'm sure, if you like chiffon cake.  The filling was also deeply matcha flavored, and less rich/cream cheese like than the raspberry cake.  It seemed a better match for the cake, but it was so much matcha that it was a bit one-note.  I think I'd personally enjoy it more to have perhaps the raspberry cake with matcha filling (or really, taro cake with matcha filling, but they don't do a taro version).

So again, a fine cake for the style it is, and definitely ones for matcha lovers, but not something I'd get again myself.  ***.

Red Bean.

I saved the surprise hit for last: red bean.

This cake was actually the most boring, just plain chiffon, no design, no flavor.  So that element was ho-hum, and not a style I like.

But the filling was great.  A cream based filling again, I'm not sure if cream cheese or just whipped cream, as it was minimal, this was mostly mashed red bean, with plenty of bits of red bean in it.  Sweetened, but not too sweet.  And ... surprise!  It had mochi bits!  I loved the texture of this mix, the flavor, and really everything about it.

****+ filling, ** cake, so overall, ***+, and by far my favorite of the cakes.  I'd get this again.