A hilly bicycle ride to a French bakery in New Jersey

It’s the day after Thanksgiving. The last thing I need is a bakery.

And yet..

It’s a credit to Joanne that eight other women gather at 10:30 a.m. for Sourland Cycles‘ regular Friday morning women-only ride on such a chilly day. (One soon drops out with a mechanical problem.) We always leave from the Hopewell, N.J., store and head into the Sourland Mountain. Sure, this 17-mile ridge only reaches 568 feet above sea level (and Hopewell borough is at 197 feet above sea level), but some of those climbs are nasty.

This time, we’re headed to L’Annexe de Mamie Colette, a new French bakery along the Delaware River in Titusville. (An annex because the original is across the river and downstream in Newtown, PA.) Our route spares us some of the worst of the Sourland climbs, but 26 miles means we will burn off what we eat (I hope).

We reached the bakery about halfway through our ride. What to get? It’s a tough choice.

So many temptations. Fruit tartes, a couple varieties of Far Breton (apparently like a flan), a couple of puddings with the very American addition of either chocolate chips or cranberries, and lots of flavors of choupinette, or balls of choux pastry that this bakery fills with a flavored cream and then tops with more cream. Things I haven’t tried in France, where I tend toward a religieuse au chocolat (two balls of choux that resemble a snowman).

Normally I’d be thinking something with chocolate. But I had this chocolate tarte that I’d bought Wednesday that didn’t get eaten that night or on Thanksgiving, which left Friday breakfast…

So I opted for the mango tart. Very mango with a very firm crust. (I eventually snapped my fork.) Does it count as a serving of fruit?

I think everyone was pleased with their choices. Just know the pastries aren’t cheap — most seemed to be $7 to $8.

The bakery sells bread too, but that’s hard to carry home.

What was the route like? We stick to quiet roads as much as possible. This time we were on Route 29 for a quarter-mile or so and also on Bear Tavern Road, which has a narrow shoulder and plenty of traffic. It felt like we had a great tailwind on the way home, offsetting the temperature drop.

And yes, hills. Ride With GPS claims 1,567 feet of elevation gain. My Garmin says 988 feet. You decide.

UPDATE: We rode it again in June. This time I got a fluffy chocolate croissant roll, peppered with chocolate chips.

Another bakery ride: It was worth getting drenched to bike to a new Persian bakery in New Jersey