It was worth getting drenched on a bike ride to this new Persian bakery in New Jersey

When NJ.com wrote about Soozel Sweets in Lawrence Township, I put it on my list of bike destinations. Ginger, cardamon .. yum.

And then when I spotted this bakery on the Too Good To Go app … well, now I had to.

I just didn’t need that deluge that struck when I was a few minutes away by bike!

Thank goodness there’s an overhang along this shopping center, but I still must have looked a sight when I glided past the front door of Soozel Sweets with the rain still coming down crazy hard. It didn’t take long for one of the owners to peer out the door to see what had happened to the crazy cyclist (I was waiting for it to be time to pick up my order … Too Good To Go is a way for businesses to sell food at a discount that they’d otherwise throw out. What you get is a surprise.)

I ended up in a lovely conversation about biking in a toasty warm space.

What’s there? Lots of cookies. So many chocolate ones that tempted me. But then I asked about anything with ginger, and I was shown this package of six small cookies wrapped up with a dainty pink bow. Ginger, cardamon and I don’t know what else, but it’s not a cakey western-style cookie.

Next time maybe I’ll try the Tres Leches cake?

I was kindly given a few samples as I dried off … the beautiful one with dates in the middle is sugar-free and another one for the next visit.

And what was in that Too Good to Go box? Seven items. A fat slice of baklava — is that chocolate in the center? Two Yazdi cupcakes, with cardamon, pistachio and rosewater. Three little danishes. A cookie sandwich with a fat layer delicious cream holding it together. Yum, yum. (No promises that you will get the same. Or as much for just $6.)

How to get there from the Princeton Junction train station

It’s pretty easy. Turn right onto Wallace Road and keep going: through the roundabout, then follow the road (now North Post Road) around the curve, then past the library and through the traffic lights to the next one 1.5 miles away. Turn right onto Village Road West. Just a warning that the bike lane becomes a narrower shoulder for the final mile to Quakerbridge Road.

Cross at the light (Quakerbridge Road is not a road you want to bike on!), go past the first set of businesses and into a neighborhood. Follow Lawrence Square Boulevard around (looks like a similar length whether you go left or right as you enter the neighborhood) and watch for the Lawrence Square Boulevard South. Take that past the first set of stores to a smaller building. The bakery is at the end, next to a Mediterranean sandwich shop.

5 miles.

New Jersey Transit’s 612 bus stops in the middle of the neighborhood and goes to the Princeton Junction station. I waited until the rain had moderated before pedaling home … but maybe I should have taken the bus instead?

More: My best food-related rides in New Jersey