Moon Maiden's Delights

I recently visited a restaurant at the local market. I ordered the cinnamon roll, which had more of a chocolate flavor than cinnamon, but it was still delicious! My mom, who is not vegan, tried the donut and loved it.

Since I am vegan and have a milk allergy, I am always grateful to find restaurants like Moon Maiden in Charlottesville. While it may be a bit expensive, they offer a great variety of delicious dishes. Some items are just okay, but others are exceptional (I particularly love their chocolate chip cookies and chocolate donuts). Plus, the presentation of the food is always beautiful.

This bakery is small and tucked away in the corner of the shopping center. They offer a variety of baked goods, but the layout is a bit cramped. I tried a donut and it was delicious, though the experience was a bit disorganized.

My husband and I needed a vegan wedding cake for our wedding in May 2019, and we approached Sidney after having their delicious vegan treats both on the market of Charlottesville Farmer and on their bakery. (On May 2019, she was also the only baker in the Charlottesville area who could make a vegan wedding cake, at least after my research go to Sidney! We had a three-stage cake with lemon poppy cake and lemon icing for the outer two tiles and almond cake and maple pecan icing for the middle animal. These flavor combinations may sound a little strange, but they were incredible! Apart from the flavors, I absolutely loved the fresh flowers of a local florist decorating the cake. But what I most appreciated about my wedding cake was that I could fully enjoy it without feeling hard after eating because it was actually healthy! I'm sensitive to sugar, and I can be treated quite quickly to bakery, especially with Icing crashing. I didn't want this to happen at my wedding. I didn't want to, especially from vegan butter, that's just a bunch of oil and shortcut. Sidney's cake was delicious and ingenious and beautiful, but healthy and elevated at the same time! I didn't have to compromise.

We came to Charlottesville for the marathon. My wife runs, I write reviews while she's doing that. Anyway, I was intrigued by the website for this bakery, and we stopped in yesterday. Unfortunately, the website looked more promising than the offerings we encountered. This could be twofold: the bakery itself is in a kind of mall with no windows to the outside, just to the indoor walkway. And the day we went there was very rainy and gloomy. We entered the bakery and found the décor somewhat bland. The walls are painted a pastel pinkish color that could be cheery, but which I found a bit depressing. There were not many things on display in the cases, either. I guess mostly it's because I have gotten used to very mainstream vegan sugary treats, and these strike me more like the kind of treats from the early 1990s healthfoodish, not necessarily bad, but not exactly what I crave these days. HOWEVER I want to stress that I did not even buy a slice of cake (I'm not gluten free, just regular vegan, and sometimes I find the gluten free stuff a bit dry) but it could be excellent. Because we did buy a savory carrot muffin and it was OUTSTANDING! DELICIOUS! Still, I was a little afraid to try some of the other things, like the apple tarts, because I like to buy things that I feel I cannot make myself. Again, this is not completely fair of me. Those apple tarts could be delicious. I'm just less a fan of gluten free flour than I could be. Based on the muffin, I bet the baked goods here are wonderful, particularly if you're gluten free. The main hitch is that the muffin cost $6.00 for one. And that kind of pricing, while I understand it, can really be prohibitive. Nevertheless, I feel comfortable recommending this place for gluten free people for sure, and also for the more health conscious vegan who may wish for a sweet but not all the cane sugar and junk that I so enjoy myself.