Vanilla slice or finger bun? The best sweet Aussie bakery pastries, ranked

I just love doing our 9Honey rankings, and today's treat is bakery sweets, because we know you're pining for them.

Plenty of us are planning to include them in the picnic spread now the Greater Sydney pandemic restrictions are easing a little. For everyone else, these treats are full of nostalgia and delight.

READ MORE: The 'official' ranking of Aussie soft drinks

It's just not a picnic for me unless there are finger buns with pink icing — but what's your vice? Are you a caramel or vanilla slice person? Do you prefer your croissant chocolate or plain?

Oh! So many choices! So we put it to a very official 9Honey internal and social media vote, to find out what we're all going to add to that picnic basket or grab next time the bakery mood takes us.

Gold Standard

Coming in far and away in the lead was good old caramel slice. It seems the thick, sticky sweetness of caramel tickles most of us when we think of bakery goods — biscuity base, chocolate on top, it's the real deal, winning us over.

But a good quality vanilla slice wasn't far behind, along with a classic, plain croissant.
It must be said there was some serious debate about both the name of the vanilla slice ("snot block" is not my favourite nickname) along with the merits of vanilla or passionfruit icing. It seems voters have strong feelings about both, to the point where it can make or break the vanilla slice deal.

READ MORE: Sweet biscuits ranked

Fighting Chance

We're a nation of lamington lovers and that's not just for Australia Day. The coconut, chocolate and sponge cake is a winner for most of us, regardless of jam or cream filling. They're in every bakery worth its salt, and with good reason. I'm always dying to see how fluffy the sponge inside is.

A good old custard tart has a fair few of us hooked too, with its sexy wobble and scraping of cinnamon or nutmeg across the top. But we like them cold and straight out of their little foil patty cases.

Take It or Leave It

In my opinion, the rest of the side let us down by leaving a classic finger bun languishing in the 'take it or leave it' category. What sacrilege is this? These iced treats should be top tier, but I don't have all the voting power, so here they sit. But I'll fight for them any day.

We feel pretty lukewarm about danishes (custard, fruit, or both) as well as the chocolate croissant and Neenish tart — though it must be said plenty of people questioned what a Neenish tart even is (those little chocolate and pink or white iced tart filled with mock cream and jam). But they were everywhere when I was a kid, and are still pretty prevalent today.

Yeah, Nah

Hardly rating a mention was the raisin pastry snail (pain au raisin), falling waaaaay behind its other flaky French counterparts, while the Cherry Ripe slice got a weak wave from a few stalwart fans and the peppermint slice rated exactly no votes at all. Yeah, not much of a ripple on this front.

But there is an honourable mention that goes to the apple turnover, which wasn't officially on the list and had a few people asking why — did I miss something important there? It wasn't enough of a ruckus to have me worried, but it was a little side note worth mentioning.

What do you want to see ranked and rated next?