Food and Things » Desserts

Kermit’s Key Lime Pie On a Stick is Bliss

Laura Weiss — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:02:12 +0000

Every time I’m in Key West, I make a beeline for Kermit’s for a slice of key lime pie that’s head and shoulders above the competition.

But though I adore the delectably tangy pie, I often wind up bypassing it. Instead, I head straight for the freezer case, open up the top, reach inside, and snag one of Kermit’s chocolate covered frozen key lime pies on a stick. Yes, it’s the pie, complete with graham cracker crust, just frozen.

Is Kermit’s frozen bar as good as a classic chocolate covered ice cream bar? Well, I devoured half of the key lime delight before remembering to take a picture….

If you’re not going to be in Key West or near Kermit’s other Florida locale, you can buy the bars as well as Key Line BBQ sauces, cookies and the like online.

Kermit’s Key Lime Pie Shoppe
200A Elizabeth Street
Key West, FL 33040
Open Daily 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM

These Rich Sugar Cookie Sandwiches Got Raves

Laura Weiss — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:02:14 +0000

I almost tossed the sugar cookies I baked for New Year’s Eve into the garbage. The recipe was from Mark Bittman, the NY Times food writer and cookbook author. The round-faced Bittman is usually a reliable source for most cooking and baking challenges—from how to prepare kale to putting together a no-fail buttery pound cake. But this time, it looked like the trusty Mark had failed me.

A few minutes out of the oven, this particular batch of sugar cookies could have passed for water crackers they were so bland and tasteless. Since I was baking treats for a New Year’s Eve party at Chef Renee Marton’s, I set to work to try to rehabilitate them. (It wasn’t Bittman’s’ fault it was mine; I over-mixed the batter.) For sure, when you bring a dish to a chef’s house, you want to get it right.

I thought to myself, OK, add some sugar and fat. So I rolled each cookie in powdered sugar. I whipped up some chocolate ganache and smeared it between two cookies to create a richly fudgy sandwich. That was the only filling I made. Everything else—the nutella, the dulce de leche, I pulled from my fridge. Then I glommed a tablespoon or so of sauce onto each cookie, smoothed it with a spatula, and smushed two cookies together to create a sandwich.

The result? The powdered sugar boosted the drab little ovoid’s richness and heightened the sweetness just a tad. The filling seeped into the cookies transforming them into sumptuous little morsels. By the time midnight rolled around, my near-disaster cookies were fit to be eaten—even by a chef.

What was the best part of this cookie-making enterprise? When Chef Renee drifted by a little after midnight and announced, “Everyone’s raving about your cookies.”

Click here for Bittman’s sugar cookie recipe or use your own.

The Best Rugelach and Croisaants: Two New Bakery/Cafes Open on the Upper East Side

Laura Weiss — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 20:22:43 +0000

Rugelach via flckr by by Soup Spoon Blog

Two new bakery/cafes have opened in the last several months on the Upper East Side. Le Moulin a Cafe, a French spot on York Avenue between 76th and 77th streets, serves up some of the best croissants I’ve eaten in the city. Plenty specializes in homey desserts like rugelach and crumb cake, along with cakes and cookies.

Le Moulin a Cafe

Forget all those leaden faux croissants on offer at your neighborhood bodega. Instead, head for Le Moulin a Cafe. The cozy spot opened over the summer when it started dishing up croissants that are as flaky and tender as any I’ve had in France.

The reason? Nicholas Lecuq, the co-owner, imports frozen dough from Brittany. Lecuq’s chef then bakes the dough in-house. Who would think pre-frozen croissants could turn out so well?

The weekday morning I stopped by, the place was hopping. Stroller moms who had dropped their kids at the Lycee Francais de New York across the street, flooded the cafe’s tables. Neighborhoods folks were stopping by too. And I’ll bet there’s more than a few NY Presbyterian docs–cholesterol be damned—who are sampling Le Moulin a Cafe’s offerings as well.

In addition to pastries, there’s a menu of quiche ($10), salads ($11-$12), and entrées (skirt steak with fries ($21) and the like, and wine is coming soon.

Plenty

If it’s old fashioned cakes and cookies you’re hankering for, Plenty is your spot. Arrayed in glass cases, the pastries are pretty much like grandma used to make—and there’s a reason for that. Jessica Weiss, the proprietor and a lapsed MBA, earned her chops baking alongside her grandmother Hannah, one hell of a baker judging by the fare at Plenty.

The crumb cake was light and moist with a buttery, tender topping. Delicious but not for me. For me, the chewier and doughier the cake, the better. The rugelach? I wish that my grandma who’s ruglach were reliably uneatable, had taken some lessons from Hannah. Plenty’s were flaky and not too sweet, just about a perfect bite.

Along with these homey standards, Weiss also offers chocolate cake ($4.75), cinnamon sugar donut muffins ($1.75) and homemade Oreos ($2.50). There are whole cakes for $35-$40 that can also be ordered by the slice.

The place sports a few tables and you can purchase various coffees and teas to go with your pastry.

Le Moulin a Cafe
1439 York Ave
New York, NY
212 288 5088

Monday – 7 am – 9 pm
Tuesday-Thursday – 7 am – 10 pm
Friday – 7 am – 11 pm
Saturday – 8 am – 11 pm
Sunday – 8 am – 9 pm

Plenty
1457 Third Avenue (82nd Street)
New York, NY
212 628 2110

730 am to 730 pm 7 days/week

Cupcakes: Baked by Melissa Lands on the Upper West Side

Laura Weiss — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:23:10 +0000

Cupcakes by Baked by Melissa.

I’m all for mini-sweets. I like the fact that you’re ingesting fewer calories. I like the way you can pop one in your mouth on the run.

Baked by Melissa, a mini-sweets pioneer with her one-bite cupcakes, opened last week on the Upper West Side at 2325 Broadway between 84th and 85th. The place is all sleekness—floor-to-ceiling glass windows adorn the storefront, and inside, a long modish counter displays cupcakes like precious works of art.

Behind the counter are ranged chirpy teens who volunteer their favorite flavors. “Peanut butter,” said one. The other pushed the flavor of the day, Chocolate Caramel Cone.

I chose Red Velvet. The cake was moist and tender, just about perfect. The icing, however, was super sweet. Magnolia Bakery, housed just a few blocks away on Columbus Avenue, is tops on the sugar scale when it comes to overly-sweet cupcakes. Still, Melissa’s weren’t far behind.

Baked by Melissa

Various branches citywide

Ice Cream: Coolhaus vs Shake Shack

Laura Weiss — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:20:28 +0000

Guinness Chip Ice Cream + Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie

In an ice cream face-off, how do Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches and Shake Shack Concretes fare?

OK, the two ice cream products differ in several key ways. For one, Coolhaus sandwiches are filled with ice cream; Shake Shack’s products are made from frozen custard. Yet they’re both vying for the New York artisanal ice cream dollar. (I happened to gorge on both Coolhaus and Shake Shack frozen goodies in the same day so that pig-out begged for comparison.)

Coolhaus

Sandwiching ice cream between cookies is not new. But Coolhaus, which operates a band of food trucks, takes the process one step further. The hugely popular ice cream purveyor serves up a rotating menu of flavors, like Blueberry Ginger and Red Velvet Cake. And they sandwich the frozen filling between flavor-filled cookies–from chocolate chip to gluten-free peanut butter.

Plus, you’re encouraged to mix and match. Feel like a maple waffle white chocolate cookie on one side and a chocolate one on the other? Coolhaus is happy to oblige.

It’s very fun, and the cookies, at least the double chocolate fudge ones I chose, are dense and intensely chocolaty.

But there’s a problem. And it’s the ice cream.

If you like yours with a thinnish consistency, you’ll enjoy the Coolhaus variety. I happen to prefer my ice cream dense and heavy. What’s more the chocolate cookies overwhelmed the salted caramel ice cream I chose as the filling. Next time I’ll order a less fully-flavored cookie and maybe the combo will work better.

Shake Shack

A few hours after my Coolhaus sandwich, I sauntered over to the Upper West Side Shake Shack, the one across the street from the Museum of Natural History. My hubby and I shared a Concrete with the awful name of Natural History Crunch-stellation. Monstrously studded with chocolate bits and chunks of chocolate covered toffee, it was way over the top on the mix-in scale. Maybe it’s a guy’s ice cream treat. My hubby loved it.

But the frozen custard, as Shake Shack faithful will agree, is delicious. Our concrete was made with vanilla which boasted a striking vanilla bean taste. Plus the texture was silky and the custard boasted a substantial yet delicate mouth feel.

Coolhaus

The trucks are at various locations. Check @coolhausny.

Shake Shack

New York, Miami, Washington DC, Westport CT, Saratoga Springs NY.

Upper West Side: All About Screme Gelato

Laura Weiss — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 21:42:19 +0000

A rainbow of gelato flavors in a Rome gelateria. Photo: Susan Toth.

Screme Gelato, which hails from Israel, typifies the globalization of the popular Italian variety of ice cream. With two shops on the Upper West Side and others elsewhere in the city, Screme is making inroads all over the city. And its story was featured in Ice Cream: A Global History (Reaktion Books).

The book, a look at ice cream's vibrant history worldwide, uses Screme as an example of gelato's growing worldwide appeal. Gelato was once made almost exclusively in Italy by family-owned concerns. These days, gelato has gone corporate. Large companies making bases and flavors supply gelato makers worldwide. What's more, anyone can be a gelato maker these days---even Israelis who adore ice cream of all types, and local influences are creeping into gelato. Sometimes variants--from Cookies and Cream to Peanut Butter, are supplanting traditional flavors like chocolate and pistachio.

Here's the excerpt from Ice Cream: A Global History (by yours truly):

In the summer of 2009, a new brand of gelato arrived in New York. In a bustling metropolis with thousands of outlets dishingup every ice cream variety imaginable – from classic vanilla to offbeat concoctions like bacon and egg – the debut of yet another ice cream purveyor caused barely a stir among the city’s ice cream aficionados.

But Screme gelato boasted a unique pedigree. The gelato maker hailed neither from Milan nor Rome, but rather from a country – Israel – far removedbfrom the hallowed traditions of Italian gelato making. In Israel, Screme (known as Aldo’s) had assembled more than 50 outlets. Though launched by an Italian gelato maker in 1993 Screme was soon taken over by a group of Israeli businessmen, who quickly rolled out flavours like halva and lemon to suit local tastes. When Screme opened its New York outlets, it took its ice cream in yet another direction, fashioning flavours like Captain Crunch, Reese’s Peanut Butter andKey Lime Vodka – tastes that were specifically engineered to appeal to American sensibilities.

‘The Italians are locked into standard flavors’, Screme’s owner Yona Levy maintains. Levy hasn’t hesitated to aggressively shunt aside centuries-old gelato traditions to create his unique kosher and organic offerings. In fact, it’s safe to say that Screme’s gelato variant – not to mention its rotating menu of more than 5,000 flavours – would utterly confound Italian ice cream traditionalists.

But Screme’s heterodoxy is not unusual. Around the world – from Berlin to Kansas City – globalization has transformed the Italian classic into a frozen dessert that more often than not barely resembles the traditional version. In fact, it could be asked: is today’s globalized version of gelato even Italian – or has it been reimagined into an entirely new, universal ice cream type?

Screme Gelato

2030 Broadway (between 69th and 70th Streets)

(212) 362-2111

176 West 94th Street

(corner 94th Street & Amsterdam)

(212) 663-1362

Screme @ Verdi Square @72nd Street

Coming soon.

An All Ice Cream Dinner June 6 in New York

Laura Weiss — Sun, 22 May 2011 22:51:33 +0000

Ice Cream Cones. Photo: Roger Smith Hotel

NEW UPDATE: The New York Times, June 1, 2011:

Five-Course Dessert

Ice cream from soup to nuts will be featured at a five-course dinner on Monday from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Roger Smith Hotel…. Click here to read more.

UPDATE: Carolina M Capehart of Historic Cookery will be making ice cream the old fashioned way at the dinner. Samples will be available for tasting!

If you’re food fantasy is an all ice cream dinner, then this event may be for you. Yours truly, an Upper West Side author, will also be speaking about ice cream around the world. Here are the details and the menu:

Ice Cream: Edible Conversations at the Roger Smith Hotel

Where: 501 Lexington Avenue, New York; 212 838 0844

When: June 6th, 2011 6-8:30pm

What: From Tallahassee to Tokyo: The Scoop on Ice Cream’s Global Allure

Speaker: Laura Weiss, Upper West Side author.

How much? Tickets: $45 for an ice cream based dinner and talk. Reserve a seat: icecreamglobal.eventbrite.com

Almost All Ice Cream Dinner Menu (tentative)

Snacks

Marinated Olives

House roasted nuts

Canapes

Guinness float

Smoked salmon tartar on crostini with horseradish ice cream and chives

First Course

Chilled Green Pea Soup with Yogurt Ice Cream

Second Course

Beet Carpaccio with Goat Cheese Ice Cream

Third Course

Seafood ceviche with Cilantro lime sorbet

Fourth Course

Venison loin, fingerling potatoes, grilled asparagus, lingonberry demi glaze ice cream

Fifth Course

Dark Chocolate gelato with sea salt, caramel, broken pretzels

Daniel B. Mowles

Executive Chef

Roger Smith Hotel

Mother’s Day Cupcakes with Organge Buttercream Icing

Laura Weiss — Tue, 03 May 2011 01:31:44 +0000

Orange Cupcake. By abakedcre via flickr.

Chef Renee concocted these cupcakes, sure to please Mom on her special day. Combine with a gift certificate to a day spa, and you’ll have one happy mother.

Orange, Pecan and Toasted Coconut Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350°F.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tsp. baking powder

pinch salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup coarsely ground pecans (don’t overprocess, or they will become oily)

Zest of 1 orange

4 eggs

1/3 cup orange juice

1 cup shredded coconut, toasted (5-7 minutes at 350F)

1 cup chopped pecans, toasted (same as above)

METHOD

Line two cupcake pans with cupcake papers (24 cupcakes)

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, using an electric beater, cream sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Reducing the speed of the mixer, alternatively add the flour with ground pecans and orange juice. Mix until just blended.

Portion the batter between the cupcake holders. Don’t overfill the cups– the cupcakes will rise, and you need room for the icing later. Bake 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Do not overcook.

Transfer cupcake pans to racks and cool for 15 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan and cool completely.

Fast Orange Buttercream Icing

8 oz. unsalted butter, softened

4 oz. granulated white sugar

2-4 oz. orange juice

1 egg yolk

pinch of salt

1 cup powdered sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

2 Tbsp Cointreau or Grand Marnier

Zest of 1 orange

In a food processor or with an electric mixer, add the butter, egg yolk and granulated sugar. Blend until well incorporated and fluffy. Slowly add powdered sugar and 2 ounces of orange juice in alternating amounts. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as you work. Add salt, vanilla, orange zest and liqueur.

If the mixture is not easily spreadable, add the other 2 ounces of orange juice, one ounce at a time. Mix well, and taste for seasoning.

Decorate each cupcake with the icing, and sprinkle with toasted pecans and toasted coconut.

Julian Medina and Pichet Ong Open Cuban Diner Coppelia

Laura Weiss — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 23:00:36 +0000

Coppelia Cuban Diner

Anything Cuban—music, food, you name it—and I’m there, instantly. Coppelia Diner, a joint venture of famed chefs Pichet Ong and Julian Medina, is a warm casual spot for chowing down on traditional and inventive Cuban and Latin American specialties. And then there are Ong’s fabulous confections to finish off the meal.

I’ve been to Cuba twice and prowled around Little Havana in Miami. In Cuba, with strict rationing, the native cuisine has virtually disappeared except for a handful of “private” restaurants that cater to tourists.

So it’s always with mixed feelings that I approach Cuban food in the U.S. I remember the bare shelves in stores across the island nation. But the name Coppelia Diner–Coppelia’s is a famous ice cream parlor in Havana—grabbed me. So I had to check out this new eatery, open 24/7, to see what Ong and Medina, who also owns Toloache and Yerba Buena, were cooking up.

Inside the vibrantly decorated diner that brightens up a bleak stretch of 14th Street, there’s a long counter and tables and booths. Cuban music plays in the background because, as Ong told me,”of utmost importance to myself—and all of us—is our love for Cuban music.”

Coppelia “is inspired by an old fashioned diner with an ice cream and soda fountain eating counter, as found in Cuba, New York City, and many parts of the world,” Ong explained.

The menu consists of Cuban standards like ropa vieja, eggs and fried plantains, and yucca. But there are also inventive pan-Latin dishes like Chaufa de Mariscos and Peruvian fried rice, with shrimp, tilapia, mussels and tomato salsa, fufu (a root vegetable paste) and plantain puree.

The desserts are Latin-themed.

“For me, I think New York City needs a place where you can get a fabulous cajeta ice cream sundae, or a slice of carrot manchego cake, at 4am in the morning, with homemade everything,” Ong said.

The first time I was there, Ong handed me a serving of his luscious ice creams and sorbets to taste. Two in particular, salted tamarind and apple mojito sorbet, were nothing short of sublime.

A week later, I returned with my hubby. Our starters were crisp-on-the-outside, succulent on-the-inside ham and cheese empanadas, followed by plump tender quesadilla, stuffed with Chihuahua cheese, turkey, bacon and pico de gallo for $8.95. A Cubano, with roasted pork, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, also priced at $8.95 was delicious and meaty. I did miss the crunch of real Cuban bread, the kind you find everywhere in Little Havana in Miami. Still, the roll was impeccably fresh and helped meld together the flavors of the meats and cheese. For dessert, I dug into yet another scoop of the addictive apple mojito sorbet.

Coppelia

207 W. 14th St.

New York, NY

Upper West Side: Gluten-Free Store, G-Free NYC, to Open April 20

Laura Weiss — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:28:18 +0000

G-Free NYC gluten free store opens on UWS April 20. Photo by Margaret Magnarelli.

Celiacs and gluten-intolerant folks rejoice! G-Free NYC, a shop selling gluten free products, will open April 20, according to the company’s web site and reports by DNA Info and My Upperwest.

The shop will be located on 85th Street between Columbus and Central Park West. Featured will be products ranging from pasta and chips to frozen foods to fresh baked rugelach, vegan apple crumb pie and of course, cupcakes.

“We’ve all tried one too many products that taste like cardboard or have the texture of sand,” says the store’s web site, which aims to provide tasty fare.

It’s the first store in Manhattan devoted entirely to gluten-free foods. Delivery is promised soon.

G-Free NYC
77A W. 85th Street
New York, NY 10024 |
646 781 9770