Sweet tarts

Basil marshmallows?

Yes, and they're delicious.

It all started when Three Tarts' Sandra Palmer and Kiyomi Toda-Burke made a chocolate banana parfait. The sweet little dish called for marshmallow sauce and mini marshmallows for the top, which the pastry chefs made themselves. “We thought, ‘Oh, we can make all sorts of flavors,’” Sandra explains. So they took the marshmallow project into a six-month test kitchen period and now have more than a half dozen gorgeous flavors.

“Most people go with vanilla because that’s what they’re most familiar with,” Sandra points out. Indeed, the vanilla marshmallow takes you back to camp days when you scarfed down handfuls of these things.

But the other flavors are where the Tarts’ marshmallows get interesting. The mango pops with high tropical flavor. The yuzu is sharp and tart. And the basil is like a nice summer day: herbaceous, light, and frothy. Still to taste: chocolate, raspberry and passion fruit.

164 Ninth Avenue at 20th
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