Breakfast Club at Bakeri

Heaven. We were in heaven.

Ben suggested Bakeri, in Williamsburg, for our latest Breakfast Club. I couldn't have been happier to oblige.
Opened and run by Nina Brondmo since 2009, the place is just adorable.

 

(Does that mural look familiar?)

More important, it's beyond delicious. Everything is baked from scratch in the morning, and there's an incredible selection of breads and pastries, inspired from America (strawberry pie!), France (chocolate brioche!) and Nina's home country, Norway (Skolebrød!). It was tough to decide, but we made exemplary choices.

The chocolate hazelnut tort that Ben insisted upon was perhaps the highlight.

Chocolaty and nutty, still a titch warm from the oven, it was sweet but savory and a totally decadent, but right, breakfast choice.

The strawberry lemon cake with lavender crumble wasn't so bad either. Heavy with moistness, it was equal parts tart and sweet.

The bread pudding was of the savory sort, this one filled with spinach and feta and tomatoes, and every bit as eggy and lovely as one would expect from bread pudding.

But still, we weren't sated. So we went ahead and ordered that ridiculous-looking chocolate raspberry scone.

It was a favorite Breakfast Club destination.

(That's me, genuflecting before the sign.)

150 Wythe Avenue
Williamsburg, BK

Breakfast Decisions at Tartine Bakery

Banana cream pie for breakfast?? Even I know better than that.

But a million-layered croissant? They look wonderfully, seductively as good as Christophe Vasseur's croissants at Du Pain et des Idées, after all.

Or, even better, a pain au chocolat, speared with two batonettes of Valrhona goodness. Tempting, bien sur.

But ever the creature of habit...

... from all the beautiful temptations at San Francisco's Tartine Bakery, both savory and sweet...

I chose...

bread pudding.

Next time I go, I'm hoping the tart berries will be replaced with something decadent like chocolate and bananas.

Dessert at Gramercy Tavern

I was just about to state the obvious: that Gramercy Tavern has phenomenal desserts.

But then again, the Danny Meyer landmark is renowned for its cocktails, its environment, its friendliness, its quality, and for its very affordable soup and sandwich combo. What’s not to love about this restaurant?

After indulging in all the aforementioned, Bennie and I didn’t need dessert, but, being who we are, we decided to split one thing, my choice. Always a sucker for bread pudding, I chose the butterscotch bread pudding. Paired with its sweet-tangy pear sorbet, topped with a buttercrunch disc, it was perfection.



But, hey, our kind waitress asked, you don’t mind if we give you another dessert, do you?? Just because? Here, chocolate pudding with a thick layer of salted caramel and toasted brioche croutons.



Giant miam.

Top 10 baked goods in Manhattan

I was asked a couple times recently about my to very favorite baked goods in New York. Obviously this is no easy task: it depends on the neighborhood, the time of day, the season, my mood, and if I’m wearing an elastic waistband. But, then again, let’s be honest: there’s always room for baked goods.

Here’s my top 10 countdown*:

10. Blackout cake doughnut at Doughnut Plant.
9. Baklava at Poseidon Bakery.
8. Almond croissant at Café Margot.
7. Ooey gooey cupcake at Sugar Sweet Sunshine.
6. Chocolate bread pudding from the Dessert Truck.
5. Peanut butter cookie at City Bakery.
4. Walnut chocolate chip cookie at Levain.
3. Banana cupcake with cream cheese frosting at Butter Lane.
2. Pain au chocolat at Patisserie Claude.
And, if I could eat just one beautiful, chewy, chocolatey, earth-moving thing every day for the rest of my life…
1. Cornflake marshmallow chocolate chip cookie at Momofuku Milk Bar.

* As difficult as this list was to create, it was made easier by not including chocolate or gelato. Or frozen custard. And sadly, it was a wee bit easier because Batch and Amai are no longer around (though I expect I’ll have to revamp after Pichet’s return later this year!).

The Mixing Bowl: Jerome Chang

Most Sweet Freaks know the Dessert Truck makes a mercilessly rich and deliciously spongy chocolate bread pudding. But here, Jerome Chang tips us off to a new mobile must-eat—figs with lavender syrup and marscarpone (omg!)—and shares his tools for making the magic happen.

Growing up, my favorite sweet was:
Trix cereal. They were round when I was growing up, and they bummed me out when they switched to the fruit shapes. But I think they’re round again.

My favorite sweet now is:
The figs from our chef Bill’s yard in New Jersey, with lavender syrup and mascarpone.

My personal Dessert Truck favorite:
See above

What I love about being mobile is:
Driving the truck on the wide, open highway with everything rumbling around inside… just like a video game.

Truffles or pralines:
Truffles for long conversations. Pralines for quick snacking.

White, milk or dark:
I won’t choose. Milk and dark chocolate can work amazingly in concert. White chocolate can be awesome with certain fruit flavors.

Caramel, ganache or cream:
Cream can be essential to both.

I'd love to create a flavor for:
My girlfriend

Kitchen essentials:
Immersion blender, Vitamix blender, scales.

Style essentials:
Shower daily.

Pastry chefs I admire:
Any whose egos don’t get in the way of putting good flavors on the plate.

I'm most inspired when:
Autumn rolls around.

How much is too much?
When you start getting an ulcer.

Favorite movie snack:
Junior Mints

Guilty pleasure:
Eating a boatload of soup dumplings.

Other favorites:
I love Philly & most of Spain.

Too close to home

Despite its proximity to my apartment, I’ve managed to give Dessert Club, Chikalicious a wide berth. I have a habit of bringing home adorable cupcakes the way crazy old ladies scoop up stray animals.

I was there months ago when they just served bread pudding. Now they’ve added eight different kinds of cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies… I am in trouble.

I’ll have to go back with a partner in crime to sample multiple cupcake flavors. (See? I can show a little, if not restraint, then at least decency.). But it was easy to rationalize taking home a cookie.

The catch is, they sell them in threes. It’s three cookies for $1.95. Sure, I could have paid the same (reasonable) amount and just taken two. But that would go against all of my gluttonous principles.

So I got three.

And ate them. One…

…by one.

By one.

204 East 10th Street
212.475.0929

Dear New York,

I love you. You know I do. But I’m running off to Paris to see some old friends… Pierre Marcolini, Jean-Paul Hevin, Christian Constant…

But I will be back. For your chocolate studded cookies, Levain, and your dreamy peanut butter ones, City Bakery. For cupcakes—strawberry rhubarb from Batch, banana from Billy’s and even a good, old sugar rush from Magnolia. I will look forward to your toasted almond glaze, Doughnut Plant, and for, mon dieu, your chocolate bread pudding, Dessert Truck.

A bientot…

Fun with friends

It's so nice to eat vicariously through a friend with an appreciation for great chocolate.

After sending my friend Alex into diabetic shock from pain au chocolat (Penelope's), peanut butter cookies and cocoa with marshmallows (City Bakery), and doughnuts (Doughnut Plant), it seemed only appropriate to bring her to the Dessert Truck. She and her husband Nick live in San Francisco and introduced me to the salted caramel ice cream at Bi-Rite Creamery, after all. Tit for tat and all that.

So after a divine dinner at Centro Vinoteca (where, omg, we passed on hazelnut cake with nutella mousse?!), we walked over to University and 8th. Unlike my first visit when I felt gluttonous just ordering hot chocolate with my chocolate bread pudding, this time I was able to sample three whole desserts.

The chocolate bread pudding, which I snitched a taste of from Alex, is still shamefully rich and deliciously spongy. The goat cheese cheesecake was a little too hoof-y for me, but Nick seemed to enjoy it plenty. Me, I got to sample the weekly special: chocolate truffle cake with praline crunch, and the praline crunch made the dessert.

So that leaves the slow-baked apple, chocolate and peanut butter mousse, and vanilla crème brulee as unexplored menu items. Alex, when are you coming back to NYC?

University & 8th
Every night except Monday

Pud' it down

The Steamed Vanilla Puddin’ from Chikalicious Puddin’ has a light but moist gingerbread cake at its center, surrounded by warm crème fraiche. It’s as lovely and delicate as you could ever hope to receive in a plastic to-go cup. And just a little too easy to put away while standing at your kitchen counter.








Chickalicious Puddin'
204 East 10th Street
212.475.0929

Keep truckin'

It’s like the Loch Ness monster, Superman, dust fairies, the perfect brown boots: it doesn’t exist. This Dessert Truck that New York magazine and Eater.com rave about… where is it? I’d like a helping of bread pudding for god’s sake.

The concept alone makes me happy: a mobile bakery. Just walk right up for a serving of molten chocolate cake, crème brulee or hot (Valrhona & Guittard) chocolate. If I could only find it, that is.

After weeks of being the crazy stalker girl who takes the long way home to see if “he’s” there, I gave up trying to play it cool. There were only so many times I could skulk around University and 8th, trying for that chance encounter with the Dessert Truck. So I Googled him. Natch. Turns out my folly was the hour of the day — he only comes out at night.

So now I know, and now I am among the blessed to have had the chocolate bread pudding. And the hot cocoa.

All I can say is the rave reviews are deserving. Both treats are over-the-top rich, and sent me immediately into orbit. Chocolate oozed and rolled around my mouth in unimaginable ways. The cocoa is thick and chocolaty-sludgy. The bread pudding is both smooth and mildly textured, dense chocolate at the spongy edges and denser chocolate in the molten middle. It was an experience so decadent, even I could barely tolerate it.

But tolerate I did, and tolerate it I will again. Like that crazy stalker girl who just can’t leave well enough alone, I’ll be going back. Oh yes, I will be going back.

University & 8th
Every evening except Monday