Dessert Crawl Part Deux!

4th Street Cookie - Reading Terminal Market, 51 North 12th Street

The fourth stop on the tour was 4th Street Cookie. First of all, can I just say Reading Terminal Market! Wow! Love it! If I lived in Philadelphia, I would undoubtedly spend a ridiculously large percentage of my salary buying fresh produce, shell fish, meat and unusual ingredients to prepare lovely meals, and ready prepared food and cake when I'm feeling lazy!

If I'm being honest (and isn't that the whole point after all?), I wasn't so impressed with 4th Street Cookie. It was a pretty basic counter and their cookies looked  ... well ... normal. I'm not sure what I was expecting - actually, that’s a lie. I know exactly what I was expecting. Ginormous cookies that I would ooh and ahh over, beating myself up that I'd never be able to make cookies as nice! Cookies aren't my forte don't cha know?

I bought a white chocolate chip cookie to take away and was pleasantly surprised when I eventually tried it. It wasn't the best cookie in the world - I much prefer Ben’s Cookies in London - but it was everything a cookie should be. Nothing more. But no less either.

 Flying Monkey - Reading Terminal Market, 12th and Arch

Now this was exciting! They had lots of cupcakes, as well as brownies and other baked goodies! Mmmmmm, baked goodies .... sorry, what was I saying? Oh, yes, cupcakes! They had cool colours and lots of exciting flavours; lots! Crème brulee, pistachio, pina colada, baileys, bubblegum, black velvet, rose, chai ... and the list goes on. I wanted to try everything! But you know, the real world being real and all, I can't get everything I want so I settled on the pina colada, my partner in crime had the crème brulee, and I got the pistachio for my pistachio obsessed other partner in crime. My pina colada was good! The cake itself was really good - in Lara's opinion the best we'd tried - but my heart still lies with Brown Betty's pound cake. And the icing was nice but not too sweet. Lara's crème brulee icing didn't really taste like crème brulee; it had more of a burnt caramel taste to it. And when we eventually got round to eating Doyin's pistachio cupcake (I bought it for her, it was only right that she halved it with me :D), that also tasted nothing like pistachio either. So my general impression is nice cake, lots of cool flavours but the icing leaves a lot to be desired. I admire their ambition though!

Final *sob* stop - Serendipity - 225 East 60th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues
While we were in NY, we were staying in Queens. Shopping there during the day and then coming into the city at night for dinner and drinks with friends Trouble and First Lady. That schedule, though fun, did not leave much time for dessert crawling, despite my best intentions. I didn't get to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge or do the Sex and the City tour either :( Anyway, we did manage to make it to Serendipity, which was in Sex and the City incidentally. It was very quirky and their frozen hot chocolates - although not really frozen, just really cold and thick – were lovely! The cheesecake was alright but I really wish I had gone to Juniors for cheesecake. And Magnolia bakery for cupcakes. And Make My Cake for cake. And Crumbs for cake. And ... well, you get the picture. I guess I have to save something for next time right? And I did have Coldstone ice cream!

(International) Dessert Crawl - Paris/Philly/New York

This dessert crawl is going places! It started off as a humble cupcake crawl, an idea I nicked from Two Wedding Belles. Then I decided to extend the invitation to all cake. And then … due to popular demand (from me), it was extended to all dessert; cupcakes, cheesecakes, layer cakes, ice creams- whatever note-worthy desserts I came across on my travels! THEN ... in Paris on our way to Philly, Doyin and I decided to have a Laduree macaroon (the must famous Parisian macaroons) and Dessert Crawl; International Edition was born. It's more of a Dessert Tour now!

So here, in two parts, are reviews of all the dessert places I tried while I was in Philly and New York - all in my quest to be a better baker - ahem, that is my story and I'm sticking to it! I hope you guys appreciate how many hours I'm going to have to spend in the gym and how many egg white omelettes I'll have to consume to make up for this – it’s a hard job, but somebody’s got to do it. *Sigh* just call me Miss Committed.

1st stop - Laduree, Charles de Gaulle Airport

Bonjour! Ummm, that's about the extent of my French. I'd heard about Laduree Macaroons and wasn't too fussed to try them because while I do like macaroons, I can pretty much take them or leave them y'know? But Doyin kept talking about them and when we saw the shop at the airport, it seemed like fate and totally rude not to. However, at €1.50 per tiny macaroon and a severe lack of Euros on our person, we could only afford two macaroons between us; one pistachio and one salted caramel. Making a decision of two from about fifteen flavours – from coconut and liquorish to vanilla and Madagascan chocolate - was excruciating! Doyin; judge number 1, had nothing more to contribute to this review other than "Divine. I want more".

As for my review, first of all, I have to say, the difference between these and other macaroons I have had (mainly from Paul) was very clear - these were sooooo fresh. You could tell that they'd been made just hours ago. They were soft, melt-in-your-mouth and yet still crisp. The pistachio flavour was exquisite, and the salted caramel whilst also great, was more … interesting. It had a lovely burnt sugar taste but if I was to go to Laduree again, I'd literally empty my purse on the table and ask for “as many pistachio macaroons as this will buy me!”

 2nd Stop - Naked Chocolate Cafe, 1317 Walnut Street, Philadelphia

The lovely ladies from whom I borrowed this idea were kind enough to recommend places to try in the Philly area and this was one of them. It's nice and bright inside and they have more chocolate than they do cake and other deserts. They had about 6 cupcake flavours; nothing too wild or crazy - chocolate, vanilla, chocolate with peanut butter frosting; you get the gist. They also had some amazing looking desserts like an Oreo mousse but as I was by myself on this leg of the tour, I only tried one thing; the vanilla cupcake with strawberry frosting. I decided on this one after I asked for, and refused the personal recommendation of the lady behind the counter (choc/peanut butter if you’re interested). I decided to go with the most popular choice. The cake was pretty average, quite dense and didn't taste particularly fresh. The frosting made up for it though; it was obviously made with real strawberries and wasn't too sweet. To be honest, I'm not the biggest strawberry fan in the world so this stop left me a bit disappointed!

3rd Stop - Brown Betty Boutique, 1030 North 2nd Street

I had back-up on this part of the crawl, which meant we could try more stuff ... yay!! The idea was that Lara and I would have one cupcake/cookie/dessert at each place and then share but we turned out to be total light weights! After Brown Betty; which was our first stop, Lara was more or less out, muttering something about big breakfast, can't stomach more cake **shaking my head**. But I must admit, I couldn't completely enjoy the rest of the desserts that day as I just felt caked-out! I know, I know, I didn’t think caked-out was a non-word that would ever have to be a part of my vocabulary either!

Back to Brown Betty – I loved it! First of all, their cupcakes were huge and while they were very pretty, theirs weren't the dainty, perfectly decorated cupcakes that some bakeries specialise in. They also had some interesting flavours like sweet potato. And sour cream. And all their cakes are pound cakes! For those of you who don't know what pound cakes are (which was me till my friend explained it to me), pound cakes are denser than sponge cake so wedding cakes are pound cakes so that they can hold the icing and all the numerous tiers! If you know me, you know that dense cake is not something I am a fan of, but these were amazing!

First things first. Lara chose the chocolate cupcake with coconut frosting and I had the fruit-filled sour cream and lemon cupcake. The cake in both was dense and yet still moist, soft and fresh! The chocolate cupcake was great but the sour cream and lemon was amazing! The cake was lovely, the filling (like a very light lemon curd) not too sweet and not overpowering and the icing ... oh the icing, It was like a vanilla buttercream but fluffier, creamier and not as sweet - it was lurrrvely! If anyone has their recipe for that frosting, I'll love you forever ;p

The Boutique, which is where I went, is where they baked the cupcakes and cakes for all three of their stores and that in itself was inspiring because it was a pretty small kitchen area with a much smaller oven than I'd expect. If they can run three successful shops from such a small base, it's something to aim for :D

Darn my nerves at the wedding that made me turn down the Brown Betty wedding cake at my friend's wedding! I had a tiny bite of the red velvet which was lovely but there was also almond cake and another cake which I didn't get to try ... I'm still harbouring regrets.

 That's all for now folks! Part two coming up soon!