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Not available in stores: Francisco Migoya's eclair
Eclairs: delicious fancy French pastry or dressed up creme puff?
Eclairs represent an odd segment of the dessert category in the US. Even though the best ones are coveted by pastry enthusiasts and sold in the fanciest French patisseries, they are also found along with their cousin, the cream puff, in the frozen section in supermarkets and even in Walmart (!) (more…)
A few weeks ago I published a review of some macarons sent in by guest contributor ”Elle”. Today, Elle checks in again with a review of the macarons from one of DessertBuzz’s favorite shops, Dessert Club Chikalicious. (more…)
Quality Meats' Sundae: Photo courtesy Midtown Lunch/Blondie and Brownie
Midtown Lunch did a really cool write-up on Quality Meats’ Ice Cream Cake Sundaes, available for another 4 days only. I like the sound of the toasted banana s’mores sundae embedded with a mini chocolate bar and freshly toasted marshmallow but you’ll have to read the review and decide which one you want for yourself. (more…)
Chikalicious dessert club vanilla bean soft serve is well known and liked
I managed to convince some friends to join me in a second round of desserts at Chikalicious Dessert Club. I say second round because we had already consumed three fine dessert plates at Soba-ya (review coming soon). It wasn’t that difficult to get them on board. Two of the friends are ice cream buffs and are obsessed with making batches of artisanal ice cream with all kinds of cool flavorings and formualtions–so they were easy to convince. The third friend isn’t so into desserts (?) but we bullied him into it by putting him in a half-nelson and giving him two options: come with us for more dessert or listen to the drum circle in Astor Pl. for an hour. (more…)
Dessert Club Chikalicious NYC
On Saturday night, after seeing a rousing and inspiring production of Ameriville at The Public Theater we headed to Spot Dessert Bar to get our sugar on. Unfortunately, Spot had most of the place reserved for a big party and said the wait would be 45 mins! So we headed East to Dessert Club, Chikalicious.
Salted Caramel Macaron from Chikalicious
The “Situation” (pictured) is a massive $4 cookie that contains tortilla chips, pretzels, marshmallow and chocolate chunks. You may be thinking “hey this sounds a lot like a Momofuku compost cookie!” It is similar, but the Situation is much less sweet and has even more “stuff’” inside (bigger pieces of stuff too). I prefer it to the compost. There’s also a sister cookie called the Situation Dark which has a dark chocolate cookie base, peanut butter chips and toffee popcorn in addition to everything in the regular.
chocolate Macaron from Chikalicious NYC
The last few months DessertBuzz has been eating a lot of macarons–some good, some not so good. The not-so-good ones are usually just stale with a “crackly” surface. I’m happy to say that was not the case with the two really superb macarons we had on Saturday – a salted caramel and a chocolate (both $2). They both had a perfectly soft outside and a nice flavorful paste inside. The salted caramel had just the right amount of sweetness too.
S'Mores cupcake with Chocolate ganache center
Don’t forget the classic desserts that made Dessert Club Chikalicious famous like the S’Mores cupcake ($2.60) with a chocolate ganache center. These, super-moist cupcakes are small so you should get a few and share.
Recommended: The Situation cookie, macarons.
Dessert Club Chikalicious is located on 204 East 10th Street (at 2nd Ave). Their website is here.
In a feature on Grub Street, Gramercy Tavern’s Nancy Olsen rated 15 of New York City’s best cupcakes on and rankedDessertBuzz favorite Chikalicious number one. She also rated Kyotofu 3rd which is another DessertBuzz recommendation. Truthfully, whenever I see a list like this, especially one backed with a celebrity name, I always cringe. I feel like these features usually miss some of the best and are far too easy on the most popular places. So kudos to Nancy Olsen for telling it like it is on the weighty subject of the best cupcake in New York.
Olsen’s list lines up with mine pretty damn closely. She is totally spot-on with ButterCup and Billy’s being dry. I have always wondered if the patrons of these places have any idea what a good cupcake tastes like. She did get a few things wrong. I have had the cupcakes at Sugar Sweet Sunshine many times and never found them dry at all so I am not sure where that came from. I have reached out to some of the big cupcakes sites to see what they think. I’ll report back soon.
Chikalicious Dessert Club: The best cupcake in the city?
Magnolia and Crumbs may get the press but its not exactly news that they aren’t the best cupcake in town. New York Magazine named Kyotofu the best cupcake over 2 years ago (I agreed). Since then there have been other “alternative cupcakes” such as Sugar Sweet Sunshine and Royale Bakery. I would like to introduce 2 more possible claimants to the cupcake throne: One is very well known: Chikalicious Dessert Club and one that is off the beaten path (at least for now), Sweet Revenge.
The truth is I don’t really like regular cupcakes. They’re overly sweet, often dry and the frosting is granular and nasty. But the triple chocolate cupcake with chocolate ganche filling from Chikalicious Dessert Club is really more than a cupcake. It’s a dessert (you can’t easily make it at home). Its got both a unique frosting and filling that differentiate it from its peers. The Ganache filling isn’t just some over-sweet chocolate colored paste. It actually tastes like real chocolate. It’s hard to “one-up” the triple chocolate unless you like marshmallow. In that case just order the S’mores cupcake with chocolate filling and toasted house made marshmallow topping. The S’mores cupcake is basically a freshly toasted campfire marshmallow on top of a fresh baked cupcake with chocolate inside.
These cupcakes don’t belong in the same category as the ones from Crumbs or Magnolia. They are moist, perfectly crafted and have all kinds of textures going on. The care that goes into these cupcakes is evident in how they look.
Recommended: Any of the cupcakes
Chikalicious Dessert Club’s website is here.
