Strawberry scone from Karen Demasco at Locanda Verde

This past weekend I was asked to consult on a dessert gift for someone and the requirements were that it had to be a “comfort” dessert like a pie and not something too refined or fancy-pants, like a opera cake or Napoleon.  Another desired attribute was that the dessert come from a “known” bakery or pastry chef.  I immediately thought of [everyone's favorite pasty chef] Karen DeMasco at Locanda Verde.  The best part about that recommendation is that you can easily swing by and pick a few items, such as mini-pies, from the bakery counter.

"Griddle cake" from Karen DeMasco of Locana Verde

The gift buyer took my advice and picked up two strawberry-rhubarb mini-pies, a strawberry scone and a set of Nutella cookies. The mini-pies are always a crowd pleaser because most people like a good pie–and the people who don’t, often like pastry and the mini pies satisfy both those preferences.  Their crust is flaky and perfect and they’re easy to eat.  The rhubarb filling isn’t too sweet so it goes nicely with the glazed outer crust.  Hopefully, the chef won’t hate me for saying this but they kind of remind me of Hostess fruit pies from my youth but with real ingredients!

Karen DeMasco's strawberry-rhubarb mini pies from Locanda Verde

The Nutella  cookies are just what they sound like. But I think the hazelnut chocolate spread is house-made.

Nutella cookie from Locanda Verde

Locanda Verde is located at 377 Greenwich Street (off North Moore St.)  Locanda Verde’s web site is here.  Follow DessertBuzz on Twitter.

Christina Tosi's cake balls from Momofuku Milk Bar

Dessert Professional Magazine has just announced the 19th annual Top 10 Pasty Chefs in America honorees.  And as you would expect there is excellent representation from New York City with five honorees including long-time DessertBuzz favorite Christina Tosi from Momofuku Milk Bar (and 2012 James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef).  The other four New York area honorees include, Angela Pinkerton, from 11 Madison Park (2011 James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef), Marc Aumont from The Modern, Damien Herrgott from Boise Tea Parlour and Sandro Micheli from Daniel.

“With more and more remarkable talent filling the ranks of dessert professionals, being recognized as one of best has gained a new level of prestige,” notes editor Matthew Stevens.

Congratulations to all the honorees!  A complete list is here:

• Nathaniel Reid – Norman Love Confections, Naples FL
• Damien Herrgott – Bosie Tea Parlor, NYC
• Jean-Marie Auboine - Jean-Marie Auboine Chocolatier, Las Vegas, NV
• Chris Hanmer - The School of Pastry Design, Las Vegas, NV
• Sally Camacho - WP24, Los Angeles, CA
• Craig Harzewski - Naha, Chicago, IL
• Sandro Micheli - Daniel, NYC
• Marc Aumont - The Modern, NYC
• Christina Tosi - Momofuku Milk Bar, NYC
• Angela Pinkerton - Eleven Madison Park, NYC

• Hall Of Fame honoree  Marcel Desaulniers, Director Emeritus of the famed Culinary Institute of America, award-winning cookbook author, former chef/co-owner of Trellis restaurant in Williamsburg, VA, and current co-owner of MAD about Chocolate.

Full Coverage of past Top 10 events can be found here: 2011, 2010.  Follow DessertBuzz on Twitter for all your NYC Pastry news.  The Dessert Professional website is here.

The sculpture like mint chocolate rocks on a bed of pistachio

No matter how many dessert tastings I attend I’m always amazed at how creative great pasty chefs can be.  Despite the hundreds of  restaurants in New York and the thousands of made-to-order plated desserts they offer, top chefs always seem to be able to bring something new to the table–something I’ve never seen before. And remember, I eat a lot of desserts.

Last week I visited SHO Shaun Hergatt where Executive Pastry Chef Jennifer Yee showed her creativity not just in the repertoire of techniques she employed but also in her artful, designed presentations.

Jennifer Yee’s pastry and chocolate resume is impressive.  She has worked for many big name restaurants including Gordon Ramsay at The Connaught, Gilt and Aureole.  And in addition to her Patisserie diploma from London’s Le Cordon Bleu she has a Fine Arts degree in Interior Architecture  (a link to her full bio is below).

After a few amuse plates that included foie gras spheres with squid ink, cherry pate de fruit, and an absolutely superb fish course befitting a two-Michelin-starred restaurant, we were ready to get down to business with the first of the desserts.

Cherry pate de fruit amuse

Chilled rhubarb consomme, petits pois ice cream, Greek yogurt

The desserts loosely followed a spring theme and the first course was a light, refreshing consumme that utilized rhubarb which is in season right now.  This dish was memorable because of all the small details.  In addition to petit pea flavored ice cream, which is an unusual but great low-sweetness choice, there was a garnish of candied peas made from fresh peas that were blanched, then covered with syrup.  Small discs of of crystallized mint made the dish even more refreshing than it already was.

This dish reminded me of Antoio Bachour’s rhubarb soup from a few years ago.  Antonio and Jennifer recently battled in the second annual StarChefs pastry competition in New York.

Chilled rhubarb consomme being poured over petits pois ice cream, Greek yogurt

The rhubarb consomme is poured at the table.

Detail of chilled rhubarb consomme showing the mint discs

Ricotta cremeux, carrot ginger cake, verjus

Ms. Lee called this dessert her play on a classic carrot layer cake.  This is one of those desserts where you have to use care to get as many components as possible onto your spoon in order to enjoy all the matching acid and sweet flavor combinations.  The sweet cremeux surrounds pieces of moist cake, bright orange carrot sauce, and salty walnut rubble. The verjus (a very acidic juice made by pressing unripe grapes) sorbet adds acidity and “pays homage to the raisins found in many carrot cakes” says Yee.  The verjus sorbet is outstanding–they could offer it as a stand alone sorbet.

Ricotta cremeux carrot ginger cake, verjus

Soft chocolate ganache, basil ice cream, salted caramel

My personal favorite of the plated desserts was the soft chocolate ganache.  The ganache is very dark and very bitter.  The texture of the chocolate is velvety smooth but there’s not a hint of sweetness–it’s all about the great dark chocolate flavor.  The ganache is next to a scoop of basil ice cream that perfectly balances the chocolate.  A small area of salted caramel powder brings a “salty-sweet” aspect to the dish.  There are also a few, individual leaves of fresh micro basil and two tiny pools of basil seeds.  My lunch companions thought the fresh basil seeds made for a very cool presentation–I agreed.  A bit of gold leaf adds to the presentation.

Ms. Yee notes that “A couple drops of extra virgin olive oil (a gift from SHO’s visit to Vila Joya Hotel in Portugal) rest in the upturned basil leaves.”

Soft chocolate ganache basil ice cream, salted caramel

Petit Fours

Prior to this visit I had read that one of Jennifer Yee’s specialties is petit fours so I warned my guests to leave a little room in order to try some.  When the chef delivered the three petit four plates to our table there was a certain swagger in her descriptions.  I think she knew these were going to blow us away–both in presentation and in substance.

I have experienced (or at least I thought I had) unique and special petit fours before.  Recent petit fours plates from two and three Michelin starred restaurants included fresh caneles, flavored marshmallows paired with chocolates and  and ultra-mini macarons.  All were well executed and delicious, but none had anywhere near the beautiful, art-exibit-like presentaion of these. Plus, all three were fun to eat.

Chocolate dipped honeycomb

My favorite of the three were the “Chocolate mint rocks“.

The mint chocolate rocks were the most beautiful plate that came to our table.   I liked this dessert for so many reasons. First and foremost they were beautiful to look at.  On a larger scale it could have be part of an outdoor Japanese rock garden.   One of the payoffs of this dessert is that when you bite into the “rocks” you almost expect it to be hard, well, like a rock.  Instead, you get a soft  exterior layer of dark chocolate.  The mint ganache gave it the feeling of some kind of super-after dinner mint.  More in the chef’s words:

“These rocks have been on our mignardise menu since late last year. We’ve changed the flavor of the ganache from black sesame, to orange, and now to mint. For summer, we’ll change it again. Whatever the ganache, each piece is hand dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in a mixture of 10X and black cocoa powder. The rocks rest on a knoll of ground pistachio.”

Chocolate salami served straight from the butcher

The chocolate dipped honeycomb was so fun to eat and had such great textures and flavors I could have eaten a whole bowl.  Interestingly, the idea for this dessert came from “a hippie commune” in Australia.  Ms. Yee explains:

This is a confection close to Shaun Hergatt’s heart. “Honeycomb” is extremely popular in Australia. The chef has fond childhood memories of visiting a “hippie commune” deep in the woods, where the residents would make and sell huge slabs of the stuff to kids. Our version is on a much smaller scale, and we serve it in our signature shell piece with a piece of real bee’s honeycomb. Guests are encouraged to dip the candy in the puddle of honey or use it to sweeten their tea.

Chocolate salami

Finally, the most fun and whimsical petit four of the afternoon was the chocolate salami, which could be mistaken for a real salami.  Even though the presentation is probably what people remember most, I really liked the taste.  It reminded me of Rocky Road ice cream but instead of all the “stuff” being suspended in ice cream it’s suspended in chocolate ganache.

“Our guests have the most fun with this petit four because it has a sense of humor. The slices of salami are presented on a sheet of crumpled butcher paper next to a large log of salami draped in butcher’s twine. It is a bunch of tasty stuff suspended in ganache: pretzel, homemade marshmallow & sable cookie, amarena cherries, dried cranberries, pistachios.”

The sculpture like mint chocolate rocks on a bed of pistachio

Later when discussing the “fun” aspect to her petit fours Ms. Yee said:

When you’re in a fancy setting [like at SHO Shaun Hergatt], we also want you to be able to have fun too.

On where she gets some of  her ideas:

“[even though I work in fine dining] I’m kind of a hippie myself, I like going to second hand stores and love all the markets in New York City–which are getting much better. (she mentioned having recently been to Hester St. Market and visiting the Macaron Parlour booth) I also order desserts wherever I go.  Even in a casual place I order dessert.

I highly recommend a visit to SHO Shaun Hergatt to try Jennifer Yee’s desserts.  There’s a fantastic 3-course lunch pre fixe or if you just want to go for dessert there are plenty of seats in the bar area and lounge.  Whichever option you choose make sure you don’t miss what are without a doubt,  the best petit fours in New York City.

Sho Shaun Hergatt is located on 40 Broad Street (2nd Floor).  Jennifer Yee’s website is here.   Jennifer Yee’s full bio is  here.  Follow DessertBuzz on Twitter to stay up-to-date on all the latest desserts in New York City.

Taste of the Upper West Side will feature many DessertBuzz Favorites

Dovetail's pain perdu dessert

Don’t miss the fifth annual Whole Foods Market new Taste of the Upper West Side featuring many DessertBuzz Favorites such as Dovetail, Sarabeth’s, Momofuku Milk Bark and A Voce.

Christina Tosi's deep fried poached egg

Check out the lineup for the opening event on Wednesday, May 16^th – Vegetables at Dovetail: A  five-course vegetarian tasting dinner by an all-star group of chefs, led by John Fraser, Dovetail; Missy Robbins, A Voce; Ed Brown, Ed’s Chowder House; and Christina Tosi, Momofuku Milk Bar.  All net proceeds from this event will benefit the Greenhouse Classroom, a project at the I.S. 44 School, where the New Taste of the Upper West Side is held.

Sarabeth's "chubby" cookie

On Friday May 18^th is the return Comfort Classics, co-hosted once again by Travel Channel’s Adam Richman and joined by  fellow Travel Channel extreme foodie and new co-host, Andrew Zimmern. The food consists of original bites inspired by classic dishes from 35 chefs including Ditch Plains’ Marc Murphy, Sarabeth’s Sarabeth Levine and many more.

Jaques Torres holiday truffles

Saturday night, May 19th is the Best of the West and the VIP Reception, honoring New York’s legendary food critic, Gael Greene. The evening will feature such world renowned chefs as Daniel Boulud, Jacques Torres, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, alongside 40 more celebrated talents from the Upper West Side, creating signature dishes and spectacular bites.

Brussel sprouts from Jean Georges

For more information and to purchase tickets go here.  For more coverage of the Dessertbuzz favorites featured here see the links below:

Dovetail

Sarabeth’s

Jean Georges

Momofuku Milk Bar

Jacques Torres

Follow DessertBuzz on Twitter.

"Wancko" cookie - peanut butter chocolate chip and pretzel chunks

Madison Square Eats returns to Flatiron today and many of the same sweet vendors are back.  Here’s what we wrote last fall.  Info, location and more links down  the page.

Of all the gatherings of “gourmet” food carts and street food vendors in Manhattan I think Madison Square Eats has the highest percentage of great vendors.  On the savory side,  there are too many to mention them all.  Here’s a select few: Calexico Cart, Asia Dog, and Roberta’s (real wood oven) pizzas.  On the sweet side there’s plenty of standouts as well.  Some of my favorite picks are featured below.

Macaron Parlour - candied bacon and maple cream cheese

New to Madison Square Eats is the Macaron Parlour.  I recommend their candied bacon and maple cream cheese macaron.  Alternatively, if you’re staying with the chocolate flavors (and why not?), you can get their S’mores macaron (both are $2.00).

Robicelli's pumpkin pie cupcake with vanilla buttercream and crushed pate brisee

Robiclli’s (not attending the spring fair) was also there with what some think are the best cupcakes in New York City.  You can read more about Robicelli’s on Blondie and Brownie or on Serious Eats where Robicelli’s won the 2010 People’s Choice award for best cupcake ($3.00).

A delicious Nutella Macaron from the Macaron Parlour

I almost forgot Wafels and Dinges (Not attending this Spring)-winners of the Vendy Award “sweet” category and general NYC favorite.  Insider hint: follow their twitter for daily free items in exchange for doing or saying something silly.

Wancko cookie from Sigmund Pretzel Shop in the East Village

The Sigmund Pretzel Shop normally operates out of their Lower East Side store on Ave B between 2nd and 3rd St.  They offer mostly savory pretzels like sesame, feta-olive and cheese and herb (all $3.00) but they also have a monster-sized, pretzel-based-cookie called the Wancko. It contains peanut butter, large pretzel bits and chocolate chunks.  It’s $3.00 but since it’s so huge you could easily split it two or more ways.

Nunu frozen or hot, hot chocolate - one of the City's best.

NuNu chocolates has a bricks and mortar store on 529 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and sells their chocolates in over a dozen location in NYC, but for one more week you can enjoy one of the best hot chocolates in New York City (really) at Madison Square Eats for $5.00.  It’s a little sweeter than Jacques Torres or City Bakery.

Pistachio cannoli from Artisan Stuffed Cannoli on Stanton St.

If you’re like me and you like cannolis but think they are often too sweet–do yourself a favor and try three of the Cannolis from Stuffed Artisan Cannoli for $5.00.  Make sure you include a pistachio and salted dipped-chocolate flavor.  You’ll become an instant convert to these not-too-sweet, ricotta-filled desserts.  Dessertbuzz recently visited Artisan Stuffed Cannolis at their shop on 176 Stanton Street.

For additional coverage check out Blondie and Brownie and Midtown Lunch.

Madison Square Eats is open from 11:00 a.m.- 9:00 p.m. every night until June 1.  The market is centered in Worth Square on the west side of Madison Square Park between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and 24^th and 25^th Streets.

Old fashion pretzel rod with toasted walnuts

When I visit the Hester Street Fair I always try to stop by Roni-Sue’s Chocolates in the Essex Street Market.  This past Saturday I picked up two kinds of delicious chocolate covered pretzels rods and a few truffles.

Pretzel rods cooling off after their chocolate dip

The pretzel rods come in two varieties, chocolate dipped with toasted walnuts or  with chile spiked peanuts.  Both use fair-trade chocolate and both are made fresh right in front of you by owner Rhonda Kave.  Try at least one of each–you won’t be sorry.  $2.00 each or three for $5.00

Two different truffles

As for the truffles, you should review the flavors and then go with your gut about the flavor you would like most.  I prefer the pretzel and beer truffle because it has a great salty-sweet thing going.  $2.50 each.

Don’t forget to check out Roni-Sue’s chocolates and other items at select Dean & Deluca stores.

Roni-Sue’s is located in the Essex Street Market at 120 Essex Street.  Their website is here.  Follow DessertBuzz on Twitter.

S'amore made-to-order almond salted dark chocolate s'more

The Hester Street Market opened their season to huge crowds on Saturday and the food stalls seemed to be the biggest draw. There were plenty of all-new savory and sweet vendors in attendance so I brought a civilian accomplice in order try as much as possible.  Here are a few of the vendors I visited.

Lemon basil macaron from Macaron Parlour

Question: How do you differentiate yourself at a crowded street fair among lots of other ambitious and creative sweet vendors?  Answer: Use live blow torches in front of the crowds!  And sell a made-to-order comfort dessert that almost everyone is familiar with.  S’amore (new to Hester Street Fair this year) sells s’mores.  They offer a number of different flavors and styles–all made-to-order.  We tried the “Tom”. It features salted graham cracker, almond marshmallow and dark chocolate.  S’amore could have offered plain s’mores without any special flavor combinations and they probably still would have been popular.  However, they  really elevated the standard s’more with their special flavors. In particular, I was impressed with how good the flavored marshmallows and grahams were. One of the better values of the fair at $3.50 each.  S’Amore’s website is here.

Inside the Prohibition Bakery cooler

Prohibition Bakery figured out a way to enter NYC’s already crowded artisanal cupcake market–make really good cupcakes and put alcohol in them!  Every flavor is a take on a well-know mixed drink or alcoholic beverage.  I was able to try all four of the flavors they brought to the fair–my favorite was the beer and pretzel although I also really liked the Irish Car bomb.  Like  S’more, Prohibition Bakery didn’t just try and ride their idea as a selling-gimmick.  Clearly, their took the quality of their cupcakes seriously.  All four that I tried were moist, not overly sweet and tasted like the drink they were modeled after.  Highly recommended.  $2.00 each or three for $5.00.

The Prohibition Bakery website is here.

Irish Car bomb from Prohibition Bakery

Artists are know to improve over the course of their careers even if they start out at a “prodigy” level.  I assume the same is true for bakers or pastry chefs.  I have always liked Macaron Parlour Macarons–but I felt like the macarons I had on Saturday were even more refined than usual.  The texture of their shells and the freshness was as good as any macarons I’ve had in NYC this year.  I tried a new flavor on Saturday: lemon basil.  It was much less sweet than your standard macaron.  They offer a huge variety of flavors so I recommend trying a few. $2.50 Each.  Visit the Macaron Parlour website here.  Look for their bricks and mortar store opening on St. Mark’s Place this summer.

The four offerings from the Prohibition Bakery

Beer and Pretzels cupcake

FattyCakes sells cookies that are 100% out-of-the-box-unique.  I feel like they took the idea of Milk Bar’s Compost Cookie or Chikalicious Dessert Club’s Situation cookie and brought it to a whole other level completely.  I tried one of their simplier cookies, the Dark and Stormy–a ginger cookie made with real rum.  It was like a cross between a giant cookie-based macaron and a whoopie pie.  It was excellent.  Other flavors on hand: peanut butter cookie with mini-peanut butter cups and oatmeal; Drunken Piglet–maple cookie in bourbon bacon brittle, beer caramel, maple brown sugar sea salt (whew!). $2.50-3.00 with discounts for ordering three or more.  See their website for all their flavors (cookies with Swedish fish anyone?)

The FattyCakes website is here.

Dark and Stormy cookie from FattycakesNY

One of the biggest crowds at the fair was in front of Melt Bakery’s booth.  They were selling 4 different flavors of their specialty  ice cream sandwiches and it looked like about half the attendees were walking around the fair while eating one. Could 1000 New Yorkers be wrong?  No.  $5.00 each. Serious Easts has a great feature on Melt and their founder here.   The Melt Website is here.

The LoveLet from Melt bakery - red velvet cookie and cream cheese flavored ice cream

The Hester Street fair takes place on Saturdays.  For more info on the Hester Street Fair visit their website or their Facebook page.