New York is my favorite city in the world, so instead of jetting around in public transportation or taxis, I like to walk around so that I can immediately explore anything that looks interesting. I loosely base my routes around bakeries and stores that I want to check out. When I have a whole day off, I actually like aiming for places that are far away from each other, b/c it gives me exercise and a chance for my palate and stomach to relax between tastings.

So, today, as I often do, I started off with a cupcake in mind…

Buttercup Bake Shop, at 2nd Ave & 51 St. Cupcakes are everywhere in NY, and I’m determined to track down the best one. I don’t have a “control cupcake” — it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s vanilla cake/icing or chocolate cake/icing because I theoretically like all those combinations. I just want a delicious, moist cake with flavorful icing (with conf sugar buttercream — not Italian, Swiss, or French buttercream, b/c I just don’t like ‘em). The most common letdown is a dry cake… like this one, unfortunately. The icing didn’t taste very chocolate-y, either, so the whole result was pretty bland. Too bad. My cupcake search continues.

Banana Pudding. I have a sentimental spot for banana pudding — the Magnolia Bakery version was my big discovery of 1999, and I made it countless times after I moved back to Chicago for college (it was probably the first and only dessert that I made for years); it now also reminds me of the entremet cake that I made in culinary school.

Buttercup is owned by an ex-partner of Magnolia, so it made sense that this was here. This version was very thick — the pudding component itself, but it was also packed with Nilla Wafers and banana slices. Texturally, it was too much for me, like a traffic jam in a cup. I wished that the pudding was a little fluffier and that it had more room to breathe amongst the cookies and bananas. The flavor was nice, though (infused with banana, with hints of sweetened condensed milk and vanilla).

Then, on to Fauchon, at Park & 57th St, whose hot pinkness can be seen from blocks away. They only had a few pastries out at about 10:45, so I got these two petit fours and walked to the plaza in front of FAO Schwartz, at 5th Ave & 58th St, to eat them.

The Pistachio Eclair was pretty bland (tasted of… sugar) and oddly dry yet chewy. Maybe it was old.

The Key Lime Tart had an initial creamy flash of lime that dissipated into an eggy taste; the lime almost, but never quite took off. I think that the construction is really interesting, though — it looked like that sphere was formed by joining two hemispheres of molded curd. I think it would have been even better if it had been on a crust that really showed off its roundness, rather than this slightly larger round one — the curd was off-centered and looked like it was in baggy clothes when it should have been svelte. It would be good to try to smooth the seam a little more, too.

I’ve had these caramels before, and they’re rich, chewy, and flavorful; I could only wish that they included their salted caramels in the box, too. I didn’t have any today, though, b/c yes, Chad, they’re for you.

Then through Central Park and this gazebo to get to the southwest corner of the park…

And to Bouchon Bakery in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. I’ve been there a couple times and will write a full post about it later, but here’s a grape tart that I had there today as a preview…

And then I walked up the Upper West Side on Broadway. I wandered around Fairway, at 74th St, a bustling gourmet grocery market with an especially fabulous outdoor produce display.

Then I happened upon Beard Papa Sweets Cafe, at 76th St, which I vaguely remembered reading about — there are a few of these Japanese chain stores around NY and they’re known for their cream puffs, so I got an Earl Grey Milk Tea one (the other choice was vanilla)…

Light and crispy (very admirable on such a humid day as today), with a smooth pastry cream inside that not only had a balanced sweet Earl Grey flavor, but also had a hint of a lemon tang. And it’s just me, but I don’t like the way that conf sugar and choux pastry taste together, though, so that was my only issue with this.

And then found myself in front of H & H Bagels, and got a just-perfectly-chewy sesame bagel, which was the closest thing that I had to a lunch…

And then to the wonderful Zabar’s. After browsing the grocery section, I spent a lot of time upstairs, inspecting and collecting baking paraphernalia, like tart tins, a food mill, magi-cake strips, silicone cake pan liners, a triple sifter, and some miscellaneous, which I squeezed into my backpack before pointing myself back downtown.

I noticed Ottomanelli Bros, at Amsterdam & 78th St, and was excited b/c I was at a dinner party last night where I was served an amazing New York strip steak from Ottomanelli. But I’ve since found out that that steak came from Ottomanelli Brothers at York & 82nd St. There’s also an Ottomanelli Meat Market in the West Village. I can’t tell if they’re related.

And then I just walked a lot — down to NY Cake & Baking Distribution, at 26th St & 5th Ave. They have everything that people who enjoy decorating cakes would need, and I was interested to see that they have gelatin sheets, acetate, and glucose for sale.

And then into the 18 miles of books lining the shelves of The Strand, at Broadway & 12th St. A while later, I came outside with Cakes by Maida Heatter and The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion — b/c soon I’ll be back in Napa and eager to bake on my own.
Then I read for a while before dinner at Sapa, at 6th Ave & 24th St. I got a ride home, and I admit that was fine with me at that point. I’ll post about the actual meal later.

My plan for E. Dehillerin was to get little tart tins and such, knowing that I wouldn’t want to lug around heavy or huge kitchen supplies for the rest of my trip. I thought that my biggest concession would be the rolling pin, because of its size, but I bought it because I’ll use it the most and so will think about the trip France often.

This kitchen supply store has been open since 1820, and I generally liked how it hasn’t done much since to change the way that it’s run. The aisles are narrow and high, the shelves are overflowing with enticing cooking implements, purchasing things involves having them tallied up by a salesperson who gives the order sheet to the cashier (who does use a computer to print out a thorough receipt… allow a lot of time for this whole process), and your things are wrapped up tightly in newspaper and tape.

Oh, and the prices are listed in a catalogue organized by a code number system at the front of store, not on the things themselves. Otherwise, the labels on the products are very thorough about what they are made of and their size, and I didn’t feel too stupid only getting about 4 of everything because I knew I could see if I liked/used them, and then could track down more if desired.

By the way, aren’t these mini-loaf tins nice?

Like, really nice?

That’s good. Because I happened to get eight of them, and so paid $70. A salesperson had warned me early on that those mini cookie cutters were expensive — and at $7 each, they were — so I only got two of them. On a whim, since they looked nice and since I’d put back some bigger items, I threw a few more mini-loaf tins onto my pile, for a total of 4 each. It wasn’t until I got the receipt that I saw how much they were… And how cheap the little tart tins were — less than $2 each — and thought about how I make tarts way more than quickbreads, but… that. is. okay.

The one on the left is tin-plated and the one on the right is blue steel. They seem like terrific quality, and I’m sure that I’ll one day find excellent and amazing uses for them. I know I will because every single time I make something at home now, I ask myself, “How would it look as a mini-loaf?”

My pastry tasting in Paris was kicked off at La Grande Epicerie at Le Bon Marche, the utterly gorgeous food hall of the oldest department store in Paris. It just happened to be a short walk from our apartment. When I walked in, I felt like I was in a glorious French version the food hall in Harrods; it even had similar immaculate glistening seafood “pastries” on display… and of course, everything else… endless counters of fresh food of every sort, and then aisles of packaged food and confections from around the world. I finally made my way to the pastry counter…

First of all, credit must be given to my brother who immediately got into the spirit of pastry tastings by ordering three of each kind of macaron that they had. Credit also goes to the counterperson who sensed his excitement and proudly told him that she was able to fit two more macarons into the side of the box. The vanilla and lemon were especially good. The macarons had a slight chewiness where the cookies met the filling, but the flavors were well-pitched.

Chad gets credit for discovering chouquettes. Attracted by the vivid colors and creative shapes of their pastries, I passed over them until Chad suggested trying these brown little mottled balls. Once again he showed off his ordering prowess — they turned out to be one of my favorite new discoveries. They are simply choux pastry dotted with a certain kind of sugar, but I think that their economy belies more complex interplays of flavor and texture — the crispy-on-the-outside pastry matched by the crispy sugar… the dots of sugar deepened by the caramelization on the pastry… the crispy outside of the pastry giving way to the softer wall inside and finally the pocket of air inside until you reach the other layers at the end of the bite…

They’re simple, but not foolproof. The pastry must be very thin. I had a chouquette from another bakery that had a thicker layer of choux pastry so that there was barely an air pocket inside, and it was boring, bordering on the very bad — just chewy and sweet, like an anemic cream puff. I swear that I heard a chouquette from La Grande Epicerie exhale when I bit into it. That’s good.

They reminded me of the gougeres that started off my meal at French Laundry… These might be a nice way to start off dessert…

On the other hand, this navette was pretty boring. A sweet, flaky roll… slightly like a breadier croissant. Maybe it’d be good with a fruit or chocolate soup…?

I like how this Napoleon is crafted vertically, with that clip of puff pastry and chocolate on the bottom to support it all. This also made it mobile, for eating out of hand. It also tasted great.

The cannele was too eggy and moist, on the inside and outside.

For what must have been a very special reason, I passed up the stunning chocolate tarts and cream-based tarts for these modest fruit tarts. They were nice enough, but I didn’t like the pasty sort of apple puree that was mixed in with the apple bits in the apple tart and the cherry tart was a little too chock full of dried cherries and their skins, even if they weren’t all that chewy anymore. The chocolate eclair was quite nice.

This was a great tart, with a chocolate ganache base below the coffee.

A doughnut pretzel.

Red Currants were widely available in Paris. I miss them now.

Raspberry juice is good.

However much I love cookies, they’re easily equated with drudgery in the food prep world.  A large batch of batter can be made and a few may be baked off right away, but it’s awfully convenient to enlist a person, arm her with an ice cream scoop, and instruct her to scoop the batter into little mounds in interminable rows onto baking sheets.  They can then be frozen and baked fresh as needed, but the beauty of the individual cookie is easily lost in the process.

So, I was happy to find Isabella’s Cookies at Cooke’s Market in El Segundo, Los Angeles, which has rejuvenated my jaded cookie sensibility.  These are cookies are sold in markets across LA.  My favorite so far is the Muffy Cookie. It had white chocolate, blueberries, and milk chocolate covered blueberries, and it has the uncanny taste of a blueberry muffin.  The dough part seems to have a little less brown sugar than the dough of a chocolate chip cookie, and I think that the particular sweetness of the white chocolate somehow helps to evoke the muffin flavor.

The Twister is another good one — chocolate toffee pieces with chunks of milk chocolate.  I’m looking forward to getting my hands on their CranApple Fritter Cookie, with oatmeal, apples, cranberries, white chocolate chips, and cinnamon.

Isabella’s Cookies seem like the Ben & Jerry’s of the cookie world.  Made out of an eclectic mix of wholesome ingredients (unbleached flour, fresh butter and eggs, no preservatives, no hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup), they’re fun and tasty.  They’re moist and voluminous, but a little less sweet than cookies normally found in supermarkets, so they taste like real food… and are very addictive.  They also make me want to play around with doughs and flavorings of cookies more…

I don’t think that winter is a good time to visit Kozlowski Farms in Forestville, which is north of Sebastopol and a mile down the road from Iron Horse. It would be fun to buy fruit there when it’s in season, but when we went, there were jars and jars of jams and sauces and dressings, and a few pastries in the pastry case. Many free samples, which were good, but I wasn’t smitten by anything. Unless I can find something that I absolutely can’t make myself and must have, I’m not so much into those. I considered the Kiwi Jam (which wasn’t offered as a sample that day), but in the end, I just walked away. If you’re into bottled stuff, though, this is your paradise.