CookieBar!

I had hoped that the pop-up store fad hadn't completely passed me by and, with the second coming of Dorie Greenspan's CookieBar, I can finally get in on this trend! She and son Joshua, aka "The Kid" will be setting up shop at 505 Park Avenue on February 7th until the 11th from 10am to sold out. They are featuring some standards like chocolate World Peace Cookies and Sarabeth-inspired Jammers, which are sables smothered in Sarabeth's heavenly jam and streusel (full menu here). Dorie has been such an inspiration for me as a home baker so, yes, I will be throwing elbows and plucking eyes out for one of the Strawberry-Raspberry Jammers. Be there, but do not test my fanaticism!

Sweet Revenge

Picture by Jessica, not the internet. 

On our first bakery tour, over the summer, my sisters and I only made it to one of the five we'd picked out, but we clearly chose the right one in Sweet Revenge. Truth be told, we went there first because the name sounded good and the website was pretty. But look at that picture! Frosty lemonade and gorgeous cupcakes! Pictured are the Dirty (chocolate), the Pure (vanilla), and the Crimson & Cream (red velvet). I think, by these three basic flavors, you can tell the quality of any bakery. If you can't get those right, what's the point? These were delicious, flavorful and moist. Excellent ingredients and simple, clean baking. Just perfect.

Bakery Tour: NYC Winter 2010

The shiniest holiday cheer.

Normally, I spend my days off sleeping and shuffling around like a zombie, but today I went to New York. Yes, there are museums and parks and all that good stuff, but I came to eat. Planning a bakery excursion is like Halloween for a semi-adult such as myself. The run-down:

Featured (Clockwise): Raspberry Bomboloncini and Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie (Levain), Hazelnut Choc-o-Lait Sticks and Dolfin Chocolate Assortment (Chelsea Market Basket), Oatmeal Raisin Cookie (Sarabeth's Kitchen). Not Featured: Apple Turnover, Chocolate Chip Cookies (Sarabeth's)

Yup, just like Halloween, only I got to keep all my treats and my parents didn't give any of it to childless co-workers. The haul was glorious. I've never heard of "bomboloncini," but according to Levain'swebsite, it's a baked jelly doughnut. Is there a downside. No? No, no. Nom, nom. Yeasted dough is great to work with and once I figure out how to get jam inside it, I'll attempt these bombowhatevers.

Bombomathing.

Apparently, Levain started with a recipe for the perfect chocolate chip cookie and has been using it ever since. Personally, I don't like chocolate chip cookies for the same reason I am picky about cupcakes: too many people think it is about the sugary candy-like part and not the cake part. This cookie is teeming with chocolate chunks (I'm pretty sure they crammed two or three layers of chocolate in mine), but it is so delicious. It has everything I'm looking for when I want something special. So. Delicious. If time and effort gets that, it might be worth it to figure out my own perfect cookie recipe.

And Sarabeth's, where have you been all my life (aside from the jars of preserves I seem to have been using in my rugelach for the past 4 months)? I ate everything I bought there within the half hour and not just because I like eating. I'll leave it at that, except if anyone wants to get me the book "From My Hands to Yours," I could get behind that.

The chocolate I have yet to sample, but I've had everything else on the table and then some, including a falafel  from Chelsea Market, so cut me some slack.