Fruit in the middle at Blue Sky Bakery

I've walked by Blue Sky Bakery on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope countless times. I knew—from one sole experience years ago as well as sporadic press over time—that their muffins are stuff of legend. But every time I walked by, the bakery was already closed for the day. Yesterday was my lucky day.

The muffins look impressive. And the flavors make it hard to choose. This one, a cranberry-strawberry muffin, was still a bit warm from the oven.

But that nice touch had nothing on the fruit inside.

It just kept erupting with fresh berries.  Such delicious artistry!

Of course I had to try more than just one. So we got a pumpkin banana chocolate chip.

You heard me. 

Pumpkin banana chocolate chip, the chips still a bit melty. It was another beautiful specimen, another reason to go back and try the other muffins on future Sundays.
Blue Sky Bakery
53 Fifth Avenue, Park Slope

Banana cream tart at Tartine Bakery

Flaky pastry coated in dark chocolate and caramel, sweet pastry cream, and sheafs of dark chocolate.

Can you stand it?

Breakfast Decisions at Tartine Bakery

Banana cream pie for breakfast?? Even I know better than that.

But a million-layered croissant? They look wonderfully, seductively as good as Christophe Vasseur's croissants at Du Pain et des Idées, after all.

Or, even better, a pain au chocolat, speared with two batonettes of Valrhona goodness. Tempting, bien sur.

But ever the creature of habit...

... from all the beautiful temptations at San Francisco's Tartine Bakery, both savory and sweet...

I chose...

bread pudding.

Next time I go, I'm hoping the tart berries will be replaced with something decadent like chocolate and bananas.

Pancake month at Clinton Street Baking Company

Ten years later, I finally see what all the fuss is about. I’ve tried going to this homey restaurant for their famous pancakes a few times but I always refuse to stand in line.

But being as it is Pancake Month, and having chose to meet there for Breakfast Club on the day crunchy banana with cinnamon-chili-chocolate sauce pancakes were being served, Bennie and I sucked it up. We waited in line.

Thank god.

Yes, the special crunchy banana (read: fried banana) pancakes were divine. Especially with the cinnamon-chili-chocolate sauce.

But the good old pancakes with wild Maine blueberries were out of this world.

Light and fluffy, moist and buttery. They were perfect.

Mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, uptown at Sprinkles...

Having gone to Georgetown Cupcake on the very day it opened made me feel a little guilty. Not for my insatiability or gluttony, but because Sprinkles, a Los Angeles import, has been in New York for nine months and I had never gone. So, seeing as I was in the neighborhood (Upper East Side, kitty corner to Bloomies), I did my due diligence.

In many ways Sprinkles and Georgetown Cupcake are similar: scads of amazing flavors, beautifully decorated cupcakes, and lines of people waiting to eat them up.


And since I tried two flavors at Georgetown Cupcake, I felt it my duty to indulge in two cupcakes at Sprinkles. As always, it was a tortuous decision.





Did I want Madagascar bourbon vanilla cake copped with a fudgy milk chocolate cream cheese frosting? (Why, yes, I did…)

Or, Belgian chocolate cake, studded with chocolate chips and topped with luscious raspberry frosting? Impossible to decide, I tell you.

So I went with two of my favorite flavor combos: peanut butter and chocolate, and banana and chocolate.


Delicious.

The peanut butter cake batter—dense, moist, yum—had nice rich chocolate chips buried inside and was frosted with a fudgy milk chocolate cream cheese frosting and covered in sprinkles (which, truth be told, I’m not such a fan of).


In a twist on a good old banana cupcake with cream cheese frosting, I got the one with the bittersweet chocolate frosting.


It’s too soon to choose between Georgetown Cupcake and Sprinkles. All my cupcakes were heavenly. So now I have to do further recon. Perhaps a Smackdown. It's vital that we find which imported cupcakery is worthy of Manhattan standards....

20th Annual Hot Chocolate Festival

I missed meeting Bennie for a cup of banana peel hot cocoa yesterday. But I got to City Bakery’s Hot Chocolate Festival kickoff Wednesday morning—the 20th anniversary, no less—and indulged in sunken treasure hot cocoa—little extra bits of sweetness and chocolate at the bottom of your cup (miam).

No surprise, it was rich and decadent and the perfect way to start my day (and have you ever tried dipping a banana into your cocoa? Breakfast of champions, I tell you).

Here are my top five flavor picks for the remainder of the month:

• Bourbon hot chocolate (Friday the 10th)
• Caramel hot chocolate (Saturday the 11th)
• On a peanut butter barge hot chocolate (Saturday the 18th)
• Ode to the polar bear hot chocolate (Wednesday the 22nd)
• Chinese cinnamon hot chocolate (Saturday the 25th)

Find the full flavor roster and pick your favorites, here.

Dessert tasting with Johnny Iuzzini

It’s not every day you’re invited to a dessert tasting. Much less a gum tasting. So when the folks from Extra gum invited me to test-sample three new flavors—root beer float, lemon square and bananas foster—I opened wide.

For it wasn’t just chewing some gum that was on the menu. Johnny Iuzzini was too.

And before sticking a new flavor of gum in our mouths, we sampled the actual desserts that inspired them.




The idea is to pick a favorite of the three, and the winning flavor goes to market. You can weigh in by going to their Facebook page.

Their whole line of Dessert Delights launched last year. Already on the menu are strawberry shortcake, mint chocolate chip, apple pie, orange crème popand key lime pie. And, yes, we got to sample those inspiring desserts, too.

So. Eight desserts in one afternoon.

My personal favorites? Well, I wouldn’t want to sway the voting. But anything with bananas gets my vote.