Paulette Macarons

These are so pretty! Sarah found this place, right near our house. I've always loved French Macarons, but have never seen a whole store dedicated to them.




This was great, there are so many flavors, and interesting ones I've never seen in a macaron before! They had the typical Raspberry, Chocolate, Lemon, Coconut, as well as new flavors like Praline, Earl Grey, Columbian Coffee, Pumpkin and Passion Fruit!




I tried the praline and the passionfruit. They were both amazing. The first thing I noticed about them is that they were so soft, which I loved because I feel like sometimes macaroons can be hard and dry, which mutes the flavor. These were so flavorful, especially the passion fruit. I am obsessed with the this one - it was unreal! So juicy and sweet. I even loved it more than the praline, which says a lot, because praline aka Nutella is my favorite thing in the world.


Although they are kind of pricey, they are really great, and pretty unique. This would make a great gift, and the gift boxes are very cute! Here's her website, check it: Paulette Macarons

Cupcake Stop

It's funny how many food trucks there now. When I saw this one in NY with cupcakes, and mini cupcakes, I had to try!
I saw they had Funfetti, my favorite flavor, so I got that one. It was not that impressive...but really cute. It tasted like a grocery store cupcake, which isn't bad, but nothing special. A friend tried other flavors, such as PB&J and said that was good, so I'll have to go back and try more.


The good thing about the mini's here was that they were cheap, $1 each, which beats Baked by Melissa's expensive prices (but Melissa is so much better!) Here are all the flavors: Cupcake Stop

Insomnia Cookies

Insomnia Cookies is a place I've heard about forever from my friends during college, because it's a cookie place in NYC (as well as on other college campuses) that has freshly baked cookies late at night, and will deliver. At the end of the night, around 2am we walked over and I finally got to try some! They were good, I wouldn't turn one down... but they were not what I expected. They were a little hard, and not warm. Granted I got there at a time where they were not fresh out of the oven, but still, too much hype. I do, however, love the concept of late night cookies. If we had this at Pitzer, it would have been trouble.

I tried the double chocolate and the peanut butter. Out of the two, the peanut butter was better, much more flavor, and softer! I'll have to try it again when they are hot out of the oven. Here's how you can order: Insomnia Cookies

Holey Moses

Hoely Moses is the cheesecake I grew up with. It's made in a tiny bakery at the Gabreski Airport in Westhampton, and it is so good! They have a bunch of flavors, and we've tried others, like the Oreo or the Snickers, but honestly the plain Original is the best. I like it because the cheese part is light and fluffy, and the graham cracker bottom is also soft and not overwhelming.

This year we also tried one of their pies, a blueberry one. Generally, I dont love pies. Something about warm fruit kind of grosses me out, especially with apples or pears. I also don't like the fruit to crust ratio... I usually end up scooping out some of the inside. However, if I have some ice cream with the pie, the hot fruit insides (not apples and pears though) is really good with it, and therefore is allowed to stay.


You can see more Holy Moses options here!

Park Avenue Autumn

YUM. My Dad took me out to dinner the night before Thanksgiving to Park Avenue Café - which changes it's name, decor and menu with the seasons. For Autumn, they have a very festive menu, and when I say we ordered everything... it's not a joke. The food was so good I almost considered photographing my meal for this post, but I didn't come up for air while I was eating, and therefore did not take pictures. I could go on and on about all the plates we ordered, but I'll stick to dessert.

We ordered The Chocolate Cube, their signature dessert. It was really good. The hard dark chocolate shell surrounded a fluffy milk chocolate mousse that was flavored with various spices. The chocolate sorbet that it was served with was delicious, very rich and creamy.



Like true Jewish New Yorkers we also ordered the Creme Fraiche Cheesecake with Warm Figs and Red Wine Fig Sorbet. This cheesecake was no Carnegie's but was so good! It was also served with little crepe popsicles that were interesting, and fun to eat, because who's had a mini crepe on a stick before? The red wine sorbet was really interesting too, it tasted exactly like red wine, and went well with the cake. My dad got an extra side of Toasted Almost ice cream, because we clearly didn't have enough, and it was surprisingly my favorite of the three ice creams/sorbets we had!



Look here at their menu so you can drool over both the food and desserts. I definitely want to go back here for "Winter".

Cake Monkey

I found this treat at Cabbage Patch, a relatively healthy, organic, restaurant on south Beverly. They have them at the counter, and as they are wrapped in tin foil, it was a gamble to try, but so glad I did! Cake Monkeys come in several flavors, but I've only tried two: The Black and White, and the Peanut Butter Marshmallow (seen below). Both of these mini cakes were amazing, the Black and White was better, and not photographed...but it was like an Oreo cookie, but with soft chocolate cake and layered with fluffy whipped cream with crunchies inside! I'll have to go back and take a pic of it...

The Peanut Butter Marshmallow was really good too, just not as unique. It needed more chocolate! It reminded me of a box cake, or an Entenmann's, which trust me I love, but wasn't as special as the B&W. The peanut butter marshmallo center was really good, and the vanilla cake was great, but together it was a little dry. If the cake was chocolate it would have been perfect! I found the menu online, there are so many more flavors and other pastries to try!!

Check out the Cake Monkey's Website for flavors.

Famous Cupcakes

The Kardashian cupcake store, Famous Cupcakes, opened close to my house, and although I didn't want to give that family any more attention, I couldn't pass up a new cupcake... They have a lot of flavors which was exciting, and they are surprisingly all natural, organic and drumroll....Kosher!! Random. Despite all that, they were pretty good! I tried vanilla on vanilla, chocolate on chocolate, and red velvet - a standard way to test the quality before we get all fancy with flavors.



The vanilla was great, it was pretty dense, and actually tasted like a coffee cake. There was a secret cinnamon flavor to it which was a nice change from standard vanilla.





This dark chocolate, called "Black Tie", was really good. Not as good as La Provence's chocolate ganache, but still delicious. This was definitely my favorite of the three.




The red velvet was pretty good, but no Sprinkles. I felt the frosting was a little too cheesy tasting, but the cake was great. I love when it's a dark rich red...even though color has nothing to do with it's taste...

Vosges Bon Bons

I had to add these because they are so pretty. Think of them as a glorified Reeces...very glorified. I love the peanut butter inside, it was so thick and creamy! My only complaint is that the sea-salt was a little too much for me...I'm not a salty person, clearly.

Vosges Haut-Chocolate

Vosges is a designer chocolate brand that has really taken flavor mixing to a new level. While their chocolate bars can be found in various stores and cafes, I have only seen two full Vosges stores- one in New York, and one in Las Vegas. The stores sell their truffles, bars, hot chocolate, gelato, and specialty items like you cant imagine.


They also have a bar inside that serves God know what kinds of chocolate drinks.


The truffles are the best! They include so many flavors from curry powder to wasabi to bacon to lavender. The bars mimic the flavors of the truffles, but as imagined the flavors are not as strong due to the change of texture.



Vosges has so many different "collections" of truffles, bars and goodies that it's hard to go into detail, but trust me when I say they are worth their elitist pricing. I recommend looking at their website : www.vosgeschocolate.com

Desert Desserts

While in Las Vegas last weekend I came across a few amazing desserts...

TAO -
This is Tao's famous Fortune Cookie which is stuffed with vanilla mousse on one side and chocolate mousse on the other. Its really good, especially the chocolate side! The vanilla side was good, similar to a whipped cream, but pretty bland. The chocolate mousse was very dense and flavorful. The cookie itself was great too, not like a stale Chinese food one. It was crispy and tasty as it was dipped in dark chocolate with white chocolate sprinkles. Best part: sleezy fortunes inside for everyone!


BELLAGIO BUFFET -
I could not believe that this spread of desserts was available for breakfast! Although I don't usually crave sweets in the morning, I had to try some of these because they looked too good to miss, and since they were all in such small portions, I had to try a few....






My favorite was the Chocolate Pie. It was amazing! It reminded me of this chocolate fudge cake Pitzer cafeteria would serve, and I would binge eat. It was very dense had a rich dark chocolate flavor. It kind of tasted like eating frosting out of the container...but really really good frosting.

Joan's on Third

Joan's is a staple spot for good food and baked goods. They were looking particualrly festive this week in preparation for Halloween with fall flavored goodies. I took my cousin there for brunch and we had to get dessert, even though it was 11am. There was so much to choose from!






I got the Peanut Butter Cupcake. Clearly the right choice. I love when cupcakes, or cake, or anything has real peanut butter smeared inside. It was so delicious!




Brittany got the Chocolate Macaroon, one of her favorite desserts.

Sprinkles Cupcakes

I think Sprinkles cupcakes are great - but they are totally overrated! I really don't understand the lines down the block...but what kind of dessert blog would this be without mentioning them. I feel like they are the LA version of NY's Magnolia cupcakes. I think Sprinkles is way better than Magnolia, but I still like Crumbs best of all.


I think it's safe to say that Red Velvet is their most popular flavor, so I had to get one to review. It really is a good one, very moist cake with very sweet cream cheese icing. It may be my favorite Red Velvet cupcake (although that's not saying much because it's not my flavor of choice).


Clearly I would need a chocolate flavor to wash down that Red Velvet, so I got the Double Dark Chocolate cupcake. Its really great. Just what you would imagine, rich and chocolatey. For chocolate lovers, this is a must.
I actually really love their plain vanilla flavor too! Its very basic but rich in taste. It almost reminds me of a muffin!