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The Dough-Eyed Girl

~ There's no metaphysics on Earth like dessert.

The Dough-Eyed Girl

Monthly Archives: January 2013

Dark Chocolate Animal Crackers from The Chocolate Delicacy

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Candy, Cookies

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Animal Crackers, Chocolate, Cookies, East Greenwich, Rhode Island

Inside the BagIt’s not even February, and 2013 has already exhausted me to the quick. As someone who doesn’t particularly put much stock in new year’s resolutions, I seem to have started the year with perhaps too many endeavors. Did I really have to sign up for the New York half marathon this year? Do I really need to take a course on microeconomics on Coursera?

To top it all off, I have been traveling to and from Rhode Island for work on an almost bi-weekly basis. Coincidentally, my Rhode Island destination is a town over from N.’s hometown. Between Christmas and work, I’ve been getting a crash course on life in the Ocean State.

Don’t worry, though; this blog isn’t suddenly going to pick up and move north any time soon. But, if it were, there are certainly some consolations to be had, such as The Chocolate Delicacy, a husband and wife-owned chocolate shop that has been doing business for over twenty years in picturesque, quaint downtown East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

On my last trip, I stopped in and happened across something wonderfully novel and completely addictive: dark chocolate covered animal crackers.

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Chocolate Caramel Cake at Sugar and Plumm

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Cake, Uncategorized

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Cake, Caramel, Chocolate, Manhattan, Upper West Side

Chocolate Caramel CakeI am one of those people who associates cake with occasions: birthdays, weddings, office parties. I am not one of those people who simply eats cake because it’s a Sunday night and why not? However, I have been trying to adopt more of a, “You can become anything you set your heart on,” mentality this year, so if I want to become a cake-anytime person, then, dammit, that’s what I’ll strive to be.

So when I was on the Upper West Side on a Sunday evening, in need of a pick-me-up after sitting through three hours of Lincoln, I thought, “I can be that person! The person who eats cake whenever she wants.” So I marched myself over to Sugar and Plumm, Pichet Ong’s vaunted new bistro/bakery, for the very first time and bought myself a slice of cake.

When superfluously buying oneself cake, moderation should not play a role in the decision-making process. As I suspected (and hoped), the cakes on offer at Sugar and Plumm were decidedly excessive. But which to choose? If all decisions were so difficult, whole nations would crumble due to indecisiveness and neglect.

Eventually, after much deliberation, I chose the chocolate caramel cake.

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Matcha Macaron at Harney & Sons

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Cookies, Uncategorized

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Cookie, Macaron, Manhattan, Matcha, Soho, Tea


Matcha Macaron
When I was studying abroad in Paris waaaay back in 2006, I displayed typical American gustatory behavior and devoured everything in sight in obscene (to a Frenchperson) quantities: pain, vin, fromage, pâté, tartine, jambon. Whatever it was, I ate it, and had seconds. But there was one solitary foodstuff that made the others pale in comparison: the macaron.

Soon, I was on a mission to try all the best macarons Paris had to offer. I went to Pierre Hermé (several times, my favorite), Ladurée (classic, unimpeachable), and anywhere else a French friend had a tip. Sadly, I can’t remember the names of all the places I visited, but photos from that time period show the evidence in my chipmunk-chubby cheeks.

When done right, a macaron is an ethereal, sublime sandwich cookie. The cookie, essentially an almond meringue, should be light and airy and slightly chewy, but with a firm, crunchy shell that crackles at the bite. The filling, whether it is ganache or jam or buttercream, should be smooth yet firm, able to cement the cookie together but not so stiff that it puts up a fight. Large macarons should be approximately three inches in diamtere; small macarons, one inch. The cookie to filling ratio should be such that every bite, even on an edge, should be 60-65% cookie, 35-40% filling (in my humble estimation). When done properly, the effect is a extraordinary, a stunning blend of crispy and velvety textures; pronounced true flavors (the fillings need to shine); the feeling of eating a sweet, crispy cloud.

While on my sampling tour, I had nuanced views of each cookie, all of them solid contenders, but some marginally better than others. It was easy to take for granted the uniformity in quality amongst the board. No place had a subpar macaron; some were simply shades, or swaths, better.

Of course, I did take the Parision macaron for granted, as I promptly learned when I returned to the States. Even in New York City, finding even a respectable macaron was virtually impossible. One boutique had fillings so runny that the top cookie slid off while holding it (and that was at a shop devoted to macarons); another prominent chocolatier offered macarons so small and chalky that they were practically calcified marbles. One pâtissier came close, but the cookie was underfilled. Almost no, city-made macaron escaped unscathed. (The Ladurée macarons are imported from France, cheaters.)

Since my favorite macaron thus far comes from a tea parlor (Bosie, to be exact; stay tuned for that post), I decided to give the Harney & Sons pastry counter a try while I was shopping in Soho for Christmas gifts. I selected a pleasingly green matcha macaron ($3.00) because while in a tea shop, stick to tea flavors, I say.

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Junior Awful Awful at Newport Creamery

02 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Frozen Dessert, Uncategorized

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Chocolate, Milkshake, Mint, Rhode Island

Junior Awful Awful

Apologies for last week. It’s all the Christians’ fault. They took me, a lonesome Jewish girl, into their home on Christmas and gave me gifts and fed me ‘til I was stuffed fat as a holiday goose. Between the eating and the sleeping and the chatting and the eating and the napping I completely lost track of time. An old house in suburban Rhode Island, where I was staying with N.’s family, is essentially a vortex where time stands still and a person can forget the day of the week. And so, I neglected to post.

But in case you didn’t get the picture, one thing I did plenty of over Christmas was chow down. Most of what I ate was traditional homemade fare – turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, spanakopita (Greek Christmas!), trifle, cheesecake – but N. did take me to a local Rhode Island ice cream joint, Newport Creamery, to enjoy a famed frozen treat with a provocative, intimidating name: the Awful Awful.

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Recent Posts

  • Chocolate Chip Cookie at Du Jour Bakery
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