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The Dough-Eyed Girl

~ There's no metaphysics on Earth like dessert.

The Dough-Eyed Girl

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Shamrock Shake at McDonald’s

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Frozen Dessert, Uncategorized

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McDonald's, Milkshake, Mint, Shamrock Shake, Vanilla

Shamrock Shake

Let me start off this post by saying I was on a short road trip, and road trips make people do the weirdest things. Sing-alongs to 90s favorites like the boy bands (pick your favorite) and balladeers like Celine Dion. Getting trucks to honk their horns in a most juvenile fashion. Scarfing bags of Cheetos and beef jerky.

On this road trip, I didn’t do any of these things. (But I will not vouch for road trips prior.) I did, however, partake of another on-the-road oddity: The bizarrely delectable bounty that is the rest stop fast food court.

What is it about rest stop fast food that makes it so much better than fast food at any other time? Is it the diesel fumes of the nearby gas pumps interfering with our taste buds? Or maybe it’s the psychological imbalance that springs from hours in close confines with several other people that sharpens our pleasure senses. You want, no, need, fat, sugar, and salt, pronto! The rest stop blithely obliges.

So yes, you are seeing that image correctly. There, situated amongst the flying fish nuggets, is a seasonal favorite from McDonald’s. For those unfamiliar, I present to you the Shamrock Shake.

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Schmapple Puddin’ at Sugar Sweet Sunshine

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Uncategorized

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Apples, Caramel, Lower East Side, Manhattan, Pudding, Schmapple, Vanilla

Schmapple Puddin'As I mentioned in a previous post, dreary February is my birth month, and this past weekend was my birthday. As I battled vicious icy gusts of wind, I longed for the simple, sweet pleasures of summer birthdays: picnics, outdoor beer gardens, cake on a patio. But just because these things will never come true for me, it doesn’t mean that I need to deprive myself of a larger sense of “birthday”. Can’t I still have my cake?

Not always. When I walked into Sugar Sweet Sunshine looking for a classic, birthday layer cake, I was underwhelmed by the selection. SSS does a mean cupcake – and offers quite the selection – but cupcakes often leave me wanting. Too soon devoured, lacking fillings and layers and (often) complexity, cupcakes simply don’t satisfy me the way a stacked piece of cake does. For me, it feels more civilized to eat dessert with a fork.

So, as you probably know by now if you’ve been reading consistently, instead I went for the pudding.

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Polentina at Eataly

13 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Pastry, Uncategorized

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Blueberry, Eataly, Flatiron, Frolla, Manhattan, Polentina

PolentinaIt’s dark, gray, frigid. There are blizzards and chapped hands and exploding frozen pipes. In other words, it is February, most people’s least favorite month. I’m a little warmer towards it simply because it’s my birthday month, but I’d much rather enjoy spring or fall than trudge through the depths of winter.

In fact, it’s been so viciously cold these last few weeks that I have been subconsciously transporting myself to summer days, when I don’t need to worry about wearing sixteen different layers or keeping my little tube of Aquaphor at the ready to soothe my weather-beaten knuckles and lips. I’ve been fantasizing about strawberries, and apricots, and cherries, and all of the delicious bounty that crops up once the soil thaws.

And then, I came across the polentina at Eataly, and knew I had to have it, immediately.

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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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Hello Sweeties!

14 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by Dough-Eyed Girl in Uncategorized

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Welcome to my compendium of all things dough, dessert, or delicacy, or any cross-section of the three. As you will soon see from the content of this blog, I have an irrepressible sweet tooth and would rather be eating dessert than doing most other things. Sometimes I bake for myself but more often than not I leave the production to the pros, so you’ll generally find here items that you, too, can ingest and enjoy for a modest fee.

I dwell in the Big Candy Apple of New York City, but I am of the, “Will travel for food,” persuasion. When I’m lucky enough to make it out of the concrete jungle I call home, I do my best to indulge in the items that satisfy the local sugar craving.

If you know of any treats I must try, want to say hello, or have baked a cake that is simply divine, do let me know. Nothing is better than cake and company.

Lots of love,
The Dough-Eyed Girl

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Recent Posts

  • Chocolate Chip Cookie at Du Jour Bakery
  • There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand at Ample Hills Creamery
  • Apple Tarte Tatin at Buvette
  • Blueberry Strawberry Bran Muffin at Blue Sky Bakery
  • Pineapple Coconut Smoothie at Cocktail Bodega

Archive

  • May 2013 (2)
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  • February 2013 (3)
  • January 2013 (4)
  • December 2012 (3)
  • November 2012 (4)
  • October 2012 (5)
  • September 2012 (4)
  • August 2012 (4)

Apple Blueberry Bread Breakfast Brioche Bronx Brooklyn Brunch Cake Cake Truffles Cap'n Crunch Caramel Carrot Cake Cheesecake Chocolate Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookie Cookies Croissant Custard Ditmas Park Doughnut East Village Fig French Frozen Dessert Frozen Yogurt Fruit Georgetown Ginger Green Pea Paste Halo-Halo Herb Ice Cream Jacques Torres Jam Jellies Korean Koreatown Lavender Lemon Lower East Side Mango Manhattan Maple Marshmallow Mascarpone Milkshake Mint Muffin Norway Panna Cotta Park Slope Pastry Peanut Butter Pineapple Pudding Pumpkin Raspberry Rhode Island Riverdale Semifreddo Shaved Ice Shortbread Strawberry Talde Tapioca Upper West Side Vanilla Vegan Walnut Washington D.C. West Village Williamsburg

Other Tasty Treats

  • Blondie and Brownie
  • Chez Pim
  • Counter Productive
  • Cupcakes Take the Cake
  • David Lebovitz
  • Dessert Buzz NYC
  • Dorie Greenspan
  • Eater
  • Food52
  • Gastropoda
  • Manger
  • Not Eating Out in New York
  • Orangette
  • Sassy Radish
  • Serious Eats
  • The Amateur Gourmet
  • The Wednesday Chef

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