Snackshots: Summer Desserts

With the temperature rising, I can finally indulge in one of my favorite New York City activities — walking anywhere and everywhere I can. This has its pluses and minuses, since on the one hand, fresh air and a little cardio are good for the body, but on the other hand, traipsing about the city places me directly in the path of many dessert purveyors with offering designed explicitly to remove the health-benefits of my walks. Yeah, I know — this ain’t exactly a third world problem.

This exact scenario took place last weekend, when Manhattan was thrust full-force into summer and the thermometer climbed to the mid-80s. I spent most of the weekend walking around SoHo, Gramercy, and the UES, and found myself somehow checking two items off my Summer Sweets List, with a visit to Dominique Ansel Bakery and Sprinkles Ice Cream.

 

Peering back into the rear of Dominique Ansel Bakery, where a few tables (and the master chef himself0 were.

The visit to Dominique Ansel Bakery was an unexpected salve for fruitless apartment hunting, with the shop located just around the corner from the building I was visiting. After my time-delayed experience with the Cronut, I obviously couldn’t ignore the opportunity to try a fresh-from-the-oven Ansel creation (plus, Jacob my food enabler was with me and insisted we go). The store was larger than I anticipated, a narrow but deep space devoted to the retail area in the front (overflowing with full pastry cases), and with a few tables in the back (where Ansel was chatting with employees when we were there).

 

No cronuts, but plenty of other options at Dominique Ansel Bakery.

Our visit happened to be on the 1 year anniversary of the Cronut, and unsurprisingly they were already sold out by the time we arrived. (Although a table at the front of the store had four pristine Cronuts just sitting there, uneaten — is this the latest sign of the bourgeois 1% — leftover Cronuts?) To be honest, I was relieved that they were sold out, because it freed us up to order something else. We opted to go with the DKA — Dominique’s Kouign Amann, the pastry the bakery was best known for pre-Cronut-mania.

 

The DKA, approximately the same size as Levain cookie (or Jacob’s fist).

The Kouign Amann (pronounced “Queen Ah-mann”) is a Northern French pastry from Brittany, little known outside of Quebec and France until Ansel brought his version to NY. The cashier told us that the DKA (“Tender, flaky, croissant-like dough with a caramelized crunchy crust”) is slightly smaller than the normal sweet, which is somewhat mitigated by its intense buttery richness. As Jacob described it, the DKA is like a hybrid croissant/elephant ear (or palmier). It’s made of laminated dough like a croissant (or Cronut, for that matter), but the caramelized sugar topping evokes the crunchy, crispy shatters of the palmier. I’m not really into palmiers, since I find most of them too dry, but here you got the best of both worlds. Biting into the DKA, you get the punch of sweetness from the sugar topping (and who doesn’t like crunchy sugar melting instantaneously on her tongue?), but then fall into the soft center of the pastry, so moist and butter-infused you might think there was some sort of marzipan or custard. But no, that’s just barely salted, straight up butter.

Is that custard inside? Nope, that’s just straight-up buttery dough.

Aside from the Cronut anniversary, our stop at Dominique Ansel Bakery was also just a few days after Ansel won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef. It’s clear that he is an enormously talented innovator pushing the envelope in the field, but I was impressed by how simple yet beautifully-wrought the DKA was, since it’s a traditional pastry that relies on classic techniques. His classical chops might seem obvious given his background as executive pastry chef at Daniel (not to mention his newly minted award), but it was nice to know that Ansel is far more than just the Cronut-guy.

Would I still try a fresh-off-the-presses Cronut if offered? Absolutely, I mean c’mon, it’s fried croissant dough. But the next time I’m at Dominique Ansel Bakery, I won’t be upset if they’re already sold out. I’m more interested in what else is in the pastry case, and I’d recommend looking past the glittering tuiles and edible decorations for the more basic, rustic, perhaps classic but never old-fashioned options. I’ve got to see what this guy can do with an almond croissant.

 

 

Our Sprinkles Sundae in all its glory — Banana Cupcake encasing a scoop of Rocky Road.

Round two is at another trendy spot — the new ice cream expansion of Sprinkles Cupcakes. Sprinkles Ice Cream just opened up a few weeks ago, next to the cupcake shop, with the Cupcake ATM in between. Although we all know I’m an ice cream fiend, I was slightly skeptical of Sprinkles Ice Cream, since it’s so easy to dilute the quality of your brand when you start expanding your offerings. Would the new homemade ice cream and cookies really measure up to the Sprinkles standard?

The space seems to be about the same size as the cupcake emporium next door, but with less seating and a nearly all white decor that evokes a 2001-esque space vibe. The confections are stored and assembled behind a semi-circular barrier, although there are glass peep-through windows that let you see the employees in action.

As with all good ice cream shops, the menu options range from reasonable to absurdly decadent (I’m looking at you, Ben & Jerry’s Vermonster). At Sprinkles you can get your normal scoops in a cup or waffle cone (even a red velvet waffle cone), and as with their cupcakes, the flavor options rotate daily. You can go for a regular sundae with the familiar sauces, toppings, etc, or a cookie/brownie sundae, a milkshake, malted or float. But then things begin to get a little more ridiculous — an ice cream sandwich with homemade cookies, or one made with two cupcake tops (including frosting), frozen hot chocolate, an affogato, or the beast that we split — the Sprinkles Sundae.

The eponymous sundae is comprised of a single scoop of ice cream between a cupcake top and bottom. That’s right — crack open a full-size cupcake and stick a scoop of ice cream right in its guts. Jacob and I shared one that featured a Banana Cupcake (banana cake with bittersweet dark chocolate frosting) sandwiching a scoop of Rocky Road (dense dark chocolate ice cream loaded with crunchy toasted almonds, homemade marshmallow cream and housemade chips made from bittersweet tcho chocolate). Boy oh boy, this was a homerun combination. The Banana Cupcake is Jacob’s favorite Sprinkles flavor, and as a huge banana fan, I totally get it. The cake was like fresh-baked banana bread, with a dense, moist crumb, the sweetness slightly tempered by the bittersweet chocolate frosting. The Rocky Road was gelato-like in richness and texture, slightly melty without falling totally into the soft-serve zone. My fears of brand dilution dissolved in the face of the quality ingredients evident in the individual components, strong enough to be separately identified within the mass of Rocky Road (everyone gets 2 tastes, so between Jacob and I we also sampled the excellent Red Velvet, PB Cup, and Coffee Fudge Almond). The best thing about the Sprinkles Sundae is that it totally solves my main hang-up on cupcakes (vs. slices of cake) — the too-often unbalanced ratio of frosting to cake, and the subsequent dryness of that cake. Having a scoop of ice cream in the middle ensures that each bite of cupcake will be moist, soft, and flavorful. I highly recommend the sundae we got (I mean, banana and chocolate, banana and almonds, banana and marshmallows — all strong duos, so no surprise that this combination worked well together), but I fully intend to return for more scoops from the Sprinkles shop. Plus they’ve got a pretzel peanut-butter cookie that this PB fiend can’t resist. There’s also a kids’ mini version of the Sprinkles Sundae, for those less-inclined to shoot their sugar levels skyward.

 

So now I have two good options for the rest of the summer — cool, refreshing ice cream from Sprinkles to escape the sunscorched sidewalk, and warm, buttery french pastries from Dominique Ansel to make those summer thunderstorms a little more tolerable. Neither of them is particularly conducive to my beach bod, but if we’re being straight with each other, this pasty-white gal ain’t doing that much tanning, anyway.

 

Dominique Ansel Bakery

189 Spring St (between Thompson and Sullivan)

www.dominiqueansel.com

 

Sprinkles Cupcakes, Ice Cream & Cookies

782 Lexington Ave (between 60th and 61st)

www.sprinkles.com

Hundred Acres: A Brunch to Make Eeyore Smile

 

Growing up as the youngest child, it wasn’t until my nieces and nephew were born that I got to see my parents interact with little kids. Now I already think my parents are incredible people, but experiencing them as grandparents has been an unexpected gift. We spend all our lives eager to grow up, to be treated as an adult, it’s a wonder to step back and see my parents engage with my little nieces and nephew, totally stripped of adult pretense, lying on the floor making funny faces and singing silly songs for the singular goal of evoking a smile. It also has brought to light my parents’ deeply held convictions on children’s media, like their disappointment with Frozen and their great love for classics like Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street (sorry Bubble Guppies, you just can’t measure up to King Friday).

I bring this up because prior to my niece Riley’s birth, I had no idea that my mother was such a huge fan of Winnie the Pooh. But once Riley was old enough to keep her attention on more than a bottle, she was listening to “The Wonderful Thing about Tiggers” and watching The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Despite the difficulty of locating that movie on DVD (damn Disney vault), the amazing thing is the staying power of the Pooh franchise — toys, shampoos, clothing, it’s basically everywhere. So you can imagine when I heard the name Hundred Acres, I assumed this would be an Alice’s Teacup-type endeavor with Piglet tablecloths and Kanga and Roo wallpaper.

As it happens, Hundred Acres is not connected to Winnie the Pooh in any substantial way. But the rustic vibe, the welcoming atmosphere, and the approachable but inventive brunch dishes evoke the low key joy of A. A. Milne’s stories. You may not be able to get a jar of “hunny” at Hundred Acres, but I have a feeling a certain bear would be more than happy with the options.

 

First Impressions:

The front dining room of Hundred Acres, full of homey accents.

I’d heard about Hundred Acres as part of a trio of highly regarded spots (sister restaurants Five Points and Cookshop) that are all known for their brunches. Eager to take a break from tax season, my mother asked to try a new brunch place, and with her affinity for Winnie the Pooh in mind, I couldn’t resist checking out Hundred Acres.

The restaurant is down on MacDougal in the West Village, just removed enough from the hustle and bustle of Houston to make it feel like a part of the neighborhood. The forest green facade is made up of a series of French doors that offer open-air dining when the weather is warm enough, although it was still too blustery on the day we visited. Fortunately, even closed the doors provide a lot of natural light, helping the front dining room to feel bright and inviting.

 

Looking back towards the rear dining room, you can see some of the decorations on the walls.

The woodland theme is carried through to the interior of Hundred Acres, where deep, rich wood paneling leads up to soft green paint on the walls of the dining room. The farmstead home effect continues with the beaten metal columns, pale granite tables, and simple white light fixtures. The bar is decked out from floor to ceiling in white tiles you might find in any home kitchen, and the walls are decorated with framed paintings, photographs, and bookshelves full of wine bottles and other assorted dining paraphernalia. Although Hundred Acres has two dining rooms and seats at the bar, we were lucky to have made a reservation, since there was already a line of people waiting outside when my mother and I arrived. Clearly this place has earned its reputation as a brunch hot spot.

 

The Food:

 

As is very popular in the NY dining scene these days, Hundred Acres features a “market-driven” menu that changes frequently due to the availability of ingredients (the most recent menu I checked features the hot spring commodity, ramps). However, the standard, favorite dishes that I had read about before our brunch were still on the menu, so my mother and I got to test the validity of prior reviews. I really appreciated the input of our waiter, who opened up our meal by highlighting some of the most popular dishes, and his own personal suggestions. Through his guidance, we opted to start with the “Gooey Cinnamon Rolls,” then I ordered the Baked Eggs, while my mom got the Goat Cheese-Sage Bread Pudding.

 

The Gooey Cinnamon Rolls — dense pockets of cinnamon sugar await you.

The Gooey Cinnamon Rolls arrived shortly after we put in our order, served in a rounded metal plate. The 3 large rolls were still warm, nestled together and coated with a vanilla glaze. My mother wanted a bit more icing on top, to hew closer to the Cinnabon ideal, but considering the sticky innards, I thought they were plenty gooey (who am I kidding, like I would have complained about more icing). The roll itself was outrageously fluffy, with that almost taffy-like yeasted quality of good challah or brioche, which requires a little extra effort to pull apart. The interior was threaded with cinnamon sugar, eggy and moist, especially at the very core, which everyone knows is the best part of any cinnamon roll. Here the icing and cinnamon sugar collect and soak into the dough, leaving you with a near equal topping-to-bread ratio. How could any self-respecting pastry fan resist? I was very tempted to dive headfirst into the third cinnamon roll, but my mother, generous soul that she is, suggested we take it home to my father. This ended up being a wise strategy, since our entrees were still to come, and turned out to be more than enough food on their own.

 

The messy-looking, but entirely satisfying Baked Eggs.

The first thing that caught my eye when looking at the Hundred Acres menu was the Chilaquiles, since I had so recently experienced a great rendition at El Toro Blanco. But when I asked our waiter about his thoughts on the dish, he steered me towards the Baked Eggs (black beans, grilled poblano chiles, pickled onions, jalapeño peppers, cheddar cheese) instead, saying they were more unconventional. This turned into a brief discussion of what we all look for in a brunch. While there are definitely times that I just want a basic stack of pancakes, most of the time I’d like to have a brunch dish that I couldn’t make easily at home, which makes me reach for the benedicts and huevos rancheros over a simply garden omelet. It turns out he was spot on in this recommendation, because a woman at the table next to us got the Chilaquiles, and while they looked good enough to try on a return trip, I was surprised and delighted by the Baked Eggs. The dish placed in front of me was pretty different from what I had anticipated. The eggs were served in a ceramic casserole, the edges crusted with cheesy black bean sauce on which the eggs themselves floated just below the surface. I thought there would have been more heat from the peppers, but they really just served to add a bit of pop to the creamy beans and rich yolks, helped out by the acidity from the pickled onions. The eggs were perfectly cooked, held together by the crown of cheddar cheese but splitting into orange puddles of luscious yolk when pierced. The only thing I would change about this dish woudl be the addition of some textural variation — something to add a little crunch to the largely soft, soupy mixture. Even something as little as serving it with toast or a grilled tortilla to scoop it up would make the Baked Eggs a little more cohesive to me.

 

Don’t be fooled by all the spinach, there’s a hunk of decadent Goat Cheese-Sage Bread Pudding underneath it all.

If the Baked Eggs were somewhat unconventional, the Goat Cheese-Sage Bread Pudding (poached eggs, wilted spinach, lemon butter) really goes out on a limb. First of all, it’s a savory bread pudding, which you don’t see very often, and second, as our waiter described, the pudding is used as a the base for an Eggs Benedict. When it arrived on our table, I was relieved to see the portion size was ample without being excessive, because one look at the dish tells you how rich it is. If we’re going to be nit-picky, it’s really a take on Eggs Florentine, since the only thing between the eggs and the bread pudding base was spinach (rather than meat). But I’m not complaining, since I prefer Eggs Florentine anyway, and I’m a sucker for bread pudding in any and all forms. As with my dish, the eggs were perfectly cooked, little poached packages waiting to be opened t0 reveal a gooey liquid yolk and soft, but still firm white exterior. The pudding itself had a nice crust on the top and bottom, and a custardy, chewy interior like great french toast. My mother was wary to order the bread pudding because she’s not a huge sage fan, but thankfully the herb is delicately employed, mostly there to add slight woodsy and peppery notes to keep the pudding on the savory side. This provides a much-needed break from the sweet, fatty lemon butter and goat cheese. Odd as it might be to say, the spinach was also a highlight of the dish, only slightly wilted so it stood up against the eggs and still had a bit of texture. My Popeye-like love of spinach will make me eat it in any form, but it’s a welcome delight to find a version somewhere in between raw and the sad-sack mushy sautéed spinach you find in most Eggs Florentine.

 

Final Thoughts:

Although both of our dishes felt decadent (not to mention eating the Gooey Cinnamon Rolls beforehand), my mother and I agreed that we left Hundred Acres satisfied but not overstuffed, a testament to the thoughtful portion size and quality ingredients.

Overall, Hundred Acres is an inviting, homestyle spot — clean, bright and staffed by a friendly, knowledgeable crew. They offer items to satisfy those looking for American classics, as well as some unique twists on brunch that take advantage of seasonality and an adventurous palate.  I definitely plan on returning for brunch, and maybe dinner as well, since there were plenty of dishes on the menu I’d be game to try. From the decor to the dishes, Hundred Acres makes you feel like you’re in an elevated version of a country inn, sitting down to a meal maybe just a little bit away from the type of place Christopher Robin might call home.

 

Hundred Acres

38 MacDougal St. (between Prince and Houston)

http://hundredacresnyc.com/