[Sca-cooks] Favorite dessert?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 4, 2008, at 7:26 PM, ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:
>> Incidentally, what started all this was my lady wife's attempt to buy
>> a decent, ordinary layer cake in Manhattan, and what she found was
>> some kind of allegedly white chocolate thing that was six inches
>> across, and I believe cost $38, and of all the things it was, the one
>> thing it obviously was not, was _good_.
>
> There is a place here (Columbus Ohio) called Mozart's that makes  
> lovely pastries, but also makes cake with real butter frosting.  I'm  
> not a cake person, and usually hate frosting, but I really liked  
> theirs.  I never actually paid for one, they used to have them at  
> work now and then, but I'm sure they weren't cheap. (btw if you go  
> look at the pictures, all the little "black and white" flowers are  
> really dark and white chocolate.
>
> http://www.mozartscafe.com/

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of good cakes available here for anyone  
willing and able to pay for them. My favorite bakery is probably Saint- 
Ambroeus on Madison Avenue, and Ceandra favors a place called  
Lafayette on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village. I've never tried  
anything from Magnolia (once famous for cupcakes and made more famous  
in an SNL Digital Short video -- the one where Andy Samberg and Chris  
Parnell are stocking up on foodstuffs to sneak into the movie theater  
for consumption while watching thuh Chronic-[Whutt???]-cles of Nar-ni- 
a!!!), but I gather Magnolia is no longer The Place. Apparently the  
Place for cupcakes is in Park Slope, in Brooklyn. I forget its name,  
but I'm sure by the time I get there it'll no longer be The Place,  
anyway.

Might as well make 'em myself.

But the $38 questionable cake was from a chain called Zaro's Bread  
Basket. Saint-Ambroeus would have been much more (they're a weird  
place: they look more like a showroom for cakes than anyplace where  
any actual baking is done -- I mean, how gauche, and that machine for  
slicing bread next to the visible cash register has _got_ to _go_!).  
But at least their cakes are great, and yes, they're quite expensive,  
but at least you feel like you at least got something for your umpty- 
eleven thousand bucks. They have opened up a cafe next door since I  
was there last; maybe they've become less snooty. I almost hope not; I  
always had to laugh at them a bit, but the cakes were really good...

Adamantius