NYC's Momofuku, Spot and Baked... Too Much Deliciousness For One Post?
January 26, 2011
I want to extend a personal thanks to Momofuku Milk Bar and Spot Dessert Bar for helping ease the pain of a crushing day of football this past Sunday. If you were rooting for the Bears and Jets as Taste Tester and I were, you would understand why we needed to turn to an excessive amount of sweets to ease the blow. Our latest stash hails from two superb NYC bakeries and indirectly from a third (that will make sense by the end of this post).
If you read other food blogs aside from this one, you may at some point have encountered hype for Momofuku and their famous desserts. To name a few (these link to recipes):
Crack Pie Compost Cookie Cereal Milk Pork-Belly Buns
After seeing so much hype, we finally made the trek to this famed dessert haven. Here’s Taste Tester dressed in his Bears gear, pre-game (sigh) looking a little baffled at all of the awesomeness before him. “Why have we never been here before??” he asked me. I had no good reason, but I was certainly happy to be there now!
Lots of treats in NYC get written up and raved about. Some deliver and some don’t. These delivered - and then some. Here’s a rundown of what we had:
Momofuku’s Compost Cookie (right) I wish I had gotten better shots of the cookies because they were awesome, but we didn’t have the superhuman willpower to wait for a proper photo shoot and dug into them right away. The Compost Cookie was really unique. It contains an interesting mix of add-ins including chocolate, pretzels, potato chips, butterscotch chips, graham crackers and coffee grounds. Our only complaint was that it was really sweet. Aside from that, it was a near perfect cookie - a little crispy, a little soft and a lot full of crazy awesome flavor. FTW.
Momufuku’s Peanut Butter Cookie (left) Holy Wow Yum. This cookie is perfectly balanced in every way. It gives what was previously my favorite NYC pb cookie a run for it’s money. Perhaps you’ve never heard of it because it falls in the shadows of it’s famed compost brethren, but it is every bit amazing in it’s own right.
Momofuku’s Cinnamon Bun Pie I waited til the morning to indulge in the Cinnamon Bun Pie. It pretty much exactly lives up to it’s namesake, which is a cinnamon bun in pie form. It’s not really different at all than it’s usual incarnation, but hey, if you like cinnamon buns, you’ll like this.
Momofuku’s Apple Pie Truffles I chased my cinnamon bun pie breakfast with an apple pie truffle (starting the day off right!). These were good, and I’d buy them again, but I wouldn’t describe them as quite as memorable as the other treats. After seeing cake truffles blow up the internet with super buzz left and right, I was happy to give them a go and I did enjoy the novelty of eating such an adorably compact piece of apple pie. They were soft and nicely spiced, if a little light on the fruit filling and a bit dry.
After Momofuku, we grabbed some more sweet treats at Spot Dessert Bar on St. Mark’s. You’d think we’d have had our fill after downing a Compost Cookie at Momofuku, but I just couldn’t resist cupcakes this cute. Could you?
Spot’s Mocha Maldon Salt Caramel Cupcake (below, bottom shelf) They didn’t have a peanut butter cupcake so we went with one that had three favorite flavors packed into one: mocha, salt (specifically maldon) and caramel. At first bite, we only tasted the sweet, thick java-flavored frosting. When we got to the center, we uncovered the moist, salty caramel filling. Oh boy, I was a happy girl.
Everyone’s always asking me where to go for cupcakes when they visit NYC. Put this place on your list.
Spot’s Peanut Butter Cookie Spot had a pretty fantastic-looking peanut butter cookie. But since we had just purchased one at Momofuku, I decided to pass. After later tasting how wonderful their Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookie was (see below), I felt some regret for my wreckless decision-making. Needless to say, we will be back sometime for that pb cookie.
Next time, cookie. Next tiiiime!
(For some reason, gobbling up helpless little adorable treats brings out the villain in me.)
Spot’s Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookie This treat boasts giant dark chocolate chunks and a robust coconut flavor in a big fat crispy cookie. We went to Spot specifically because Taste Tester told me this particular cookie was worth it- and he was right.
Momofuku’s Candy Bar Pie After all this gluttony, we spent the afternoon watching some gut-wrenching football. Poor Bears. Poor Jets. Beer wasn’t enough. Enter more dessert: the Candy Bar Pie. I’m sad that I didn’t get a proper picture to do this masterpiece justice. Every bite was salty-sweet magic. It’s made up of a very chocolatey crust, a super fluffy and smooth peanut butter filling, salty caramel, rich chocolate ganache and a pretzel. Whoever came up with this one deserves some kind of pie genius award. Does such a thing exist? It should and Momofuku should have one.
After our crazy tasting extravaganza, I immediately googled Momofuku to see if they had come out with a book of dessert recipes. Disappointed that they hadn’t, I turned to a book on my shelf from another famous NYC bakery, Baked and made these Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins. Needless to say, it’s been a great week for eating and it’s far from over!
(You can get the recipe for the muffins at Tracey’s Culinary Adventures. I’d recommend her suggestion of adding a little extra espresso powder.)
I’ll now enjoy hibernating in my well-stocked kitchen as I slowly get snowed in yet again. Happy Snow Day and happy eating!