Tuesday Top Five - Macarons

Macarons are delicious French almond based cookie sandwiches that have all different kinds of gourmet fillings. They are becoming increasingly popular and are popping up in bakeshops all over the city. Due to the price of their ingredients and the labor it takes to make them, macarons can start at $2 a cookie. Despite the price, I think these pastry shops deserve a visit and that’s why we’re counting down our top 5 favorite macaron cafes.

5. Almondine Bakery – This Brooklyn bakery has a variety of great French desserts, but their pistachio macaron is among my favorite there. Check out the tiny bakery on a quaint little street in DUMBO.

4. Bouchon Bakery – Thomas Keller’s famous bakery offers seasonally flavored macarons and are filled with smooth buttercream. Order a cashew butter and jelly and a few macarons for a perfect meal!

3. J’Chanceux Macaron – I recently had the pleasure of trying their tiny macarons with gelato filling and was delighted and refreshed. The fig macaron was my favorite. Try a scoop of gelato with your order of macarons on your visit.

2. Macaron Café – this café is conveniently located near Penn Station and offers an assortment of macaron flavors. I can’t even recommend a flavor because they’re all excellent!

1. Madeleine Patisserie – I discovered this shop when I was in culinary school and frequently popped in for croissants and macarons. The salted caramel is one of my absolute favorite desserts.

These are bite sized gelato macaron sandwiches from our #3 pick, J’Chanceux Macaron.

Tuesday Top Five - Restaurant Desserts

Going out to a great restaurant for a delicious meal doesn't always mean having a great dessert too. Sometimes stellar restaurants have sub par desserts meaning that an additional trip to a dessert joint is necessary. That's why tonight we're counting down our top 5 favorite restaurant desserts so your evening out can be complete with one stop!

5. Dos Caminos - This trendy Mexican restaurant features several sweet and spicy dessert options. Our favorite is the churros con chocolate - canela dusted churros, served with mexican hot chocolate and caramel whipped cream.

4. Nobu Next Door - For a yummy Asian inspired dessert try the Bento Box, a decadent chocolate cake served with complementary green tea ice cream.

3. Blue Smoke - This amazing BBQ restaurant has an array of classic comfort desserts. Try the super yummy banana cream pie with a crunchy wafer crust.

2. Chinatown Brasserie - After eating the most unbelievable Chinese food ever, enjoy their coconut crepes served with fresh fruit and refreshing gelato.

1. Lupa - This romantic restaurant doesn't just serve beautiful Tuscan inspired Italian. Their original take on a classic like the tartufo is the perfect end to a perfect meal. Hazelnut gelato and cherry inside a soft chocolate shell surrounded by chocolate syrup and nuts. YUM!

Tuesday Top Five - Brunch Spots in NYC

Everyone knows that breakfast should include foods like fruit, oatmeal and fiber laden cereal. Some people have doughnuts and muffins for breakfast, but even those people know that's wrong and they should be having yogurt. Brunch is really the only acceptable meal where dessert is not only permitted, it is welcome. That's why we're counting down our Top 5 favorite brunch spots!

5. Le Pain Quotidien - This organic bakery has many wholesome options, but I recommend the Belgian sugar waffle for a sweet breakfast treat.

4. Friend of a Farmer - The assorted muffins and banana bread are just some of the pastries I've enjoyed at this sit down brunch hangout that also has a great bakery.

3. Pastis - I love everything about this romantic restaurant, but the brioche french toast is my favorite. Thick, fluffy and super filling!

2. Clinton St Baking Co. - There isn't a lot of seating at this popular brunch spot, but the wait is always worth it! Try the blueberry pancakes and homemade biscuits!

1. Sarabeth - This upscale brunch eatery has the most delicious homemade jams, lemon-ricotta pancakes and pumpkin waffles. You can't go wrong with anything you order, but I insist you sample their Four Flowers Juice ("a special blend of orange, pineapple, banana, and pomegranate.")

Tuesday Top 5 - Tools Every Baker Should Have

Ideally, every avid baker would have a kitchen stocked with all the best ingredients and the finest tools OXO can make. Since space and money often prevent the home baker from acquiring all the baking wares your heart desires, you have to be selective about what you really need. That's why this week we're counting down our Top 5 essential baking tools.


5. Measuring cups - dry measure cups are important for measuring ingredients like flour and sugar. Don't measure your dry ingredients in a liquid cup! And don't try to do it by eye either!

4. Bowl scraper - to ensure that you get all the batter out of your bowl for that extra cookie or cupcake, use a bowl scraper to get everything out. Rubber spatulas work too, but a plastic bowl scraper is sturdier and covers more surface area.

3. Silpat - silpats are rubber mats that you put on cookie sheets so that the cookies come off the trays easily. Your cookies will never stick to the tray again! Best of all, they're cleaned really easily.


2. Digital scale - accuracy and precision is paramount when you're baking. Unlike when you're cooking, bakers need to stick to the recipe and make sure the proper amounts are measured.

1. KitchenAid mixer - cookies, pie dough, cake batter. The KitchenAid is a jack of all trades and makes baking so much easier. You can even match your mixer to your kitchen decor since KitchenAids come in a variety of awesome colors!

Tuesday Top 5 - Television Dessert Moments

Have you ever been vegging in front of your TV and seen your favorite characters eating a delicious dessert that made you crave whatever they were having? The power of suggestion seems particularly intense when food is involved and so this week we counted down our Top 5 TV Dessert Moments:

5. Cupcakes on Sex and the City - When the ladies pay a visit to the now famous Magnolia Bakery in Greenwich Village, they single handedly started the cupcake craze and the lines that continue to snake around the tiny shop. I can taste sugary frosting just typing this.

4. The cheesecake episode on Friends - There are a few classic dessert episodes from Friends, but one of my favorites is when Rachel and Chandler steal a neighbor's cheesecake and even wind up eating some off of the floor. Has cheesecake ever looked so delicious?!

3. Lover's Delight on 30 Rock - Jack Donaghey takes Salma Hayek's character to dinner at fancy restaurant, Plunder, and they order an uber sundae known as Lover's Delight. The dessert sounds amazing and includes 25 karat gold(!)

2. Chocolate babka on Seinfeld - The gang is invited to a friend's for dinner so they stop at their local bakery to pick up a chocolate babka. A couple winds up snagging the last one, so Jerry and Elaine have to settle for a cinnamon babka. This episode does double dessert duty when Jerry launches into a speech about his admiration for the black and white cookie.

1. Dessert trifle on Friends - Who can forget that hilarious Thanksgiving episode of Friends when Rachel is responsible for preparing the only dessert, but misreads the trifle recipe and includes a "layer of meat sauteed with peas and onions" from a Shepherd's Pie recipe. Somehow we come away from that episode wanting trifle! "Custard? Good. Jam? Good. Meat? Goooood."

Tuesday Top Five - Guilt Free Desserts

I am not known for making health conscious desserts, but with summer fast approaching it's important to keep some bikini friendly snacks on hand to get you from one delicious piece of cake to the next!

Here are my top 5 favorite light desserts that I've collected from magazines, online articles and friends over the years:

5. Baked apple with jelly - place a baking apple in an oven safe dish (glass pie pan or any pan with sides) and put a dot of jelly in the center. Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes or until the apple is soft. Eat with a spoon, like hot homemade applesauce.

4. Graham cracker cool whip froze bar - spread cool whip in between two graham crackers and leave it in the freezer for a couple of hours. When you take it out you'll have a mock ice cream sandwich. You can make a few ahead of time and take them out of the freezer as cravings occur.

3. Chocolate covered strawberries - simply melt chocolate and dip strawberries in. Put the dipped berries on a baking sheet (with a silpat or aluminum foil) and leave in the fridge until they set up.

2. Bananas with cocoa and coconut - halve a banana and dip it in cococa powder. Roll the cocoa covered banana in sweetened, shredded coconut and you have yourself a chocolate pina colada!

1. Blueberry Almond Turtles - Place dried blueberries and slice almonds in a bowl. Melt chocolate over a double boiler and drizzle chocolate over the berries and nuts. Use your hands or a cookie scoop to make small clusters and leave in the fridge until they set up. YUM!

Tuesday Top 5 - Brooklyn's Best

Manhattan isn’t the only borough with amazing desserts. Brooklyn has so many interesting and delicious dessert spots that it was hard to narrow it down to just five. After careful deliberation here are Tuesday’s Top 5 Brooklyn sweet shops.

5. One Girl Cookies (Cobble Hill)– this adorable bakery offers seasonal flavors in bite size morsels. There are so many flavors to choose from you’ll need to go back for a second trip.

4. Joyce Bakeshop (Prospect Heights)- a super cute shop with seating that offers pastries such as fruit galettes, brioche and whoopie pies. I love that you can see the pastry chefs hard at work in the kitchen.

3. Sweet Melissa Patisserie (Park Slope)- puddings, pies, tarts and breakfast! Traditional desserts are done beautifully and now they serve homemade ice cream at their cremerie! I also highly recommend her bakebook The Sweet Melissa Baking Book.

2. The Chocolate Room (Park Slope and Cobble Hill)– chocoholics will love the chocolate layer cake that is so rich it requires several participants or a doggie bag. I dream about this cake.

1. Baked (Red Hook)– everything at Baked is homemade and worth the trip into Red Hook. Try their newest creation, the Brookie, a yummy half cookie half brownie for a modern spin on two classics.

Top Five Sweet 16 Cakes

Cakes for teenagers can sometimes be difficult to design unless they have a specific idea in mind. We've found that these five concepts can usually be reincarnated to create a unique cake for a Sweet 16.

5. Shopping - shopping bags and logos from favorite companies have become very trendy for Sweet 16s.

4. Vegas - Vegas style themes with playing cards and over the top decorations add drama and flair.

3. Candy - bright colors either from fondant made to look like candy or actual candy are fun and age appropriate.

2. Animal Print - leopard and zebra print designs are in style in the magazines and on cakes.

1. Fashion - couture pieces are so much more affordable when they're in cake form! Purses, shoes and jewelry are always a big hit with any female age group.

Tuesday Top 5 - Easter Candies

My favorite day of the year is the Monday after Easter when all of the holiday candy is marked down to 50% off and I can stock up on all the candy I’ll need to last me until the following Easter. Last year, I stumbled on an Easter bin in a CVS in August and got a bag of the hard shell Cadbury eggs for 25 cents. Here are my top 5 favorite Easter candies:

5. Chocolate covered Peeps – suck the chocolate off and your right back to what makes peeps so great

4. Chocolate Bunny – there’s nothing like sitting down to a solid chocolate bunny and a tall glass of milk. It has to be a solid bunny though. Biting into a bunny just to discover it’s hollow is one of the saddest things that can happen on Easter.

3. Cadbury crème eggs – these candies are so rich and sweet that it’s almost impossible to have more than one in a sitting. However, the good folks at Cadbury solved this dilemma when they started to sell A MINI VERSION! Just when you thought this candy could not get any better they introduce the caramel flavor.

2. Giant Reese’s egg – in the weeks leading up to Easter, Reese’s unleashes it’s already perfect peanut butter cup in the shape of an egg. A double-the-normal-size-oh-so-much-peanut-butter-egg.

1. Cadbury mini eggs (hard shells) - small egg shaped chocolates covered in a candy shell. Pink, blue, white, yellow eggs speckled with small brown dots so good they must be ingested by the handful.

Tuesday Top Five - Baking Blogs

You can never have enough cookbooks or subscriptions to food magazines. Another must have resource is food blogs for all of your cooking and baking needs. Here are my top 5 favorite food blogs that never fail to provide new and delicious recipes.

5. Apartment Therapy The Kitchn – an offshoot of Apartment Therapy that offers advice for kitchen decorating, tools, how to’s and tons of recipes compiled from books and other blogs.

4. David Leibovitz – An American pastry chef living in Paris chronicles French fare as well as classic American desserts.

3. Bakerella – Recipes sure to please kids and those with a sweet tooth. Bakerella always posts creative ideas for decorating accessible DIY pastries.

2. Smitten Kitchen – a blog that posts recipes both sweet and savory. Check it out when you’re tired of the same old dinners and need some inspiration.

1. Joy the Baker – a great baking resource with endless recipes for cookies, brownies and breakfast foods.

We’ve also added a section for food blogs on a blogroll to your right. Check back periodically as we’ll be updating it as we find delicious food blogs!

Tuesday Top 5 - Favorite Dessert Spots in Manhattan

Nothing makes me happier than finding a new dessert or a delicious bakery. Living in NYC there’s no shortage of delicious pastries just waiting to be sampled! Here are my Top 5 favorite desserts in Manhattan:

5. Jacques Torres – a chocolate connoisseur’s heaven. Try the hot chocolate or any piece of chocolate you can get your hands on.

4. Rickshaw Dumpling Bar – this dumpling haven makes the most unbelievable chocolate dumplings. Hot liquid chocolate comes pouring out of delicious dough covered in poppy seeds.

3. Levain Bakery– a tiny bakery with the biggest, perfectly baked chocolate chip cookies.

2. Doughnut Plant – a doughnut shop on the Lower East Side with imaginative flavors that uses high end ingredients

1. Momofuku Milk Bar & Bakery – compost cookie, blueberry cream cookie, candy bar pie, cereal milk. Pastry Chef Christina Tosi is an endless fountain of creative and addictive sweets!

The candy bar pie at Momofuku Milk Bar.

Tuesday Top Five - Birthday Cakes For Boys

Kids' cakes usually match a theme and are really playful and full of color. Here are our top five picks for birthday cakes for boys, accompanied by matching invitations from tiny prints:

5. Dinosaurs – All little kids go through a phase where they memorize the names of their favorite dinosaurs

4. Trains, Airplanes, Cars – Any kind of transportation – Boys just love fast moving vehicles with flashing lights and loud sounds.


3. Outerspace - Boys love cakes with rocket ships and astronauts

2. Animals – Barnyard animals, zoo animals and family pets all make great and fun cakes.


1. Favorite characters from TV and Movies - From Spongebob to Spiderman, the best cakes for a boy are in the mold of their favorite superhero or character.

Tuesday Top Five - Sweet 16 Cakes

Sweet 16 cakes are super fun cakes because they often complement a theme and include bold, vibrant colors. Today’s top 5 lists our choices for Sweet 16 color palettes.

Hot Pink/Black/Silver

Black/White/Red

Pink/White/Gold

Tiffany Blue and White


Pastel Blue/Pastel Pink/Pastel Purple