NYC Tastes

I was so sad last week to hear that one of my favorite bakeries in the city was closing up their East Village shop. Blackhound has been my go to bakery for years! They have so many incredible cake flavors like the Pear Almond, Raspberry Poppyseed and the always delicious Chocolate Giandjua. The best part about these cakes besides their incredible flavors was always the size. I could stop in and pick up a mini cake just perfect for Mr. T and I to share. My last visit on Thursday I had a hard time deciding what to choose, but in the end it was their insanely sweet Chocolate Mousse Cake that won my heart. I've always loved that Polka Dot crust encasing all the fudgy chocolate cake inside. The best part about my last visit however was learning that they will still sell their cakes online out of their bakery in Greenpoint. So although they are no longer in the East Village I can still pick up a delicious cake or two when I g...

I'm a firm believer in planning...so of course I've decided to try out various Independence Day treats so when the actually holiday arrives I'm prepared with an arsenal of goodies to celebrate.  This is the Red, White and Blueberry cake from the little East Village cake shop Black Hound. The outside is a lightly whipped white chocolate buttercream frosting with vanilla cake crumbles... ...while inside reveals layers of vanilla cake and vanilla pastry cream studded with fresh strawberries and blueberries.  The marzipan star on top completes the theme.  It's summer, it's independence, it's delicious:)

This month is filled with all sorts of dinner parties and holiday gatherings where gifts and food go hand in hand.  Usually I'm incredibly late on the gift end so when I'm in charge of dessert I skip the baking and head right down to Black Hound.  They always have their standard cakes such as the Triple Chocolate Mousse and Busy Bee. But around holiday time they dress up the decorations and also add a couple special flavors.  This year the Poinsettia Cake with pecan butter, spiced buttercream and caramel looked amazing as did the Gingerbread Cake filled with poached pears and apples. But in the end it was the Eggnog Cake that had me swooning.  Three layers of hazelnut cake soaked in bourbon and rum, covered in eggnog buttercream and crushed hazelnut shavings.  Beware this cake has a bite from the liquor so unless you want some tipsy coworkers save it for the family party instead. Black Hound Bakery

A very Happy Mother's Day to all of you Mom's out there. I celebrated with a piece of cake from Black Hound Bakery. Luscious chocolate mousse, sweet vanilla icing and wonderful moist innards made for a lovely cake. A big shout out to the one woman I couldn't spend the day with- My Mom!! I got lucky with the best ever!!! Hopefully we can celebrate together soon!!!

On our way back from our "psych up the Saints" Louisiana style brunch at Acme we were feeling something a little sweet. We had another hour or two before the Superbowl was going to start so we decided to walk home and stop by Black Hound bakery. They had their regular line of cakes in the window as well as some special ones just for Valentines day. We decided to buy two- Valentine Busy Bee Cake and the regular Almond Apricot. The Busy Bee cake is one of their most popular items. It has three layers of chocolate cake, two layers of almond cake, two layers of chocolate mousse and a layer of marzipan. I probably wouldn't have ordered this cake on my own because of the marzipan but it really wasn't too bad. The marzipan was mostly on the bottom so I just avoided it and enjoyed the deep chocolaty deliciousness of the rest of the cake. Yum! The Almond Apricot cake was wonderful as well but it too had marzipan! The cake itself was an almond marzipan cake! I can't b...

Are you sick of apple pie yet from Thanksgiving? Hope not. This is a picture of an Apple Pie I picked up from Black Hound last week when Mr. T had a hankering for something sweet. I was intrigued first by the enormous dome top to this mini pie. How in the world did they get it to bake up this high? Then I noticed the description said this was a cookie dough crust with Granny Smith apples. Whoa! Cookie Dough crust? What a great idea! So I brought it home and we dug in immediately. As you can see there are a ton of apples stuffed inside this thing. I mean a ton! Unfortunately it seemed that in the madness of all of the apples they forget to put in some sugary juice. The best part about an apple pie for me is that sweet, sticky, cinnamon sugar sauce that the apples create after baking. Part of me wonders if Blackhound macerated the apples first so there wouldn’t be as much of a gap between the crust and filling. That method works fine when you remember to add the ...

So my Easter wasn't too exciting this year. I woke up on Sunday not feeling well and so we cancelled our family plans. I had gone down to Black Hound bakery the day before to pick up some nice Easter treats. How cute do these look? The one on the right is a Meyer Lemon Easter Egg cake and the one on the right is their Spring Strawberries & Cream cake. I had planned to bring these treats for Mr T's family to enjoy but since we knew we wouldn't see them for a while we decided to enjoy them ourselves late Easter night. And they were fantastic!! The Egg was filled to the brim with Meyer Lemon filling that was zesty, cool and refreshing. We gobbled this up before I got a shot. The strawberries and Cream was just as good as the lemon. Look at those big chunks of strawberry! The cake itself as really moist and light with layers of vanilla cream in between. The white chocolate icing was my favorite part. It wasn't too heavy or sugary and came with some vanilla cake crumbs o...