Secrets for Hate-to-Bakers
I have often confessed to having a true loathing of baking. Sure, I had a dessert company for over five years in the Boston area that made its name selling chocolate mousse brownies and oatmeal raisin cookies to Legal Seafood and DeLucca’s, but that was purely business. Baking was lucrative in a city that could barely fit in an oven let alone a mixer, so baking and bringing it into gourmet stores worked. But I hate to measure, I hate the preciseness of it all, and I certainly was not born with the gift to frost a cake like Martha Stewart.
I do, however, have the gift of how to find delicious desserts and display them as if my own. Fresh Market has been my big score and will certainly host the Easter dessert buffet. First up: a croissant filled with Bavarian cream, strawberries and whipped cream, drizzled with chocolate. It’s a bit reminiscent of the lobster rolls (not the savory kind, but the flaky pastry from the North End in Boston oozing with pastry cream and powdered sugar) that one made a special trip in for. Simple enough: Remove from box, display on your own plate (two to three on a plate) and they will never know if you hide the plastic container deep enough into the garbage.
Next up, a big score: banana pudding with ‘Nilla vanilla wafers and cream. This is a no-brainer; just scoop out into martini glasses and shave dark chocolate over the top. Home run. Then there is the crème brulee. They will torch it for you right there, and instead of little tin cups they give you the earthenware to really sneak the homemade look.
I do make a great carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, but I made a few last month; so time to give my measuring cups a break and call Fresh Market.
On a delicious side note: We dined at the Beach Bistro at the Concession the other night, and leave it to Sean Murphy to hit it out of the park again. The room is incredibly spacious, and the culinary membership makes the old University Club seem like a hot dog stand (well, with a good view).
A culinary membership to the Beach Bistro at the Concession--what a deal.
Listen up, all you event people and wedding planners: This IS the place, and the best gift of all is a culinary membership to a dream dining club that includes piano playing and long yellow roses, a deep rich wood bar and the “original band” of culinary players from the Beach Bistro. What to get the hard-to-gift foodie in your life? A foodie membership, of course!