A Good Sweet Smackdown: In a head-to-head battle, which side of the Atlantic is a sweeter place to live?
March 30, 2011
Doughnuts American style (Honey + Jam)
It’s an affliction. This I know after living in Paris for nearly two years. I used to think that, in New York, it was natural and inevitable that I was such a Sweet Freak. Everywhere I looked, there were seductive displays of oozing chocolaty chip cookies, obscenely large sticky buns and towering three-layer red velvet cakes. Irresistible!
But in Paris, I was just as big a leche-vitrine—maybe more so, drawn as I was to the rows of pristine gateaux, Technicolor macarons and perfect dark chocolate pavés. Having spent significant amounts of time and invested gazillions of glorious calories in both cities, it’s still a question I find difficult answering: who has the best sweets, New York or Paris? A transatlantic smackdown might tell.
Brownies v. Moelleux au Chocolat
Moelleux and Brownies (Shoko Muraguchi, Honey + Jam)
A pastry Neanderthal might say: what’s the difference? They’re two brown chocolaty-cakey treats. But the pastry connoisseur understands the difference between dense and molten. Between fudgy and finessed. Between a snack that can be dunked in milk with your fingers and an haute dessert that oozes into a pool of uber-rich ganache on your dessert plate.
Verdict? A brownie is comfort and joy; moelleux is hedonism and bliss. They’re both worthy and delicious. But as good as a dense, fudgy brownie is, anything with molten chocolate wins, n’est-ce pas?
Winner: Moelleux. Continue Reading »
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