Stopped by Arthur Avenue for some Italian goodies after a game of golf at a public course in the Bronx.  After buying some fresh pasta at Borgatti's (where you can choose how thin you'd like it cut (angel hair or fettucini size, for example) and parmesan and mozzarella at Casa della Mozzarella... of course we needed a snack and made a quick stop in at Delillo Pastry Shop where I had a mini chocolate covered cannoli.  The cannoli was nice and fresh and the filling was the traditional ricotta, YUM!!

Delillo Pastry Shop. 606 East 187th Street, Bronx, NY.  

We went to Vezzo for dinner tonight, one of my favorite pizza places. I had a personal pizza with a nine-grain organic crust and homemade hot italian sausage. Delicious as usual, the crust is always so thin and crispy.  All of their desserts are made in house so I decided to try the chocolate chip cookie.
At $2.50 it was a good value but its not the type of cookie thats good on its own, we should have ordered it a la mode. They used 2 different varieties of chips which added flavor, but the texture was a bit too cakey for my taste.

Vezzo Thin Crust Pizza Lexington @ E 31st Street

Just read about the Best Chocolate Cake in the World.. which you can get in NYC starting this month. Apparantly the newest chocolate cake to hit the NY scene.  If you are in the Nolita area, let me know how it is!

The Best Chocolate Cake in the World is $6.50 a slice,  55a Spring Street (Lafayette Street), (212) 343-2253

I finally had a chance to try Van Leeuwen Ice Cream yesterday at their stop near Madison Square Park.  Such a perfect hot day for an excellent scoop (or two) of ice cream.  I asked for a small, with both chocolate and vanilla and got 2 scoops!  Not sure why we can't get 1 regular sized scoop of ice cream in this country any more!!

I assumed the chocolate would be darker since they say they use 99% Michel Cluizel chocolate, so was a little disappointed here.  It definitely tasted chocolatey but not as much as I'd like.  The vanilla however, was super tasty, such an intense vanilla flavor, loved it! They use whole vanilla beans - from organic bourbon and Tahitian vanilla orchid sourced from Papua New Guinea. They claim that other ice-cream makers simply put vanilla bean specks (which are devoid of flavor) in their ice cream to make it look authentic, but they do it right.

A friend of mine has a farm share and ended up with too many eggs the other day, so I decided to bake a chiffon cake since this recipe my mom had uses 7 eggs!!

It has 1/2 cup cocoa and turned out very moist (probably due to so many eggs) and chocolate-y (maybe due to the fact that I used Valrhona cocoa powder?).  I then decided to make my mom's old chocolate mousse cake filling to go with it, nice and creamy made with whipped cream and you got it, more cocoa powder. We decided not to frost the entire cake... to keep it separately so everyone could decide how much frosting they wanted with their own piece.

Dark Chocolate Chiffon Cake

•            3/4 cup boiling water
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1 3/4 cups cake flour
  • 1 3/4 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 6 large egg yolks
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 7 egg whites
  • 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Heat oven 325. Combine the boiling water and cocoa and cool. Blend the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Make a well and add the oil, egg yolks vanilla and cocoa mixture. Beat till smooth.  Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar and beat stiff.

Pour egg yolk mixture in a thin stream over the entire surface of the egg whites, gently cutting and folding in flour mixture with a rubber spatula till blended. Pour into an ungreased 10" tube pan and bake for 55 minutes at 325 and then  at 350 for 10 minutes.  Invert and cool completely.

Creamy Chocolate Frosting

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
1/2 cup cocoa, sifted
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Blend together til whipped consistency.