PDX Thanksgiving Dessert Roundup

Now that I'm technically a Portlandian, I'm excited to get to know my neighborhood and explore the onslaught of deliciousness.  That's why I thought it'd be timely to put together this Thanksgiving dessert round-up, just in time for next week's holiday.  If you're in the midst of planning your meal, here's a little shortcut for dessert:

Lauretta Jean's - First thing's first, which is a recommendation for an old fashion deep dish pie made by this quaint sweet shop in the South East.  You can pre-order your Thanksgiving pies by this coming Sunday either in person, over the phone or online.  While they do come at a premium at $34 per pie, they come in a lovely glass dish and feed about 6-8 people.  Flavors come in classic and inventive varieties such as classic pumpkin and heirloom apple, as well as black raspberry streusel and honey hazelnut.  34-02 SE Division Street, Portland.  503.235.3119

The Sugar Cube - For something a little out there and oh so decadent, I highly recommend The Sugar Cube's pastries and pies that will surely impress your guests.  It's clear they don't skimp out on butter, chocolate and all sorts of yummies which are reflected in the pies' decadent taste.  You can choose from flavors such as Mom's famous coffee Mallow pie, bourbon brown butter honey pie, chocolate silk cream pie and others.  Orders must be placed at least 48 hours in advance.  30-39 NE Alberta Street, Portland.  971.202.7135

Back to Eden Bakery - If you have special dietary needs, you're going to love the gluten free, all natural sweets at this NE Alberta bakery.  Although they specialize in cupcakes, there's plenty of pie to be had as well, which you can order ahead of time.  Choose between a variety of seasonal fruit pies or their classic coconut cream pie.  2217 NE Alberta Street, Portland.  503.477.5022

Salt & Straw - I love the Thanksgiving type flavors offered at this gourmet ice cream shop, which include everything from hazelnut rosemary stuffing, spiced chèvre pumpkin pie, honey bourbon corn pudding and their piece-de-resistance, the salted caramel Thanksgiving turkey flavor.  I highly recommend the latter, which is packed with diabolical fried turkey skin brittle.  2035 NE Alberta Street, Portland. 503.208.3867.  345 SE Division, Portland. 503.208.2054

New Seasons Market - Although you can't exactly pre-order dessert here, you can pick it up the day before Thanksgiing and take advantage of their beautiful seasonal cakes, cookies and pies.  You'll find they'll run you a little cheaper than specialty bakeries in the area, and you can get that and your turkey in one shot.  Various locations in Portland and Vancouver.

Pie Spot - I spotted this place (pun intended) while on my way to my first Portland foodie meetup and it was quite serendipitous.  A cute little place on the corner of 24th Avenue and Glisan St, they sell rustic pies and offer a nice variety for Thanksgiving that you can preorder.  Today is the last day you can pre-order and choose from flavors such as Caramelized Pear & Cranberry, Brandied Apple, and Pumpkin.  521 NE 24th Avenue, Portland.  503.913.5103

Happy Thanksgiving - TBT Recipes

Happy Thanksgiving Astoria!

Hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday and has some festive plans in the works.  For those of you who are keeping it low-key and spending time at home, I wanted to inspire you with a few tasty recipes to grace your Thanksgiving table with.  These all come from my previous posts, so I call this my Thanksgiving #TBT tribute.  Enjoy!

Dan's Thanksgiving Kitchen Sink Pizza - While this may be a good one to experiment with after Thanksgiving, it can also be a fun, non-traditional spin on your holiday feast.

Wild Rice Stuffing - If you're looking for an alternative to bread stuffing, this one is delicious and it's veggie friendly too.  However, you can also spruce it up with meat such as ground chicken sausage.  

White Chocolate Pumpkin Truffles - One year, I tried making my own chocolate truffles and thought they came out well.  Sure they're a little rustic looking but our guests appreciated the homemade touch.  You can also do them with dark or milk chocolate - depends on your preference.

Classic Lattice Apple Pie - Although this pie definitely takes some love and care to put together, your guests will thank you and will be super impressed.  Once you get the lattice method down, it's a lot of fun and makes for beautiful photographs (and yummies in your tummy).

Caramelized Apple Pecan Pie - One more pie recipe for good luck never hurt anyone.  If you can't decide between an apple or a pecan pie, create a hybrid with this sophisticated dessert creation that's a cinch to put together (especially if you use a pre-made pie crust).

Astor Bake Shop's 3rd Annual Pie Eating Contest

Can you believe that Astor Bake Shop is turning 3 years old? To me it seems like they've been a staple in the neighborhood forever.  Their treats are among the best in terms of quality ingredients and also quite beautiful in aesthetics.

To celebrate their little milestone, Astor Bake Shop will be hosting another pie eating contest this year, which promises to be a lot of fun.  I mean, who wouldn't want to eat their delicious pies and potentially get rewarded too?  There's a few ground rules to know about, but overall it'll be a race to the sweet finish line.  Wussies..stay home!

3rd Annual Astor Bake Shop Pie Eating Contest
Sunday, June 30th at 2:30 p.m.

It's free to sign up and contestants will compete in three categories.  The first person to finish their pie in its entirety wins - no assistance from utensils or your hands allowed.

Sign up for this event here, and good luck!

Astor Bake Shop - 12-23 Astoria Blvd, Astoria NY 11102
N/Q Train to Astoria Blvd

718.606.8439

www.astor-bakeshop.com 

Butter Lane's 2013 Sweet Preview was Delightful

As part of my being one of Butter Lane's Bloggers of the Week and therefore in their "inner sweet circle," I was excited to be invited to their 2013 sweets preview tasting.  Featuring new creations that are not yet on sale in the store and some of which may debut on the menu  early next year, my senses were truly overwhelmed with the sweetest of sensations.  The good news was that all of these treats were miniature, which was perfect for tasting a bit of everything.

The Set-Up:
Situated in Butter Lane's cupcake workshop room, the tasting hosted about 20 or so bloggers and their closest friends.  Kimberly came with me, and was quite impressed by the sweet table of mini cupcakes, pie pops, mini pop tarts and other goodies.

After helping yourself at the sweet table, you were welcomed to stand around and mingle or take a seat at their signature communal table, where folks usually situate themselves to decorate cupcakes during their classes.

My Favorites:
Overall, it won't come as a shock that everything was really tasty, but there are three items in particular, which stood out to me.

*Favorite* PB&J Banana Cupcake - If they're on the fence about this one for next year, I'd give it a wholehearted go, as the frosting is the perfect amount of sweet and peanut buttery with a soft little marshmallow on top.  The actual cupcake was just perfect and you can tell it was made with real bananas, creating a really wholesome and nostalgic flavor.

Blueberry Banana Cupcake - This is actually the last thing I tried and it left a lasting impression, as the juxtaposition of blueberry and banana once again created perfection.  The frosting, topped with a juicy little blueberry was slightly tangy, reminding me of summer while the banana cupcake base had a lovely crunch on the outside and a soft, pillowy interior that just sent you to heaven.

Strawberry Pop Tart - You know what they say, "an oldie but a goodie," this was literally Butter Lane's take on one of the most nostalgic snacks in America.  Looking just like the classic pop tart, with white frosting and sprinkles on top, it tasted a thousand times better, with a fresh strawberry jam inside that oozed out and made you lick your lips with delight.

Other sinful goodies we tried included:
Cake pies (pecan pie, sea salt chocolate)
Pie pops (cherry)
Cinnamon brown sugar pop tart
Chocolate malt cupcake

I hope you get out to Butter Lane soon to try some of their classic cupcakes and gear up for these exciting new things too!

Butter Lane - 123 East 7th Street, New York NY 10009
212.677.2880
6 Train to Astor Place
www.butterlane.com

Thanksgiving Pies - 2 Ways

I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and one of my favorite things about it is of course the pies.  Pumpkin, apple, pecan...I love them all.  This year, I decided to make 2 homemade rustic pies for my parents' feast tomorrow including a Southern Chocolate Pecan Pie and a Lemon/Thyme pie as well.

As you can see from the above shots, they're far from perfect but they're authentic and I anticipate some serious finger licking.  The first one is rich and indulgent, with semi-sweet chocolate, chunky pecans, butter and evaporated milk.  Since I messed up the crust, as you can see, I've added a braided border that made it look prettier, and I also plan to embellish it further tomorrow with fresh strawberries.

The lemon thyme pie was an experiment as well, as I made my own lemon custard, using milk, lots of lemon zest, fresh thyme and butter.  The crust was again too thin for my liking, but let's see how the guests react tomorrow when the whole thing is done up with fresh whipped cream.  Happy finger licking...and here are both recipes.

Southern Chocolate Pecan Pie courtesy of Whole Foods
Lemon Thyme Pie courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis

Martha's Post-Hurricane Delights

After my little trip to BareBurger Bayside, I also stopped off at Martha's Bakery, which is also located on Bell Blvd, about 3 blocks down from BareBurger.  I was in the mood for one of their legendary cupcakes, so I popped in - and to my delight found them fully stocked, with some new items I hadn't noticed before, including new cupcake flavors.  I grabbed a hazelnut cupcake, and then went back for a peanut butter one and also a brownie fudge pie.  Everything was amaazing!

Cupcakes - Both cupcakes were fabulous, with a really moist chocolate dough and a creamy frosting topper.  The hazelnut was my favorite, sporting a ring of crunchy hazelnuts around the perimeter, and a lightly flavored frosting.  While the hazelnut flavor was really subtle, it was deliciously sophisticated and something I'd love to have again, perhaps with a flute of champagne.

While I also enjoyed the peanut butter cupcake, the frosting was on the heavier side, and it would've been nice to have perhaps some peanut butter chocolate chips on the side to make the flavors more pronounced.

Brownie Fudge Pie - I couldn't resist two helpings of the brownie fudge pie, and it looked enticing, reminding me of a s'mores dessert.  It was really fantastic and oh so chocolatey, with large brownie chunks sticking out the sides.  They were slightly crunchy, which made the dessert really interesting from a texture standpoint, and the melty chocolate middle was a surprising juxtaposition.  Caveat - for serious chocolate lovers only.

Service and Cost:
No complaints about the service at all, as I was helped right away and the staff was really nice.  I've had some issues with this in the past in this location, but it's nice to see that things have improved.

Costs are expensive but totally worth every penny - $2.50/cupcake and $7.95 for a small chocolate pie or $18 for a large one.

3 Mmmms

Martha's Country Bakery - 41-06 Bell Blvd, Bayside NY 11361
718.225.5200
LIRR to Bayside
www.marthascountrybakery.com  

Martha's Country Bakery - Always a Sweetie

I adore Martha's Country Bakery on Ditmars Blvd! It's always the place that I hit up first when I need to bring something sweet to a friend's house. Almost always are people impressed with the cupcakes, cookies and the delicious fruit pies.

One of my recent visits was just for fun and I wanted to treat myself to a new flavor of their famous cupcakes. The black and white called my name and I was especially looking forward to eating all of that scrumptious frosting. It was damn good--and the cherry on top too! The dough was moist but not heavy and I'd definitely recommend this flavor along with my other favorite, the M&M's. I encourage you to include the black and white in your next Martha's cupcake variety purchase.

Pies and cookies are also yummy and I recently brought over a large blueberry/apple/cherry pie to a friend's place for Sunday Night Football. The crust was fantastic and definitely had some citrus in it--I love how Martha's uses lemon in both their pies and cupcakes! The filling had large chunks of fruit in it and didn't feel like that artificial glob that's sometimes used in store bought pies. Martha's blueberry/apple/cherry pie was a big hit with my friends, especially because it pleased people with different tastes.

In terms of cookies, I got an assortment of large ones and brought them to another friend's place last Saturday. These went fast and there were many praises about their richness and softness. My favorite was the chocolate-chocolate-chip, followed by the M&M's as a close second.

Prices aren't cheap but you get what you pay for--fabulosity!

Martha's Country Bakery - 36-21 Ditmars Blvd, Astoria, NY 11105

718.545.9737

N/W Train to Ditmars Blvd (last stop)

www.marthascountrybakery.com