BAKED

This past weekend, one of my best friends from North Carolina came to visit me in New York City. It was so much fun. I do not think I have covered so much territory in New York in one weekend ever. We went to Chelsea Market, saw Promises Promises – which was amazing! and we saw Kristen Chenoweth after the show – we walked all around Brooklyn, went to a street fair, a few flea markets, and just had a great time all around. Included in the weekend of festivites, we obviously ate a whole bunch of food. We went to Cafe Lalo for brunch on Sunday, which was delicious as usual, had lemonade at the street fair and even made our very own burritos at home on Thursday evening. It was a great trip and am looking forward to more friends visiting over the summer so that I’ll have an excuse to do all these fun things once again!

Now I have been dying to go to BAKED in Brooklyn for ages and ages. I had the granola they make and sell at supermarkets at a friends house a few years ago and fell in love. It is by far some of the best (and most expensive ;-)) granolas ever, but so worth it. After trying the granola, I looked them up online and saw that they had both a store in Brooklyn and in Charleston, South Carolina. I always had a sneaking desire to go but never actually took the prerogative to hike out to Red Hook in Brooklyn, but last Chaunkah my uncle gave me their cookbook and of course I wanted to go 10 thousand times more. How I’d never gone before makes no sense now that I’ve been, but we decided to finally go this past weekend and it definielty lived up to all my expectations.

First off, BAKED is in Red Hook, which is not the easiest place to get to. So after spending the morning at the Brooklyn flea market and then getting on and off about ten different subways and buses because nothing ever works on the weekend, we finally made it. We were all famished, but with my sweet tooth, I settled on a huge chunk of Sweet  & Salty cake to ease my hunger instead of something a little more well rounded like quiche or a sandwich. I think I made a good choice though because it was so good! One of my favorite things is flakes of salt sifted atop a cake or cookie and this didn’t fail to please me. The cake was an intense dark and rich chocolate cake with a light and fluffy whipped chocolate caramel frosting that complemeted each other perfectly. The flakes of salt were sprinkled on top of the cake, so although you didn’t get a salty taste each forkful, it was okay. Given how rich the cake is, with the caramel infused into it, one slice could easily be shared. Given how hungry I was, I thought I would be able to finish the whole piece on my own, but alas, I let the others at the table have their fair share and there was still even some left on the plate as we left.

I was so excited to go to BAKED after having been waiting to go all year and now I can finally say I’ve been. As far as it might be from my apartment now, I’m sure I’ll make the sojourn again soon, but while I’m waiting I guess I’ll just have to keep making some yummy yummy recipes from their cookbook.