Cake walk

For me, one of the most memorable scenes in “Bridesmaids” was not the infamously disgusting bridal shop debacle, although that one is pretty hard to forget. It was the scene where Kristen Wiig, portraying a pastry chef, goes into her home kitchen and proceeds to bang out one of the most drop-dead gorgeous single-serving cupcakes I’ve ever seen.

I enjoy cupcakes and prefer them to ice cream if I’m going out for a sweet treat, but they’re not something I seek out on a regular basis. In fact, I have a great basic cupcake recipe that I like playing around with at home as the mood strikes me. However, my recent trip to Parcha Sweets, in conjunction with the past few episodes of Top Chef Just Desserts, has been a stark reminder me that I am indeed a mere amateur when it comes to cranking out culinary creations of the pastry variety.

Parcha Sweets exterior

When I saw Parcha Sweets open last fall in the old Domino’s Pizza building on 62^nd Street just east of Broad Ripple, I thought… huh? Now, after finally making a visit nearly a year later, I get it. If you look close, you can figure out what the repainted building used to be without much trouble, but inside, you’d never guess high school hacks used to sling pies here. It’s really warm, cute and cozy. Parcha encourages customers to take a load off and relax by providing organic coffee, magazines, free Wifi, and even a small table and chairs for the kiddos, a smart move if you want to appeal to the mom crowd.

In case you’re wondering about the name, “parcha” means passion fruit in the chef’s Puerto Rican homeland. Here in Indy, she offers cookies, pies, bread pudding, old-fashioned coconut macaroons and other baked goods, but the cupcakes the real rock stars, displayed in a countertop cluster of glass cake stands. And they are gorgeous. There are about a dozen flavors to choose from daily. Some of the stands had already been depleted by the time I stopped by mid-afternoon; thankfully, there were still plenty of mouthwatering choices.

I used my book club meeting as an excuse to visit, looking for a dessert to contribute to the evening’s group. I’d read online somewhere that Parcha Sweets offered mini-cupcakes, which I thought would be a great way for us to sample several flavors each. Alas, the nice young gal who waited on me said they’d stopped making the minis because they were too difficult to package without falling over. Hmph. Well, no matter, I figured we’d just cut the full-size cupcakes into fourths. Additionally, one of the ladies in my book club has a son who’s dealing with a list of food allergies that would make your head spin. As a show of solidarity, she’s following the same restrictive diet he’s on. So with her in mind, I asked about gluten-free, vegan cupcakes (I’d also read in another online review that Parcha did these as well). Found out they’re not regularly available, either. Just for special orders, apparently.

I had trouble making selections when so many of the cupcakes looked so tempting and finally just asked the server to pick eight and box them up for me. Packaging is thoughtfully designed to preserve the integrity of the cupcakes – sturdy cardboard boxes with molded holders inside to keep those little beauties from sliding around if you take a sharp turn. And a little ribbon and sticker on the top. Pretty.

Parcha Sweets cupcakes to go

Let’s get on to the main event… here’s what we sampled and our impressions of each:

the Red Velvet

Red Velvet – the hands-down favorite of the bunch. Rich, luscious claret cake topped with a mountain of creamy cream cheese frosting. Delectable. Everyone who tasted this one loved it.

Lemon – ricotta lemon cake filled with a lemon cream and topped with lemon buttercream. Another crowd pleaser.

Peanut Salty Caramel – tasted sort of like a Snickers bar. Chocolate cake with a caramel filling, peanut butter frosting and a few chopped nuts on top for garnish. I could have eaten the peanut butter frosting with a spoon, but the cake was a little dry, and the caramel filling was a little too liquid.

Carrot – a big hit with the gals who like carrot cake. Moist and delicious with more of that yummy cream cheese frosting on top.

the Chocolate Passion

Chocolate Passion – chocolate cake with a big pile of chocolate ganache topping. Almost overkill on the chocolate, if there is such a thing. The ganache was firm on top, not soft like frosting, which kinda threw us a little bit. However, I’m positive my son would LOVE this.

Wedding Cake – got mixed reviews, but I really liked it. Creamy vanilla cake topped with what tasted like amaretto buttercream frosting. The sweet almond flavor really comes through.

the S’mores

S’mores – chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, marshmallow filling (toasted on top) and graham cracker crumbs. Good, but not great. It looked really intriguing, but we found the marshmallow a bit chewy.

Caribbean Coconut – one gal in the group really liked this one, the rest thought it was ok. The cake was a wee bit dry, but there was tons of good coconut flavor.

Parcha Sweets prices are a little steep – $2.99 for a beautiful cupcake of average size, which is a few cents higher than what you’d pay at Flying Cupcake and Holy Cow. Although you do get a 10 percent discount if you order more than six. Just make sure you don’t eat all six by yourself in one sitting. It could happen…

For more information:

http://www.parchasweets.com/

Pastries for lunch

A freelance assignment required me to visit a new pastry shop in Geist this morning. I know, I know, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

After chatting with the chef owner, I purchased some of his tempting wares to taste-test at home. So here’s what my lunch today consisted of:

Bakery at Geist goodies

The croissant was a little on the smallish side, but other than that detail, was pretty close to what you find in Paris. The blueberry lemon scone was fragrant and super-moist, not at all dry and crumbly like the traditional ones I’ve had in Ireland or England. Then there was something called a Paris Brest…

Let me tell you. If you’re looking for a devilishly decadent over-the-top pastry, this is it. In simplest terms, it’s a sandwich of sorts made with puff pastry filled with pastry cream (hazelnut-flavored in this case) and topped with almonds and powdered sugar. I have an unapologetic sweet tooth, and I could only manage a few bites. Mercy me. The cream was so thick and rich, I wondered if I could get away with slathering it on my face as a moisturizer. Yummy.

It’s now nearly dinnertime and I’m just coming down from the sugar buzz. With any luck, a glass or two of wine will kill the headache.

(Incidentally, if you’re interested in enjoying some of these goodies for yourself, they came from The Bakery at Geist, in the Geist Shopping Center strip mall at Fox Rd. and Oaklandon. Tell Chef Ron I sent you.)

Viva la France!

For more info:

http://blog.thebakeryatgeist.com/

Macarons, part deux

Figuring I’d keep striking while the oven’s hot, this afternoon marked my second foray into the macaron-making process. Flavor du jour — lemon.

I’m quickly deducing that sifting the almond meal is my least-favorite and most time-consuming step of the whole recipe. It took forever, scattered almond crumbs all over the kitchen, and I had to use two separate sieves because they kept clogging up. After I’d finally sifted an entire lightly packed cup’s worth, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and stirred it through the powdered sugar.

Instead of mixing vanilla bean into the batter, this time I went with lemon zest and a few drops of yellow food coloring. Unfortunately, when I mixed the almond meal/powdered sugar in, the dark flecks of almond made the whole concoction look like Dijon mustard. Not exactly appealing. The appearance improved somewhat after baking, but the yellow food coloring got totally lost somewhere along the way. (If anyone knows a trick for achieving a uniform color and consistency, I’m all ears.)

For the filling, I whipped up a batch of homemade lemon curd in a double boiler, another first and not too difficult to do. After an hour in the fridge, it was DELICIOUS, a sort of ridiculously thick, rich lemon frosting.

Again, the texture and taste of the cookies turned out well, but the appearance is still not perfect in my discriminating eyes. I slathered on the lemon curd and started assembling them, but the curd was so thick, I shattered several of the delicate cookies before getting the hang of just how much pressure to use. And I overdid the lemon curd on the first few — as it warmed to room temperature, it melted a little bit and oozed down the sides of the macarons. No matter. I’ll save the “mistakes” for myself.

a few of the more photogenic final products

I’ve got tons of lemon curd leftover. This may call for a batch of scones…