Todd English Food Hall

Todd English Food Hall

The Plaza Hotel

1 West 59th Street

New York, NY 10019

If you're in New York City and near West 59th Street (chances are you will at one point be because there's a bunch of goodies there you'd be visiting, from Central Park to the shops and restaurants), stop by the Todd English Food Hall for a snack or quick meal.

Under the Plaza Hotel, as the name implies, there's a wonderful collection of food vendors and plenty of seating in around the hall. If you're into dessert like me, you'll really like this one-stop location for so many great treats!

So we continued my macaron tour by stopping at La Maison du Chocolat for a chocolate macaron.

These were by far the most we've paid for a macaron, but we're guessing because they are larger in size and they're using quality chocolate.

Chocolate lovers rejoice because this macaron is probably one of the richest and creamiest one there is. I would recommend sharing it, because it is a huge portion of chocolate. Texture wise, the shell was a bit too soft for my liking, it felt too delicate and on the verge of breaking.

Our next reason for stopping by the Food Hall is Lady M, makers of fabulous and delicious cakes. Howard and I made a very dire mistake here.

See if you can guess what we did wrong. Look at the photo above and then the one below.

That's right. We only ordered one slice of green tea mille crêpes cake. Sharing is not a good idea here. We should have ordered the green tea, chocolate, chocolate banana, and original in my opinion. What? Four slices shared among two people is normal! Normal! It was embarrassing at how fast we consumed that slice of cake. Each of us with our fork and fighting for the next piece . . .

FP Patisserie is nearby, having already visited a different location, we didn't stop for macarons here.

Cupcakes? Yes! From Billy’s Bakery no less.

Mmm bread!

No bread? Maybe pies are more your thing.

It's worth a visit, especially if you need to pick up items for a Central Park picnic!

Four Happy Years

Dear Reader,

Today is our blogiversary, it's been four happy years!

It doesn't matter if you've been reading our blog since the beginning or if you just started today. We still want to thank you for joining our journey. Whether you only read the blog, or interact with us on facebook, twitter, instagram, or pinterest, we hope that we're finding and sharing things that you enjoy, too.

We hope to never stop posting, it's for our benefit too as we're getting older and more forgetful, it's nice to look back at our creations and remember the work and story behind it.

It's been four fabulous years as we've learned how to: make more desserts other than cupcakes, make dishes other than desserts, and take better photos. We were fortunate enough to test new products, attend events, and experience travel. We read some great food magazines and books along the way. And watched documentaries that changed our outlook on cooking.

We think you can tell that we made another mille crêpes cake for the celebrations tonight. Following the same recipe here, we adjusted it by adding two tablespoons of matcha (green tea) powder to the crêpe batter. We stirred the matcha powder into the milk after it was steamed.

There's a hint of matcha flavour in it, but it's not very strong. Maybe we'll need to do a matcha pastry cream next time. We stuck to the vanilla flavoured one because it is so darn delicious.

Guess who got to use the kitchen torch again? Sigh.

Mmm, crepe cake for breakfast.

To another four years of nomming!


Your friends,
Sylvia and Howard

Mille Crêpes Cake

Happy birthday to my sweetheart, Howard! As some of you know, he was born on Groundhog Day and that his favourite cake is the mille crêpes cake from Lady M. To celebrate, I wanted to make him the same cake, but of course there isn't an official Lady M recipe. Luckily, the internet has many speculations on how the cake is made.

The one I followed is from the New York Times. In the article, the author uses the crêpe recipe from Joy of Cooking and the vanilla pastry cream from Desserts by Pierre Hermé and added whipped cream.

Mille Crêpes Cake
(Makes about 1 eight-inch cake)

For the crêpe batter:
6 tablespoons butter
3 cups milk
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
7 tablespoons sugar
A pinch salt

For the vanilla pastry cream:
2 cups milk
1 vanilla bean, halved and scraped
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons butter

For the assembly, this was adapted from the original article:
Vegetable oil
2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoon sugar or more

1. Make the crêpe batter and the pastry cream the day before. 
2. Crêpe batter: In a small pan, cook the butter until brown. Set it aside. In a small pot, heat the milk until it starts steaming and then set it aside to cool for 10 minutes. On medium-low speed with your mixer, beat together the eggs, flour, sugar, and salt. Slowly add the hot milk and browned butter to the mixture. Pour the batter into a container, cover and refrigerate overnight.
3. Pastry cream: Flatten the vanilla bean and slice it open with a sharp knife. Peel the bean open and scrape the seeds out with the knife. In a small pot, bring the milk with the vanilla bean with scrapings to a boil, set it aside to cool for 10 minutes; remove bean. Fill a large bowl with cold water (or ice). In a medium sized pan or small pot, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together. Gradually whisk in the hot milk. Place the pan over high heat and bring it to a boil, whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 minutes. Set the bowl in the ice bath or cold water and stir until the temperature reaches 140°F (60°C) on an instant-read thermometer. Stir in the butter. Cool, cover, and refrigerate.
4. The next day, bring the batter and pastry cream to room temperature. Place a nonstick 8-inch pan over medium heat. Swab the surface with the oil, then add about 2-3 tablespoons of batter and swirl to cover the surface. Cook until the bottom just begins to brown, about 1 minute, then carefully lift an edge and flip the crêpe. Cook on the other side for no longer than 5-10 seconds. Carefully flip the crêpe onto a baking sheet lined with parchment. Repeat until you have 20 perfect crêpes.
   
5. Use a mixer to whip the heavy cream with the sugar - it won't hold strong peaks. Fold it into the pastry cream.
6. To assemble, lay a crêpe on a plate. Pipe or use an icing spatula to completely cover the crêpe with a thin layer of pastry cream (about 1/4 cup). Cover the pastry cream layer with a crêpe and repeat to make a stack of 20, with the best-looking crepe on top. Chill for at least 2 hours. Set it out for 30 minutes in room temperature before serving.
   
7. If you have a kitchen torch, sprinkle the top crepe with granulated sugar and caramelize with the torch.

I know it wasn't necessary, but I went out to get a kitchen torch anyways. They weren't too expensive, I was bracing myself to spend around $30 for one and was surprised to find it on sale for $13 at the Bay! The torch isn't filled, so we made a trip to Canadian Tire to find butane fuel, $5.

I made the crêpes batter and pastry cream the night before. The next morning, I stood in front of the stove for hours to cook those crêpes. Then I stood for another hour at the table icing each layer. I even sprinkled the top layer with sugar. Then along comes Howard to perform the fun part. Caramelizing! 

At least I got to take the photos.

I'm kidding, it was great seeing him have so much fun with the torch. And the torch was worth it. That top crunchy layer is the best. I mean, the cake is amazing as a whole, but if it were just layers of crunchy crêpes, that would be awesome too!

We are highly recommending that you try making this cake. Sure, the edges will be ruffled (Howard picked out our black ruffled cake stand to go with this cake) and not as neatly stacked as Lady M's, but the cake itself is tasty and the texture is delicious!

Lady M Confections

Lady M Confections

41 East 78th Street

New York, NY 10075

(212) 452-2222

I know we already tried the mille crêpes cake at Ippudo the night before, but I still wanted to visit Lady M! They have other beautiful looking desserts too.

That day, there was a torrential downpour. Guess what? We weren't prepared. We had one umbrella to share, but it didn't matter. We got soaked. I even ended up throwing away the pair of shoes I was wearing that day.

It didn't help that we were in a posh neighbourhood and most of the clientele in the shop were also very upper class. There we were. Howard and I dripping wet and looking poorly among all the beautiful desserts.

We were told to leave our umbrella up front so that the water wouldn't drag all the way to the back where we were seated. Our server was friendly and service was quick.

I ordered the earl grey tea to warm up. I was delighted with the brown sugar rock candy! I used it to stir my tea, no sugar cubes for me!

Since we enjoyed the cake so much, I ordered the mille crêpes cake again. It is composed of approximately 20 paper thin, hand-made crêpes layered with a light and creamy custard.

Lady M also has seasonal mille crêpes throughout the year. Chocolate, chestnut, coconut, coffee, and green tea. I didn't see any displayed that day, but I would love to try the chocolate and green tea flavours!

Howard tried the strawberry mille feuille. Paper thin puff pastry layered with sponge, cream custard, and strawberries. This cake was also delicious and Howard recommends it. But, if we had to choose, we'd go with the mille crêpes!