Restaurant Review: Nola's

Nola's - lunch on November 21, 2013

The week before Thanksgiving, I took my team out to Nola's in Palo Alto, just off University Ave.  I'd heard of Nola's before from friends who've gone there but this was my first time trying them out.  If you don't know the address, it's easy to miss as its frontage space isn't that of your typical restaurant.  Instead of opening the front door and walking into the restaurant itself, you enter a hallway and go down a paved path set between "buildings" and come upon a number of partitioned rooms, the most open one housing a fountain. If you don't know what to look for, the restaurant is easy to miss and you think you're just passing an alley way.

Once seated and you look around, you realize Nola's is set up to look like a section of Bourbon Street from New Orleans itself.  Instead of one large restaurant, it's multi-level with rooms partitioned off, making it seem like you're entering different buildings on Bourbon St.  There's also a bar area (which is very Bourbon St for anyone who's been to New Orleans).  It's not quite as glitzily tacky as the original Bourbon St but if you've never been to New Orleans before, Nola's could probably tide you over until you see the real thing.

Chicken and Cornmeal Waffles

Spicy Jambalaya

We were seated in the "courtyard" or what seemed like the center of the restaurant on its ground floor.  I ordered the chicken and waffles and thought it was delicious. The waffles came with a scoop of whipped cranberry butter and that was probably the only thing I didn't inhale on the plate as I don't care for cranberries except in my Pumpkin Upside Down Cake.  The cornmeal waffles were served hot, were thin but both tender and crisp and paired well with the chicken.  The chicken itself was tender and juicy, the way good fried chicken should be to make it worth the calories.  The gravy it came with was a trifle too spicy for me but it was still pretty tasty.

One of the salads with herbed focaccia crostini

Mama's Mac n Cheese

I forgot which sandwich this was - with sweet potato fries

It's a standing joke for our team lunches that we have to order at least 1 dessert for the team to share or preferably one for each person but I try not to pressure them (really, or at least I try not to). We'd all been working hard though and had some good appetites this time around so everyone ended up each ordering a dessert. (Ah, they make me so proud.)

N'awlins sampler: beignets, pecan pie, and bread pudding

Our waiter actually laughed at us, not unkindly but in an "are you sure?" way once we'd put in our dessert orders.  When he brought them out, we understood his amusement.  Holy cow, the desserts were huge!  As in they were literally meant for sharing but 4 people ordered 4 desserts so there was a lot, even for my dessert-queen self.

Beignets

The beignets were nice fluffy yeasted fried doughnuts dusted with powdered sugar.  I can't say they were as good as Cafe du Monde's but that's a high bar to reach and they were delicious all the same. Not greasy, not too sweet (although remember I have a high tolerance for sugar) and if I wasn't already full from my entree, I would've probably eaten more than couple of bites.  From the N'awlins Sampler that one of our party ordered, I thought the bread pudding was the best.  I only tried a smidge of the pecan pie and it seemed decent but it didn't a hold a candle to the bread pudding.

Big Fat Brownie Sundae

My own dessert order was for the Red Velvet Waffles and I had them leave off the whipped cream and paid the additional $2 to have it a la mode with vanilla ice cream.  The red velvet waffles were the main reason I wanted to come to Nola's once Jim, one of my friends from a previous company, had posted a description from the menu on Facebook. Red Velvet Waffles?  Of course I was going to try it.  Unfortunately though, they weren't as good as I had hoped or expected.  I don't know if mine were overcooked as a one-off or if they were meant to be served like that but they'd been cooked too long and were dry.  The cream cheese icing helped as did the ice cream but even so, they were tough to eat and I couldn't even finish half a waffle, much less two of them.  Far, far different than the cornmeal waffles in my entree which had been cooked to perfection.  Sniff.

Red Velvet Waffles

Despite that, I'd still say overall that Nola's is pretty good.  If you want something a little different for ambiance, it's a good place to go, especially if you're the meet and mingle type (I'm not very).  But next time I'm getting the bread pudding.

Nutella-Filled Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nutella-Filled Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough November 22, 2013 from Cookies and Cups

This was one of the cookies I made to help with my friend's fundraiser for Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts. Anything that involves stuffing nutella inside a cookie is worth trying.  Although I have to admit I didn't follow the directions precisely.  Instead of piping nutella dollops and freezing them, I chilled the jar of nutella first then used my mini cheesecake pan with removable bottoms to layer cookie dough on the bottom, drop a scoop of chilled nutella in the center and cover it with another layer of dough.  Then I pushed up the bottom to pop the cookie "blob" out and sealed any cracks so the nutella couldn't escape during baking. This method works pretty well if you have the pan, although it does make fairly chubby cookies (note: that's not a criticism - I always like chubby....in a cookie).

These are fairly rich and you'll only achieve that fudgy texture if you underbake them.  If you fully bake them, the cookies will be dry. I highly recommend letting these cool to room temperature before you try them.  If you eat them when they're too warm, they'll be too mushy.  Normally that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing but it's better when the cookie has cooled and has the texture of a fudgy cookie to go with the softer, almost liquid texture of the nutella. You can also taste both the chocolate and the nutella better when the cookie is cool.

 2 2/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups chocolate chips, divided
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup Nutella
*optional flaked sea salt for garnish

1. In bowl off stand mixer cream butter and both sugars for 1-2 minutes until light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs and vanilla and continue mixing until evenly incorporated.
3. Melt 2 cups of the chocolate chips in microwave or double boiler.
4. Mix in melted chocolate into the butter mixture and evenly combine.
5. With mixer on low add in the dry ingredients and blend until dough forms.
6. Stir in remaining chocolate chips.
7. Chill dough for at least 2 hours.
8. Meanwhile, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
9. Fill a zip-top or piping bag with Nutella and pipe teaspoon sized amounts onto parchment paper, similar to a Hershey Kiss. You will need 48 dollops of Nutella. Place baking sheet in freezer for at least an hour.
10. When dough and Nutella are chilled preheat oven to 375°
11. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
12. Form cookie dough around each Nutella piece using about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough. Place on baking sheet about 2 inches apart.
13. Bake for 7-8 minutes.
14. While cookies are baking place Nutella back in freezer, as it will thaw out quickly.
15. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool.

Thanksgiving Desserts 2013

Every year I'm in charge of supplying desserts for our Thanksgiving Day meal and this year, similar to last year, I also hosted afternoon dessert for extended family the next day. So that was 2 occasions to plan and bake for. But I felt woefully unprepared for this year's baking-fest.  I'm not sure why.  It wasn't like I didn't know Thanksgiving was the 4th Thursday of November and that I couldn't read the calendar as each day passed.  But like a deer frozen in the headlights, I played chicken with time.  And lost.

Which is why I needed to take off the 2 days before Thanksgiving and scramble to plan what I was going to bake, head to Costco and Trader Joe's to buy any missing ingredients and get baking. Last Tuesday was grocery shopping and prep work.  (Wednesday and Thursday was for actual baking.) Fortunately, one of the advantages of being a baking ingredient hoarder is I'm usually well stocked up on the essentials and only had to pick up a few perishable items to make my supply complete.

Thanksgiving Day desserts:
My traditional Pumpkin Upside Down Cake with Cranberries and Caramelized Pecans - this is what we have in lieu of pumpkin pie.  As I've mentioned before, I don't like pumpkin pie and since I'm the one making desserts, yeah, we don't have pumpkin pie. The original recipe for this cake makes a trifle too much caramel so I usually only make 3/4 of the caramel recipe for 1 cake. It doesn't make it as gooey or rich but that's not always a bad thing.  I don't usually like cranberries but they're perfect in this cake to add some tartness and contrast with the sweetness of the caramel.

Pumpkin Upside Down Cake

My niece asked for Banana Butterscotch Caramel Cupcakes which is also one of my favorite cupcakes.  I'd been saving up overripe bananas in my freezer so this was a perfect use for them.  All went well when I got up early to make them on Wednesday: I had a lot of baking and cookie dough making to do so I made up the batter in record time and whisked them into the oven....only to realize 5 minutes later that I had forgotten to add the butterscotch chips to the batter.  Eep.  I yanked them out of the oven and sprinkled some on top of each cupcake but I knew that wasn't going to cut it.  They needed to be mixed into the batter itself  to add that butterscotch flavor to the banana.  After they had baked, the few butterscotch chips I had managed to sprinkle on top had partially sunk into each cupcake and also somewhat melted.

Banana Cupcakes cored in the middle

But I had no intention of accepting a cupcake fail so I cored the middle of each cupcake, warmed up some salted caramel, added more butterscotch chips to it and spooned that in for the filling.  It wasn't perfect but at least I was able to incorporate a little more butterscotch flavor into them.

Filled with salted caramel and butterscotch chips

Top off with the brown sugar frosting and it looks like I had made the cupcakes this way on purpose.

The finished, frosted cupcakes

Those were the two desserts I made the day before Thanksgiving and on Thanksgiving Day itself, as soon as the turkey came out of the oven and we sat down to eat, I placed the third dessert in to bake, another family favorite: apple cobbler. The original recipe calls them Apple Crumble Bars but I make it more as a cobbler and serve it warm with ice cream.  Whatever you want to call it, it's good. I only took a picture with my ipad so the quality isn't very good and I forgot to take a better one with my camera. But regardless of how it looks, did I mention it was good? Especially served warm with vanilla ice cream which is how I served it to everyone along with a slice of the pumpkin upside down cake.

Apple Cobbler

Considering the non-dessert Thanksgiving spread, it turned out to be more than enough dessert for the 10 of us on Thanksgiving Day. But of course that didn't stop me from making more sweets for 15 people the following day.  Since 3 of the 15 were kids, I went for the simple rather than the fancy and for once, stuck to recipes I'd made before (click on the caption titles in each picture to go to the recipes).

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Buttery Tea Balls

Lemon Chip Cookies

Once everyone had arrived or was on their way, I also made the Cinnamon Sugar Banana Lumpia to be served warm at the last minute.

Cinnamon Sugar Banana Lumpia

And just to make sure no one was shortchanged of sugar, I also served the Red Velvet Cheesecake my cousin brought for Thanksgiving.  I'm not a cheesecake person but it was layers of red velvet cake sandwiched with vanilla cheesecake layers and the sliver of the red velvet cake part of it that I tried was pretty good.

Red Velvet Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory

All in all, when I'm fortunate enough to enjoy good food with family, there's much to be thankful for indeed. And after all that eating, I was also grateful to get to the gym and run 5 miles this morning.  That was probably enough to work off at least 2 cookies. We'll just conveniently ignore everything else I ate beyond those 2 cookies.  Thanksgiving comes only once a year after all.

Thanksgiving 2013

I meant to blog a pre-Thanksgiving post on Wednesday to link the dessert recipes I was working on but I was too busy baking them to get to my blog.  And now Thanksgiving has come and gone and I hope all those who celebrated it had a good one and are suitably stuffed.  I stopped eating around 3:30 pm yesterday and didn't break my fast until 17 hours later this morning if that gives you any indication on how much I had to be grateful for yesterday.

But pictures say a thousand words so here's the pictorial of our Thanksgiving feast yesterday

As a whole, we're not really big on turkey in my family so we had a relatively modest 10-lb turkey.  Based on a tip from Martha Stewart on how to keep the turkey from drying out, my sister wrapped it in parchment paper for most of its baking time.  Towards the last 30 minutes of roasting, she peeled back the parchment and laid strips of bacon over it. It worked because the turkey was pretty moist.

The rice stuffing my mom and my niece made

Below is my mom's mashed potatoes - I don't have the recipe but I was in the kitchen when she and my sister were making it and I was listening to the ingredients that went into it which included sour cream, milk, mayonnaise and butter.  I had to ask "are any potatoes going into that?" LOL. It's garnished with the bacon crumbled from the slices that went on top of the turkey. I didn't have enough room to try them but everyone seemed to like them.

Mashed potatoes

Gravy made from the turkey drippings

My mom also made crab-stuffed chicken breasts.  I didn't have room to try this either at the time but I took some home as leftovers and will have it later this weekend.

Crab-Stuffed Chicken Breasts

My uncle brought lechon and it was really good, very tender and moist.  I haven't had lechon in awhile so I think I ate more lechon than turkey.

Lechon (roast pork)

My mom also made Shrimp Pesto Pasta, a family favorite.  You can't tell from the picture but there's a lot of shrimp underneath the noodles.

Shrimp Pesto Pasta

The ham is from Honeybaked.  My poor mom stood in line for an hour just to get inside the shop then had to wait some more to buy it.  I'm not normally a big fan of ham but it was pretty good.  Even better as leftovers the next day with scrambled eggs.

Honeybaked Ham

This was my plate and I'm only posting this one because I forgot to take an individual shot of my Caramelized Sweet Potatoes, the post that has gotten the most hits over the past few days so I hope other people were able to give them a try as well.  I remembered to add the orange zest this time and it did make the sweet potatoes more orange-y.  They were good that way but I also liked them without the zest.

I will post the desserts separately later on.  I have 14 family members coming to my house this afternoon for dessert so I'd better get off my computer and get ready for them....

Black Bottom Peanut Butter Cups

Black Bottom Peanut Butter Cups - made November 23, 2013 from Chocolatier magazine, Oct 2006 edition

I took today and tomorrow off to do my holiday baking for Thanksgiving weekend.  For our family Thanksgiving, I'm baking the desserts (more on that in a future post) plus I'm hosting a dessert gathering at my place the next day.

I know I'm not the only one busy with all the Thanksgiving preparations.  But in the midst of all the holiday flurry, I'm also mindful of those in the Philippines impacted by Typhoon Haiyan, a stark contrast of all that I have to be thankful for right now versus the numerous Filipinos displaced and struggling to survive the aftermath of the typhoon. I'm not the only one who feels this way; there has also been an outpouring of support in the Filipino community and beyond to help provide aid and relief to the victims of Haiyan.  Stateside, there are numerous fundraisers happening and I was privileged to contribute in some small way to one of them this past weekend through a long-time friend. I offered to bake for the kids and team members behind the fundraiser, about 24 in total so I had some serious baking to do.

Starting with this recipe for a peanut butter and chocolate combination.  It's essentially a dark chocolate cake, "filled" with a peanut butter cream cheese filling and topped with a Reese's peanut butter cup.  Since I was planning to do a variety of treats, I went small on these so people could sample without overcommitting to any one thing. I filled mini cupcake tins with the chocolate cake batter, added a dollop of the peanut butter cream cheese filling in the center (or sort of in the center) and once they were out of the oven, immediately topped them with mini Reese's peanut butter cups which turned out to be the perfect size for mini cupcakes.

These look rather homey (or homely?) as I wasn't super neat about filling the center in a perfect circle but I liked the homemade look of it all.  This was a nice pairing of peanut butter and chocolate.  The cake itself was soft in texture and dark chocolate in taste while the peanut butter cream cheese filling provided the richness. It made quite a bit of batter though.  I made 2 dozen mini cupcakes, 2 dozen brownie-square-sized ones and a dozen regular-size cupcakes. It's important to time these in the oven as the cake, being a more liquid batter than the filling, will bake first while the filling will seem underdone.  That's okay because you don't want to overbake the cake to dryness.  It's better for the cake to be perfectly done and the filling to be slightly underdone. 

Peanut butter-cream cheese filling

6 ounces cream cheese, softened

½ cup creamy peanut butter

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons bleached all-purpose flour

1 large egg, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

¾ cup (4 ½ ounces) Nestle swirled milk chocolate and peanut butter morsels, Reese’s pieces or peanut butter chips

Chocolate cupcake batter

3 cups bleached all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

2/3 cup unsweetened non-alkalized cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

¾ teaspoon salt

½ cup firmly packed golden brown sugar

2 cups lukewarm water

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Garnish (optional)

About 36 small (1” diameter) Reese’s or other peanut butter cup candies, cut in half

1.     Make peanut butter-cream cheese filling: Place cream cheese and peanut butter in bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment.  Beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy.  Gradually add sugar, beating another 1-2 minutes, or until light and fluffy.  Mix in flour until just incorporated.  Add egg, vanilla extract, and salt.  Beat until egg is uniformly incorporated.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Set aside.

2.     Prepare chocolate cupcake batter: Position rack in center of oven and preheat oven to 350˚F.  Line twenty-four 2 ½” diameter muffin cups with paper cupcake liners.  Sift flour, granulated sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in large bowl.  Stir in brown sugar, breaking it apart with fork or whisk to evenly distribute it.  Make well in center of dry ingredients and add lukewarm water, oil, vinegar and vanilla extract.  Stir gently until batter is creamy and smooth, pressing out any lumps with fork or back of spatula.

3.     Spoon or pour about 3 tablespoons batter into each lined muffin cup to fill it no more than two-thirds full.  Then top each cupcake with 1 generous tablespoon peanut butter filling.  Bake about 25-27 minutes or until toothpick inserted in cake portion comes out clean.  Allow cupcakes to cool about 15 minutes in pan.  (Note: the cream cheese centers will sink slightly as cupcakes cool.  But, no worries; these little wells are perfect nesting spots for Reese’s cups that will go on top.)  Carefully remove cupcakes from pans and transfer to racks to cool completely.  While cupcakes are still slightly warm, but not hot, place 2-3 peanut butter cup halves on top of each for garnish.  The residual heat from cupcakes should melt peanut butter cups even so slightly, causing them to adhere to cupcake tops.

Chewy Sugar Cookies

Chewy Sugar Cookies - made dough November 14, 2013 from Baking Away

As my high-baking season approaches, otherwise known as the holidays, I start stocking up on cookie doughs.  I make them, portion them into dough balls, place them in freezer bags, mark the bags with what kind of cookie they are, oven temp they should be baked at and the recommended baking time according to the recipe.  Then at any given time in the next 4-6 weeks, I can pull what I need out of the freezer and bake them at the last minute for gifts, parties and get togethers.

Theoretically I should only be making recipes I've tried before and every year when I make that vow, I end up fibbing to myself because I can't resist any excuse to try a new recipe.  I do try to stick to "safe" recipes, meaning the ones I scan and see they look okay, have pictures of from where someone else has made them and decide they look good.  To be really safe, I also plan to bake them with other really tried and true recipes so if they don't turn out as well as I would've liked, I can also mix them in with the better stuff.

It's funny because for a lot of people, holiday baking means they bring out their once-a-year specialty, often steeped in tradition and the flavors of the season: gingerbread cookies, peppermint something-or-the-other, eggnog-ish treats, or even the ubiquitous fruitcake.  Me, since I bake a lot of my holiday gifts, I amp up the volume and am less about the flavors of the season than about a variety of baked goods to gift, preferably something my friends have liked before and I use the holidays to give them something similar again.  Since I bake so much and get easily bored with making the same recipe(s) over and over (no challenge), I tend to try variations of the same thing. Case in point, this sugar cookie.  I have a couple of really good recipes for sugar cookies but I'm always open to trying a new one. This was actually a pretty good find.  It has crisp edges but lives up to its name in being chewy; it also had a great vanilla flavor and, despite its name, isn't too sweet. Sometimes it's good to have something "plain" (I prefer the term "classic") amongst all the holiday fancy. And for kids who don't like chocolate, nuts, or anything fussy in their cookies, this is a safe choice.

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup sugar for rolling cookies

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Using a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and very fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients.
4. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and roll in sugar. Place on lined cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart.
5. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

Snickerdoodle Pancakes

Snickerdoodle Pancakes - made November 21, 2013 from Number 2 Pencil

I had a 6:30 am meeting last week that I took from home since there was no way I was going to be awake, showered, dressed and coherent at the office by then.  Fortunately, it was an all-hands meeting so I could be logged on from my laptop in my kitchen with the phone on speaker and I could listen to the meeting and still multi-task, namely make myself breakfast. I don't normally eat that early since I usually work out first thing in the morning and eat only when I get to the office.  In hindsight, technically I suppose I could've been on my treadmill getting a workout in while I listened to the all-hands but I tend to zone out when I'm exercising so that probably wouldn't have been a good idea.

Instead, I made pancakes. I think I could bake or prepare sweet treats like pancakes in my sleep so this was a safe multi-tasking effort.  Especially pancakes which are so easy to put together.  Dump the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet ingredients in the other, whisk together while the frying pan is heating and fry.  Initially I was going to skip the cinnamon vanilla glaze and use syrup instead but since the pancakes took such little time and effort to make, I decided to go ahead with the glaze. It turned out to be a good thing that I did because the glaze was the best part....says the person who normally doesn't like frosting and this was essentially like a frosting but thinner and better. I only used 1/4 cup milk to make fluffier pancakes like the recipe suggested but the pancakes didn't come out as fluffy as others I've made.  It also isn't sweet at all which is good because the glaze provides the needed sweetness and flavor and I think having sweet pancakes would've been too much with the glaze.  On the other hand, with so much sour cream in them, they actually turned out a little bitter and I think they could've used a little more sweetness.  I'd suggest keeping the glaze recipe and making something like the Orange Cinnamon Roll pancakes and subbing out the orange glaze in that recipe for the cinnamon glaze in this recipe for that snickerdoodle slant. Which is what I did the next day to use up the leftover glaze (pics below).

Made with this pancake recipe

1 cup of all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of cream of tartar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon of kosher salt
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup of sour cream
4 tablespoons of melted butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ – ½ cup of milk

1. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and whisk to combine.
2. Add wet ingredients and whisk just until combined.
3. Use ¼ cup of milk for thicker, fluffy pancakes. Add more milk for thinner, tender pancakes.
4. Pour ¼ cup of pancake batter onto hot non-stick griddle.
5. When edges of pancakes start to set, flip and cook until light golden brown.
6. Serve with butter and cinnamon vanilla glaze.

Cinnamon Vanilla Glaze
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3-4 tablespoons milk (depending on the consistency you want)

1. Whisk ingredients together, adding the milk 1 tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is achieved.  Pour over hot pancakes and serve immediately.

Bakery Review: Copenhagen Crown Bakery & Deli

Copenhagen Crown Bakery - visited November 15, 2013 (linking to their yelp page as their direct site goes to a hosting page that tells you nothing about the bakery)

After my coworker and I went to Thaibodia, we walked a few doors down to Copenhagen Crown Bakery, which, in reality, was a big reason why we went to Thaibodia in the first place because of its proximity to this bakery that we both wanted to try. My coworker had seen it first from a previous Thaibodia visit and I'm always willing to go along for any new bakery discoveries so it took no little persuading to get me to join her.

Inside near the front of the bakery

The bakery had not only glass display cases showcasing their goods but also a number of tables and chairs as they also offered a deli-type selection of "real food", including salads.  We had already eaten though so we were just there for the sweets. One half of the big display case was devoted to breads and cookies and the other half to more traditional fancy bakery fare, namely cakes, both as whole cakes and as individual slices.  I like that I could buy individual slices of different cakes so that I could taste a variety without being beholden to finishing an entire cake.

The display cases and deli in the back corner

Similar to la Terra Bakery, the cake slices were protected in plastic sleeves so you could see the cake layers but the cut edges didn't dry out from being exposed in a refrigerated display case.  The man behind the counter who waited on us was patient as we perused the displays and made our selections.  He was also kind enough to let us pick which particular slice we want.  Normally I'm not that picky but since he didn't seem to mind, both my coworker and I wanted cake slices that weren't end pieces because neither of us wanted the additional frosting accompanying the ends.

Cream Puff filled with pastry cream

I got a slice of the burnt almond cake, a slice of red velvet and a cream puff.  According to the yelp reviews, their specialty were the cream puffs.  While I'm not a big cream puff fan, I was willing to play sheeple and try it out. I'm glad I did because the cream puff was actually quite good.  Their filling was real pastry cream, like the kind I make myself, not overly goopy but with a great vanilla flavor and creamy texture, almost like a creme brulee without the brulee.  The puff pastry was more reminiscent of like those flaky apple turnovers from Pepperidge Farm although not as buttery.  It was good but I think I like the cream puff shell from Beard Papa's better. Yet I prefer the pastry cream filling of Copenhagen's better than Beard Papa's. Copenhagen's cream puff was also rather sizable, almost twice the size of a Beard Papa cream puff and is better meant split for two. Although I confess I ate the whole thing by myself just fine....

Red Velvet Cake - side view

Red Velvet Cake - top view

The cake slices were also pretty tasty although the red velvet was just okay in my book.  It was better than la Terra's in that it actually had more flavor and the cream cheese frosting was very complimentary to the cake.  To my picky taste buds though, although it wasn't dry, the red velvet could have been just a touch more moist.  But I have no complaints on the burnt almond cake.  Between the two cake slices, that was the better one.  The texture of the cake was soft and fluffy with good vanilla flavor.  I'm not big on whipped cream frosting and I scraped some of it off but I loved the toasted almonds on top of the cake (and I'm not normally a fan of nuts with my cakes). I might even like Copenhagen's burnt almond cake better than the one from Dick's Bakery, another local bakery famous for its burnt almond cake.

Burnt Almond Cake - side view

Burnt Almond Cake - top view

I didn't ask what the individual prices were for what I was buying and maybe I should have because I was a little surprised that for just those 3 things, the total came to $10.55.  That's an average price of just over $3.50 each which, for the size of the cream puff and the cake slices, is on par with bakeries like Icing on the Cake but not cheap like Asian bakeries such as Sheng Kee. Still, the items I've tried so far were pretty good so Copenhagen Crown Bakery is worth future visits.