Little Iced Cakes

[ellenkushner]

As Swordspoint readers know, Alec (later Duke Tremontaine) is very fond of little iced cakes.

Strangely enough, so am I. When I was young, I would guzzle anything labeled "petit four." I even loved white chocolate (which takes suspiciously like a fondant icing), and had a real weakness for those little pastel-colored drops with the sprinkles - what the hell were they called...?. Note the past tense. In recent years, I've found very little to give me that joy. Too icky, too sweet, too oleaginous. But every cloud has, as they say, a silver lining. When foot troubles sent me to the podiatrist lately, I realized he was just around the corner from the old Grosset & Dunlap building, where I worked for Jim Baen at Ace Books in my first job out of college (and I typed up my very first Riverside story, "Red-Cloak," on the office IBM Selectric), and trolled the neighborhood at lunch looking for yummies. And there it was: La Delice Pastry Shop: "French Danish Pastries of the Finest Quality," as it says on the box (though the personnel & the signs in the shop appeared to be Greek), at the corner of 27th & Third.

I can't say that their petits fours ($1.25/each) look like the ones Alec & the Duchess enjoy at the theatre - they are much too big (aww!), though nicely decorated - but the flavor . . . is just right. I feel sure they are just what I was thinking of when I wrote that scene, as I've enjoyed nothing like them since. I think my foot is better, so as I hope not to be back there for a long time, I just bought myself one almond, one apricot, and one mocha to celebrate.

Here is another photo of La Delice, which is not as good as the previous link, but comes from a website I thought you shoudl know about, Lost City: A running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York as they are steamrolled under or threatened by the currently ruthless real estate market and the City Fathers' disregard for Gotham's historical and cultural fabric.


I should add this to the Riverside Recipes page on my website, shoudln't I?

Comments

[suzanna-o.livejournal.com]

Definitely! I wish I had some little cakes with my tea right now.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I believe the little pastel drops with sprinkles on are nonpareils. I still occasionally have weird cravings for those. Usually when I'm in the bulk candy aisle at the supermarket. I think it's my inner five-year-old.

As for petit fours, I adore them. Even the super-cheap ones I find at the supermarket, since the ones at the Cake Shop are far too expensive. There was this wonderful bakery in Columbus called Mozart's that made absolutely divine petit fours (the right size too) and sold them for $1.25 each. I used to buy them once every six weeks or so as a special treat.

That's what I need to find here. An affordable Nice Bakery. Although in Oxford that's a bit of an oxymoron...;)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Yes! Nonpareils,that was it! Since I no longer seem to like white chocolate, I'm afraid to try them again. You have some for me.

As for the rest of your bakery woes - never order pizza in a Chinese restaurant. I.e.: Go out and have yourself a nice apple dumpling in Oxford for me instead! And save the petits fours for your next trip to Paris. (Gerard Mulot, corner of rue de Seine & rue du Four (?).)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

The Vermont Country Store catalog has nonpareils. I find them sort of weird, but the crunchy sprinkles on them save them from complete white-chocolate ick.

I still need to make a batch of Little Iced Cakes for you.

And I think you ought to know, the other night, during a household discussion of the dinner/supper distinction (yes, we are geeky like that, that's what we talk about, brought on by a hungry adolescent and a reference to hobbits' second breakfast), I was explaining about "midnight supper" as it forms part of a ball, and the housemate asked "well, when do they sleep?" In explaining how LATE they slept, I quoted the bit about small cups of bitter chocolate and crisp triangles of toast.

She threw a pillow at me! BECAUSE she recognized where I got it from!

And then said "Re-ally," just like Alec!

Currently the "little iced cakes" in the house are vegan cupcakes, and not so little, but they're pistachio-rosewater. Does that count?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Oh, torture me, do! I love pistachio-rosewater. Consulting my Inner Riversider, though, I think it would be too exotic for them. Not that Alec wouldnt' adore them for just that reason. But not typical flavors there. And cupcakes - no way! Unless you made them look like little thatched huts. With chimneys. That, he'd get a kick out of.

Thanks for the vignette of household life - I am tickled pink!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

But how would one make thatched roof cupcakes unless they have shredded wheat in Riverside?

They may have gotten as far as tomato pies now, but you can't tell me they've gotten to packaged breakfast cereal?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

((laughing))

Be Creative.

Use Marzipan.

[stardustgirl.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about the little drops with sprinkles. I used to love the ones made from dark chocolate (always my fave, even as a little kid).

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I couldn't even eat dark chocolate when I was a kid - too strong a flavor for me. It's no coincidence that I have started to like it now, when white chocolate has started tasting too sweet. I still love milk choc, though, and Delia hates it, so . . . !

[stardustgirl.livejournal.com]

That's funny how your taste has changed, isn't it? But how useful that you and Delia like different chocolates - no waste if you get a box of mixed varieties! :-D

[themaskmaker.livejournal.com]

You most certainly should.

...and you should probably expect fans to give them to you from now on, as well.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

1) I will, then.

2) Oh, dear . . . I foresee something like a bad Dinner at Versailles takeoff, with me tasting each hopeful offering from the various local bakeries, nibbling, frowning, and spitting it out: "No. Not quite right." Gahhh! (Or do I mean like the Ugly Girl trying out the peppermint candy at Katherine's first Tremontaine party? You know this stuff has to come from somewhere!)

[jasminehammer.livejournal.com]

I used to get chocolate cupcakes from that place! Those sick kind of cupcakes that are more frosting than cake. Good for cranky days.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Just so.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I loooooove petits fours and, as you say, they're hardly ever petit nowadays.

I used to buy mouse-shaped ones for my daughter; she was very sad when that company went out of business.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yay! Foot better!

Also, yay on petits fours that taste right. *g*

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Shall we go get some next time you are here?

(Where did "You need to eat" come from? That is soooooo Me! But I don't recognize the image - I know, I know, I'm a cultural illiterate . . . so educate me, please, ma'am.

BTW, I am once again quoting you re. a reviewer "who must've been smoking the Hello Kitty crack pipe" - this time that loony GOLDEN DREYDL review I posted last week - it cheers me up immensely [quoting you, not the review!].)

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I am actually not a big fan of petits fours, as I usually find them sticky-sweet rather than toothsome. However, I am willing to consider that I may just have gotten nasty ones!

And I am *always* willing to try a little adventure-dining.

That image (and this one) is of a young actor/film-maker named Matthew Gray Gubler, who is notable for playing the only convincing genius I have ever seen on television (Somebody on the writing staff of this show gets how picture thinking and lowered latent inhibition and eidetic memory and seriously overclocked brains *work,* and writes it *well.*) He's part of the ensemble on the CBS show Criminal Minds, which I am pretty well convinced is the best thing on network television currently. (And the only thing I actually watch. I can be extremely boring about it, given half a chance. *g*)

It's an Arthurian romance masquerading as an FBI procedural. No, really. That's Percival up there failing utterly with his chopsticks.

The quote is from the same show, and it's actually pretty horrible, in context. *g* They believe in shocking narrative incongruity, you see.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

Ah, La Delice. The best pastry shop in the city. We used to live just up the block from them, and way too often bought Sunday morning coffee cake there.

The cookies are sublime, too.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I remember that apartment!

Which cookies?

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

All of the cookies. Ask for an assortment.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I used to dorm right near there. I passed that place a million times. Why didn't you post this four years ago when I was still in college and could have ran out and had some in ten minutes?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I know. I suck.

Cause my foot didnt' hurt then. Better make someone else do your dirty work for you now. I think I'll go eat one right now - yum!!

I know. I suck.

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that Alec likes the super-sugary sweets. And I'm just as certain that the Ugly Girl teases him about it. Perhaps there will be a food fight.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

She won't throw books, and he won't throw food. Where's the fun?

He also likes food that been crafted to look like other things. Did I write that in the books, or have I just been thinking it for years?

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

Well, he did steal frosting flowers from the kitchen that one time in PotS!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

There - see what I mean?

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

His pastry cook sighs and picks up the lily nail and the piping bag YET AGAIN.

Marzipan mice, she thinks. Perhaps next time he'd be content to use marzipan MICE as betting tokens. They aren't as difficult to sculpt, and they won't fall apart if he's impatient and doesn't let them dry before making off with them.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the view from the kitchen! You're right for sure.

But who wants to bet mice?

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

What, cute little stylized mice like the game counters in "Mousetrap?" Who could resist them?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

He could. But Katherine would love them, and he'd do it to indulge her if she were wearing the right-colored jacket or something.

[thumbelinablues.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, I work near there! Lunch hour field trip. Yummy.

Also, hi -- I don't know if I've introduced myself here, but it's one of those 6am comment sprees that comes from having a midterm to finish. I'm Megan! *wave* Work at Tor, go to school with the young women you sat with at the Nebulas, writen ze stories sometimes.

Annnd you could always go back even if your foot feels better...you never know, the petit fours might have had something to do with it.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

So how was it?

[thumbelinablues.livejournal.com]

...amazing. I dragged my best friend -- not that she took a whole lot of convincing -- and, as we walked down 3rd, we each took a bite of our almond petit fours at the same time and stopped dead. Though I think my favorite right now is the mocha; I'll have to try more fruity ones next time.

[thumbelinablues.livejournal.com]

p.s. They are a little big. We broke them in half to share and then naturally ate them sideways -- maybe that's the size for Alec.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Are you also fond of fish and toast toasted at the fire?