A Weekend of Celebratory Desserts

I had a really fun birthday party the other weekend! Not surprisingly, I enjoyed a few desserts in the hours preceding it.

A cliff-diving event at the ICA – where, yes, people voluntarily plunged nearly 100 feet off the museum into Boston Harbor!?! – brought Greg, Rob, and me to Boston's Fort Point neighborhood. We had to eat lunch at my favorite outpost of Flour Bakery prior! I departed from usual Flour protocol this time, eschewing my tried-and-true favorites and ordering two untested items. Their BLT sandwich was truly exemplary, and will become part of my regular sandwich rotation. The purest joy, however, came with a new dessert offering! I hereby introduce you to Flour's Congo bar. Here is its richly textured surface…

…and here is the glory that lies beneath.

The bar’s rather thick base is a brown sugar cookie thoroughly marbled with pastry chocolate. A thinner layer of the same chocolate, mixed with caramel and coconut flakes, covers the cookie base. Then, the treat is covered in more coconut flakes and topped off with a few caramel drizzles. This was a very sturdy, dense, rich dessert. However, each bite melted into creamy, sweet goodness soon after I took it.  Just think – a warm, buttery cookie; fudgy, fragrant chocolate; fluffy, sweet coconut; and milky, silky caramel, all mixed and layered together to create one ultimate dessert. Wow! I’ll surely be scanning Flour’s displays for this whopper of a treat in the future.

(You shouldn’t be surprised that I loved the Congo bar, since my weakness for robust layered cookie bars has already been documented. Speaking of which, I was in Belfast the other week…and had two Caramelitas. That’s right. Two.)

Party time was upon us before we knew it, so we hastily traveled back to Cambridge and considered Inman Square “dinner” options. I put the word dinner in quotes because Christina’s Ice Cream shouldn’t have fit the bill, but I guess one is allowed to get away with extraordinary indulgences on one’s birthday. Look at this most delicious of sundaes!

Coffee oreo ice cream, with an honest, unsweetened coffee flavor and large oreo chunks? Check. Peanut butter chip ice cream, with a similarly natural, nutty base flavor and tasty chocolate pieces? Check. Crushed peanut butter cup topping, made of candies that put Reese’s to shame? Check. Homemade hot fudge and whipped cream, both of which make you rethink all notions of what these toppings should be, in the best way? Check. The resulting amalgamation gave me all the energy I needed to dance the night away. And boy, did I dance :-)

But wait – there’s more!

Linda and I spent the following day putzing around Harvard Square. We dropped by Sweet for a cupcake later that afternoon. I enjoyed the Red, White, and You cupcake, which I first tried two years ago! It’s a vanilla bean cupcake injected with mixed berry jam, topped with a towering dollop of vanilla buttercream frosting, and garnished with an avalanche of crunchy red sugar. It’s still rather delicious, though the frosting was significantly lighter than I remember; they must be whipping it nowadays?

Lastly, here’s a huge shout-out to my wonderful friends, who made my birthday so special! Y’all are amazing. :-)