New North End Eats

Alrighty, readers - it's catch-up time! I'm presently writing about desserts you should have heard about weeks ago. But hey, delayed "real" posts are better than another Dessert Dump, right?

I've known of Modern Pastry, in the North End, for years - after all, what college eating excursion didn't end on Hanover Street, happily clasping a box of cannolis to go? Some friends really liked Modern's filled-to-order cannolis and their custard-like cream; I've never been a "traditional" cannoli, let alone custard, person, so I always chose Mike's chocolate-mousse-filled cannoli and passed over Modern entirely. I never considered the other treats within Modern's pastry case...until fairly recently, thanks to Adam! Take a look at this tempting box of treats.

Here they are again, cut for eating.

• Carrot cake - talk about a classic, Julie-style carrot cake. There were no nuts or raisins in the actual cake! It was robustly flavored with carrots, spices, and that necessary hint of pineapple or citrus zing; it was also quite moist, most likely due to fresh carrots and fruit juice rather than overly-abundant oil. The whipped cream cheese frosting had the right amount of tangy flavor, and was not so heavy that I felt sick afterward. I hardly noticed the walnuts adorning the cake's exterior, the rest of it was so good.
• Chocolate cake - This bakery version of the Hostess cupcake was a winner. Moist, crumbly dark chocolate cake; I'm guessing some pudding mix factored into it. A puff of vanilla cream filling at its center. A thin layer of bittersweet chocolate ganache enrobing it all. Wow!
• Hazelnut torrone - The. Standout. Of. The. Bunch. (...which is saying something, based on the above comments!) We thought it was biscotti at first, but there was nothing dry or cookie-like about it. Torrone, it turns out, is an Italian dessert of nuts mixed in nougat. This particular version had three layers of nougat - semisweet, milk, and white chocolate - with the occasional hazelnut mixed in the top nougat layer. This nougat was not whipped to the airy, sticky point of an American nougat; I thought I was eating smooth, multi-flavored fudge instead! It melted in my mouth...and on my fingers...and disappeared all too quickly. The hazelnuts were almost forgettable because the nougat was so exceptional. It drastically expanded my understanding of nougat as a dessert...and made me realize that a nut-based dessert could be enjoyable.

Also consumed, but not pictured, were:

• White and milk chocolate peanut butter cups - these massive candies were overwhelmingly sweet...and delicious! The half-inch-thick chocolate casing was extremely creamy and soft, so that it approximated fudge, and the dollop of peanut butter at the center was so gooey and sweet that it could have been a nutty caramel. The white chocolate PBC also had a garnish of maybe 6 peanut butter chips. Too cute!
• Espresso and marzipan torrones - the above-mentioned torrone experience made me eager to try Modern's other torrones. The densely-nutted appearance of said other torrones should have given me pause, but no - we chose them and were promptly displeased with their overwhelming almond content and sparse, dry nougat. No amount of water-swishing could clear the sense of dry almond shards in my mouth for some time afterward...and the brittle nougat was suggestive of dry paste. Then, I don't think any leftover dessert has sat untouched in my fridge as long as those torrones. (For the record, they remained untouched until they were moved to the garbage.) Still, I can't fault Modern for a dessert that clearly isn't my thing.

So, I give 5 stars to this bakery, and will stay away from their blatantly non-Julie products if I'm ever back!

While on the subject of North End desserts, this blog needs a post on what I droolingly refer to as "THAT THING" from Bova's, the chocolate/oreo/PBC mash-up at Salem Street's 24-hour bakery which has been the goal of many a late-night pilgrimage over the years. It's funny, all the dessert stories that could come out of that neighborhood...