Davidovich Bakery and a Trip to Cardamom City
plus a Purim bun mail from Anna!
We’re back bunby! The move into my new apartment went shockingly smooth last week, probably the easiest move I’ve ever done. But enough about location logistics, you’re here for that sweet sweet bun action. The Bun Stuff. This week we’ve got a new neighborhood joint, some Purim pastries from Anna, and Emilie takes us down to cardamom city where the buns are airy and the filling is gooey. Oh won’t you please take me ho-oh-wome.
But! I forgot to mention this little detail from last week’s meme edition - the bun captcha is composed entirely of actual photos I took last year. I’ll buy someone two baker’s dozen of cinnamon rolls if they can name them all correctly:
Also because I just can’t leave photoshop alone:
OK let’s get into it!
Davidovich Bakery
As I was returning to my new apartment from trying to fetch a package at the nearby Federal Express and to my surprise I saw a new bakery in soft open mode. That bakery was the Avenue A location for Davidovich Bakery, a bakery I had somehow literally never heard of yet advertises themselves as “the world’s greatest bagels.” That claim, is not true, BUT they do have other tasty pastries beyond their “REAL BAGELS!” (ed. note: those are words in that exact casing and exclamation point on their website. why do they need to reiterate how real their bagels are?????)
I popped in for a few, tried the REAL BAGELS as well as a “French apple stick,” a cranberry orange muffin, cinnamon babka, and cinnamon roll. The Avenue A location didn’t have an oven and wasn’t baking everything fresh, so there was a bit of…shelf stability flavor to it all, but it was generally good!
French apple stick: the dough was very light and flakey and a bit of apple filling. It’s a stick, with apples in it, what else do you expect
Cranberry orange muffin (not pictured): very strong orange flavoring, incredibly moist, and dense. Excellent muffin, would highly recommend.
Cinnamon roll: dough was light and airy, more brioche than croissant. Very strong cinnamon filling that was surprisingly gooey given the lack of freshness. A light glaze over the roll, with hints of citrus throughout. Surprisingly good!
Cinnamon babka: looks perfect, very strong cinnamon flavor but not gooey. Not as much flavor of butter as I might prefer, but it’s somewhat shelf stable which may be the root cause. The exterior was cooked a bit too much, leading to the dough being a bit overcooked.
It’d be much preferable if these were all fresh, but given it’s literally around the corner from my new apartment it’s a solid choice for when I’m feeling really lazy to not walk the next 10 blocks for Petit Chou.
Purim and Hamantashen
We’ve got bun mail! Anna G sends in her ✨amazing✨ notes on the hamentashen she made for Purim.
Tried making raspberry hamantaschen for the first time, more out of necessity than anything else, realizing there was little chance of getting to a bakery in time. In about 1.5 hours these came to be, I’ve been told they’re “not too sweet, perfectly crumbly without being dry, and have a delicious favor.” They said it, not me. The trick is adding lemon zest to the dough. Can’t say they came out beautiful, next time will chill them longer (a crucial step to maintaining shape I skipped), but the taste was 💯.
I don’t know about you, but these little treats are beyond beautiful. Thanks for sharing Anna! If you ever want to send me anything, just reply to one of these emails with as much or as little as you want! Any content is good content!
Melissa Weller’s Cardamom Cinnamon Rolls
Pastry fairy and 2020 Bun Stuff Best Pro-Am Baker Emilie baked me some very delicious cinnamon rolls as a move-in gift this past weekend. She used Melissa Weller’s “cardamom cinnamon rolls with buttermilk glaze” recipe. Unsurprisingly, the recipe from this James Beard nominated outstanding baker is no joke.
The dough is very airy and pockety, due to it being “enriched as fuck” to quote Emilie. Mixing the cardamom in with the dough adds an interesting flavor and texture. Kind of like a little sweet crunchy surprise every now and then. The cinnamon filling isn’t so much a filling as just absorbed by the dough and present throughout. The buttercream frosting isn’t as thick as you might expect and adds a sharp sweetness to the otherwise mild flavor and heavy feeling rolls. Honestly these are a delicious doozy and I wouldn’t recommend them unless you have a big day of absolutely nothing ahead of you.
Small Bites
This month’s cronut flavor is blueberry malt, so you best believe I’m boogeying my booty over for those beautiful buttery…cronuts.
That’s it, that’s enough alliteration for today, see you bun babes next week!