There is always room for dessert

I have a pretty big sweet tooth. As much as I hate thinking about all the empty calories that come with dessert, I believe in treating yourself once in a while and indulging in dessert on days you need a pick-me-upper (the filthier, the better)!

Anyway, here are some dessert photos I found lying around that I thought I would share.

Ilili Candy Bar 

Chocolate ganache. Fig Caramel. Pistachio White Chocolate Sesame -- words never sounded so mouth-watering. Layers of gooey chocolate ganache mixed with the crunch of sesame seeds and a dab of creamy, thick white chocolate. Leave it to ilili to come up with dessert as delectable as its dishes are. This was hands down the best dessert I've had in a while.

Molly's Cupcakes - Creme Brûlée and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Molly's Cupcakes apparently won Cupcake Wars (a TV show, for those who don't know), so naturally, we had to try it. I'm not really a cupcake person but the creme brûlée cupcake blew my mind. Imagine an extremely moist, almost custard-like cupcake with a caramelized surface. It was so tasty. The Cookie dough cupcake was just okay, I've never had cookie dough cupcakes with amazing frosting and this one had frosting that was just like whipped cream, which I ended up scraping off. I loved the cookie dough surprise that was piped into the cupcake!

Coconut Chocolate 

Q, R and I ended up at Chelsea Market one sunday and went to this raved-about crepe place. I've never before come across crepe that was as flat as Bar Suzette's but I think this form worked because it really smushed all the contents together so that every bite had a bit of everything.

Spot Dessert Bar -- Chocolate Green Tea Lava

Post-dissection lava flow!

Unfortunately, the day J and I checked Spot Dessert Bar out, they had run out of Green Tea ice cream! The horror. So we ate our cake with vanilla ice cream, which was pretty meh. Vanilla ice cream is vanilla ice cream. So anyway, this was actually quite a disappointment for all the hype it received. We agreed that it tasted just like any other lava cake we had.

Dominique Ansel - almond croissant and cannelle 

Dominique Ansel is the father of all cronuts, a pastry term he coined and trademarked. Unfortunately, his cronuts, which people line up starting from 6.30AM for, sell out by 9AM everyday. Seeing as I'm not THAT crazy about food, cronuts were out of the question. I've just always wanted to try his kouign amann, which he is equally famous for, but it was sold out by the time we came (every single one of his pastries actually get wiped out by 6pm!!). Hence, I settled for an almond croissant which has always been a childhood favorite.

 I loved Dominique Ansel's version because the almond filling was generous and the croissant was still so soft and flaky even if we got in at around 5pm. The cannelle, too, was just the most moist little cake (as you can see in the close-up!) ever.

Bouchon Bakery - chocolate almond croissant

 Okay, I feel like I'm actually always on the hunt for the best almond croissant. Bouchon's chocolate almond croissant was pretty good--what can Thomas Keller mess up?--but it was a bit too hard for my liking.

Ceci-Cela had an amazing almond croissant, too. It was extremely soft, buttery, and flaky although it was much flatter than Dominique Ansel's.

Grom - Dark Chocolate

Ahh, Grom Gelato. Grom has always been a NY staple for me because I love its flavors and the consistency of its gelato. Imagine sticky gelato...it sounds weird but it's so fun to eat.