Moi just sent me a PM about ice cream cake, and I was blown away. I used to love ice cream cake, but it's been many years, and I'd forgotten all about it. Such a flood of happy memories! Not just the food, but the people, places, and times that went with it. Dessert is fun food we don't need, so our choices say a lot about who we are. Let's talk about desserts we've loved. (Stories of subsequent heart disease may be omitted.)

Chinese desserts are always special because dessert is not part of normal Chinese meals. They make desserts for festivals and celebrations. In Manhattan's Chinatown, there's a bakery that makes traditional Chinese sweets. They have something called Bean Paste Moon Pies. They're made to help celebrate the Moon Festival every autumn, although the shop actually makes them all year. They're round, about 3 inches across and 1 inch thick. The outside is dough, yellow from egg yolks. The inside is filled with a dense chewy paste made from mashed black beans and egg yolks, sweetened with sugar. I love to visit this shop, point at what I want (the clerks speak almost no English), and leave with my treasure of moon pies in a white paper bag. Then I stroll through Chinatown munching. Heaven on a nice day.

Another favorite is rugelach, a traditional Jewish pastry. I get these at the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan. The Carnegie is a secular temple, agreed by all to be the best deli in New York, which means it's probably the best in the US. It draws show business stars (the walls are covered by signed photos of famous customers), hard core New York Jews (God's Chosen People), plus innumerable tourists and travelers. You can get many Jewish delicacies unobtainable at ordinary delis, including rugelach. To quote from the Carnegie's website, "Each scrumptious piece is filled with a mixture of honey, hazelnuts, raisins, almond paste and cinnamon. The rich filling is wrapped with cream cheese dough sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and baked until golden brown." Yum! They're dense and chewy. Six small pieces on a plate, which doesn't look like much, can take 15 minutes to eat. They fill your mouth with intense flavor. You leave satisfied until your next visit. That's dessert!

Now share tales of your favorite sweet treats.

When my friend visits once a month I try to manage interesting yummies.

After favoring no sugar added Ice Cream, I have blown the carb budget on sundaes.

A cookie crumbled at the bottom, ice cream, slices of banana, slices of Manaschwitz chocolate marshmallow Passover candy and whipped cream.

No two Sundae incidences are alike. The basic trick is how well a bit of banana works with Ice Cream.

BTW we both believe and enjoy the phenomena of the "dairy blackout" as part of the desert experience.

Chocolate.

A 7 kinds of chocolate cake,

Start with a chocolate cake,

put a raspberry chocolate frosting in between the layers.

put a milk chocolate frosting all over the top and sides.

Pore hot melted dark chocolate over the top of the cake.

Add white chocolate fringe around the edge top and bottom

Add chocolate covered strawberry to the top of the cake

and finally

chocolate shavings on the top of everything.

Oh gosh. There go the diets for Spring Break...

River, I'm having ecstatic tremors at the very thought of your chocolate cake. Wow!

Manhattan's Little Italy is right across Canal Street from Chinatown. Little Italy has La Bella Ferrara, an Italian pastry shop that's an object of lust. (Forget sex!) They make all the classics with true old-world recipes - sfogliatelle, torta caprese, bocconotto, pignolo, cannoli, etc. Since the endless stream of buyers empties their shelves fast, you have a good chance of getting one still warm from the oven. None of this is diet food, and it wouldn't hurt to have an ambulance follow you down the street, but it's worth it. You can just stand outside and smell the warm aroma of butter and sugar.

Manhattan still has a German neighborhood - Yorkville, on the upper East Side. There you'll find the Cafe Geiger, the culinary heart of the neighborhood. Besides excellent German meals, they also have a full scale bake shop - Germans love pastries. The bake shop sells a wide assortment of marzipan confections. My favorite as a kid was their marzipan elephants - little marzipan statues of elephants coated with icings in appropriate colors. After a great meal, I used to spend an hour slowly nibbling bits of elephant. No better way to top off a wiener schnitzel.

One we used to make when the kids were young is banana split cake. And during the winter make hermit cookies but put mincemeat in instead of raisins. Iam the only one in the family that loves mincemeat pie. Could not finsd any this past Christmas.

Hermit cookies sound delicious. What are they?

I've seen mincemeat pies in the Vermont Country Store catalog. Look there or give them a call. They carry many seasonal treats near Christmas.

What do you guys call, mincemeat?

Seems like anything goes on that score.

Educate me - please.

Interested in what you guys experience, not what Wiki sez.

Thanks

Here are two versions from the Vermont Country Store - with and without brandy. Sounds good.

http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/stor ... meat/55585

http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/stor ... ndy_/63092