Teacakes
Velvet, $1 each
Velvet dispenses serious coffee and frivolous baked goods from a diminutive corner shop in New Orleans' ritzy Audobon neighborhood. The coffees are carefully curated and include Stumptown, Ritual, and Verve, made using your pick of methods; there's an espresso bar with the usual range of options, and three "slow bar" choices: a Chemex, a syphon, and a pour-over system.
The tiny kitchen also bakes and cranks out light meals. Featured treats included homemade pop-tarts and "artisanal teacakes"--a.k.a. bite-sized cupcakes. The vast selection caused me to panic a little and pick a couple of cakes that seemed reassuringly familiar: a "Sour Puss" (lemon cake stuffed with homemade blackberry jam with blueberry on top) and a "Coconut" (chocolate cake with buttercream coconut top). Only later, when read the full menu on Velvet's website, did I have a little twinge of buyer's remorse--and hunger. I could have had:
Mast Brothers Syphon: syphoned hand sorted Stumptown coffee w/Mast Brothers bar cake stuffed center as well as Madagascar chocolate frosting
NOLA: yellow cake-praline stuffed-praline frosting
WHO DAT: saffron rice filled cake with Creole frosting
Blood Orange: orange cake with a slice of blood orange stuff inside with orange frosting
Blue Flower: Mem Imports Earl Grey tea cake, blue flower frosting
Velvet Espresso Bar and Artisanal Teacakes
2 comments:
Nice post! I love Velvet. Just so you know, Velvet Espresso Bar is located on Magazine & Arabella which technically puts it in the Audubon neighborhood, or Uptown. The Garden District is much closer to Downtown, bordered by Louisiana Ave, the Interstate, Magazine and St. Charles.
Kim, thanks for the correction! I'm afraid I have a tourist-map understanding of New Orleans geography. I'll pay more attention next visit (when I plan to wander around in search of anything with Creole cream cheese).
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