A Baker's Wife

Graham Cracker Sandwich
A Baker's Wife, $1.19

If I hadn't had a local herding me towards the door, I might have taken one look at the kitsch-cluttered windows of A Baker's Wife and walked right on by. Thank goodness I didn't have to learn that lesson the hard way.

If I hadn't been on my way to the airport, I might have ordered one of everything. Just visible over the thronging crowd and between the large hand-written signs were all sorts of tempting treats, from glistening buns and glossy iced cookies to meticulous but unfussy pastries.

Owner Gary Tolle opened A Baker's Wife in 1987, when he returned home to Minneapolis after years as a professional baker in New York. I imagine the fruit tarts, tea cakes and palmiers were the kind of things Tolle perfected while a student at the CIA and a pastry chef at New York's Plaza Hotel. Perhaps he'd already had some experience with doughnuts, sheet cakes, danish, and cookies as a kid growing up in the unassuming neighborhood where he know works.

The graham cracker sandwich displays both down-to-earth baking ability and rigorous pastry skills. A pair of fresh, housemade crackers mortared together with intense chocolate fondant and thick pastry cream, then finished with a sifting of confectioner's sugar, the graham cracker sandwich couldn't be simpler--or better.

A Baker's Wife
4200 28th Avenue
Minneapolis, MN
612/729-6898

Pannekoeken

Pannekoeken

I moved to Minnesota for college largely ignorant of any Scandinavian traditions not lampooned by Garrison Kellior in his reports from Lake Wobegon.   I must have missed the pannekoeken episode, because I was amazed by these huge, rich pancakes--and by the fact that in restaurants they are often served to an accompaniment of chanting and hand-clapping.  

While attending my college reunion I stayed with my old friend Jenni Undis. Although Jenni's main job is as doyenne of the Twin Cities' coolest print shop (Lunalux), she can also whip up a mean pannekoeken.  I still don't get the chanting thing, but I agree that applause is the only proper response to seeing one of these things come out of the oven.  

Sugar Sugar

Sugar Sugar

Open just six months, the Sugar Sugar candy store already has the lived-in, well-loved charm of a good vintage boutique. The paneled walls are decorated with retro sweets labels and ads, and eye-catching candies do double duty as bouquets (pixy stix, below left), sculptures (lollipops, above) and light fixtures (rock candy, below right).

The backbone of the small space is a stretch of wall shelves lined with glass apothecary jars containing treats for sale by the pound--licorice, gummies, drops, and the like.  The bulk orange slices ($1.75/lb) were the first candy that owner Joni Wheeler bought for the store; to Wheeler, those orange slices were, "what it meant to have a candy store."

In choosing the rest of her range, Wheeler kept in mind that "candy" means different things to different people--often according to when and where you were raised.  Reading Candyfreak, sweet-toothed writer Steve Almond's account of his search for America's endangered historic candies, convinced Wheeler that regional and nostalgia treats needed to be part of the line-up. 

Luckily for Wheeler, penny-candy titan Farley Sathers is a local company, as are chocolatier BT McElrath and prodigy chocolate maker Colin Gasko of Rogue Chocolate.  Other sweets come from much farther afield.  Rogue's artisanal bars share shelves with imports such as Chuckles, Abba-zabba, Big Hunk, and Rocky Road.  While I was in the store, one customer mock-grumbled that since Sugar Sugar opened he could no longer look forward to business trips as an opportunity to stock up on regional delicacies.  

Sugar Sugar caters to a wide range of budgets and tastes, satisfying kids with a dime for the gumball machine as well as adults splashing out on nostalgia by the pound.  During my short visit there was a steady stream of customers of all ages, and the next day Sugar Sugar was featured in a USA Today article on candy stores around the country. 

Sugar Sugar Candy

3803 Grand Avenue South

Minneapolis, MN

612/823-0261

Salty Tart

Dulce de Leche Cupcake
Salty Tart, $2.50

For years the vacant Sears building loomed over a somewhat sketchy area of Minneapolis like an enormous Art Deco lego (below left).  I am incredibly pleased to find that it has beeen rehabbed and now houses a group of shops and stalls known as the Midtown Global Market.  The business were carefully chosen to reflect the diversity of the surrounding neighborhood, and to support local entrepreneurs.  The Market's goals are explicitly stated and prominently posted--and so noble that they made me choke up a little.  Hawking foods from regions such as Central American, Scandnavia, and the Carribean, the Market's vendors had my mouth watering at every turn.

Of all the baked goods in the building, Salty Tart's were voted "best" in a recent survey.  Opened in 2004 by pedigreed pastry chef Michelle Gayer, Salty Tart offers prime pastry in a blend of rustic European and quirky American styles.  Seasonal, local, and organic ingredients figure heavily (at the moment, my beloved rhubarb is front and center) and all goods are baked fresh daily in the tiny open kitchen.  While Salty Tart's motto is “Cooking with Integrity", it is perhaps equally well known for baking with attitude and serving up sass.  A sampling:

"No one can live on bread alone. Pastries and bread? Now that's more like it."

"For everyone who believes that when life gives you lemons, you make a lemon-filled tart. Or better yet, you have a master pastry chef make it for you."

"Broken cookies have no calories. Call us to discuss."

My dulce de leche cupcake (above) was moist and flavorful, with a substantial dollop of buttercream icing, a sprinkle of bitter cacao nibs, and a hidden heart of oozy caramel.  

Salty Tart
920 East Lake Street
Minneapolis, MN 55407
(612) 874-9206

Firni

Firni
Khyber Pass Cafe

In my old age, I anticipate regaling any whippersnapper within earshot with embroidered tales of my sweet-toothed adventures.  Top billing might go to the story of how I used to trek miles through knee-high snow, subzero temperatures, and artic winds...just to eat pudding.

When I was in college in Minnesota the Khyber Pass Cafe was a special destination, a cozy spot for spicy, saucy Afghan cuisine. It was a little too expensive and a little too far from campus for casual visits. It was a place we went to celebrate, or when someone's parents were treating. So we'd make every visit count, packing in as much aushak or shola as possible, then capping it off with a restorative bowl of firni.

Afghan firni is a light, silky pudding of milk and starch flavored with rosewater, cardamon, and pistachios (some Indian versions apply the same flavors to a rice pudding base). A lot of people say that it reminds them of hand lotion, which might be part of the appeal for me.  When I stayed with an Afghan family in Australia, they'd make a huge vat of the stuff for parties, serve everyone their share, then give me the vat to polish off.  

At times when I haven't been living with Afghans or near an Afghan restaurant, I've also resorted to making firni myself, from the actual Khyber Pass recipe.  Some 15-20 years ago another fan wrote into the St. Paul paper begging for the recipe; a reporter tracked it down and it was published.  For many years the yellowed clipping hung on the wall of the Khyber Pass dining room, and I scribbled it down before I left town.  I share it here for everyone who lives in a town without commercially available Afghan food.  If you live in the Twin Cities, for heaven's sake, go and try it at the Kyhber Pass; on weekdays there's a huge lunch buffet for only $10, firni included.

Firni

3 1/2 c milk

1/4 c cornstarch

1/2 c sugar

1 Tbs rosewater

pinch cardamon

crushed pistachios

Combine milk, starch, sugar and rosewater in a saucepan.  Bring to a slow boil, stirring constantly.  When thickened, pour into bowls and sprinkle with cardamon and nuts.  

Khyber Pass Cafe
1571 Grand Avenue
St Paul, MN
651/690-0505