BROWNIES & CREAM

72-40 Austin Street

Forest Hills, NY 11375

(718) 480-3849

The handful of specialty food shops in Forest Hills has grown in recent months. While we may not have a butcher shop (a crime), we did just add the kind of candy store that you might find in SoHo and now, a brownie shop. Actually, Brownies & Cream also sells macarons and ice cream, but... I like brownies.

Of the roughly dozen varieties I tried about all of them. Actually, I went up the girl behind the counter and just said, "I'll take one of each." Though, truth be told, I'd had one of each already earlier in the week. I just needed a reminder of each of the flavors (and something to have with my milk), which were: Plain (of course), Walnut, Coconut, Oreo, Dulce de Leche, S'Mores, Vanilla Cheesecake, and Raspberry. There's also a Lemon Square dusted with powdered sugar should you not be a chocolate person. I won't beat you to death with my thoughts on each of them, but as a generality, the overarching theme of Brownies and Cream is "soft". These might be the farthest from dry that any brownie could be, and they fight peanut butter for dominance in the stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth wars. This isn't to say that they seem goopy of undercooked. Not at all. But I was glad I had that milk handy. My favorite was the Dulce de Leche, which has a caramel layer and the Raspberry, which had a layer of raspberry syrup. My least favorite was the Vanilla Cheesecake, which is a plain brownie with a thick later of cheesecake on top. But baking the two drastically different cakes together meant that the cheesecake came out lacking any firmness, like a cheesecake cream. My mom's favorite was the Plain, interestingly. She said she would probably have preferred the Walnut or the Coconut (which is what I thought she would have chosen), but she wished that the walnuts and coconut shavings were baked in, rather than just as a topping. If Brownies and Cream really wants to satisfy her, they should make a brownie with both baked in.

As I said, in addition to the brownies, Brownies & Cream also sells ice cream and macarons. While I've seen macarons for sale here and there in various patisseries across the city, I've never bothered to actually buy one. So for my first experience, I tried three of them, and rated how good they were by the standard told to be via Serious Eats. So for those of you who, like me, haven't tried this French treat before, let me give you a brief description of them. They're sort of a sandwich cookie, except that instead of dough, they use a firm, but delicate meringue. Eggs and sugar. What are they like? Well, each flavor is very different. I tried (and liked) all three. Imagine biting into an Oreo Cookie while on an acid trip. Brownies and Cream had about a dozen flavors to choose from. My mom and I were both partial to the Espresso one.