NOLA Special - Sweets Below the Mason Dixon Line

To celebrate my 30th birthday, the Cjaps took a trip down to New Orleans, the same place we went on our first vacation together 11 years ago!  On this trip, Caryn had a major hit list of all sorts of food we had to try - from beignets at Cafe du Monde to muffaletta sandwiches at Central Grocery.  In terms of dessert, I was a little bit nervous when in my research all I found were pralines, banana foster and bread pudding - how was I going to survive with no chocolate for a weekend!  I contemplated picking some up at the airport just in case, but decided to try to seek them out once we landed instead.

Well, I sure am glad we didn't bring anything with us at all - because who knew that on practically every block in NOLA, you can find a specialty candy shop!  There was the Southern Candymakers, Sucre, Blue Flog Chocolates, and Bee Sweet Cupcakes - almost too much to review at all.  But don't you worry, we managed to try something at each shop to report back so on your next trip below the Mason Dixon line you know just where to go!

Southern Candymakers was probably the largest of all of the candy shops in and around the French Quarter.  They had two locations, one at the end of Decatur street (334 Decatur)  and the other by the French Market.  They had a sign touting that their pralines were the best in New Orleans, and we agreed with this statement - although by the time we made it to SoCa we'd had so many different pralines we were on a major sugar high and had kind of stopped tasting things.  We tried a triple chocolate Oreo, which was 1/3 milk chocolate, 1/3 dark chocolate and 1/3 white chocolate with colorful designs throughout.  The chocolate surrounding the cookie was thick, and although they were $2 each (not far off from the price of an entire package of Oreo cookies, I enjoyed this as a fun treat.  We also tried sweet potato pralines, which were delicious - I actually liked them better than the traditional pralines.  They were a little too sweet, but there's no such thing as too sweet to us.

Southern Candymakers carried much of the same chocolate you can find in any great chocolate shop, but also an assortment custom to the area.  You could buy a chocolate cajun gator, crawfish, or fleur de lis.  There were Jackson Squares (milk chocolate mixed with Rice Krispies, peanut butter and caramel) and Bourbon Street Bark (milk, dark and white chocolate, peanut butter, pretzels, Oreo pieces and Rice Krispies.)

If you're not making a trip down south anytime soon, you can also order from their webiste: http://www.southerncandymakers.com/
But if you are in the area, stop in - they're open daily from 10am-7pm.
334 Decatur Street

On our second day in NOLA, the Cjaps took the #12 bus through the Garden District all the way down Magazine street to the very end. Magazine street is a 6-mile strip full of boutiques, chocolate shops - and the best Whole Foods we've visited to date! (Interesting note - WF outside of New York are allowed to sell alcohol in-store.  We had samples of red wine and rum while we shopped. Amazing!)

We had heard Sucre was voted the best candy store in all of New Orleans.  Unfortunately by the time we got there we had gorged on cupcakes, beignets, giant cafe au laits and god knows what else, so we weren't exactly starving.  But for research purposes, we knew we had to give something a try!

Tariq Hanna, a Nigerian pastry chef who has appeared in many competitions on the Food Network, teamed up with Joel Dondis, a New Orleans restaurateur in 2006 to create Sucré.  Tariq has been named Pastry Chef of the Year, and is known throughout the area for his amazing Lousiana desserts.

The store is a wonderland of sweets.  The windows display giant plastic ice cream cones, and macarons piled high in artistic creations.  Macarons are one of Sucre's specialties, and they have every flavor imaginable.  Chocolate, strawberry, almond, hazelnut, pistachio, peanut butter and strawberry jam, salted caramel - and NOLA-themed flavors like Bananas Foster and Chicory!  They're packed in a light blue box with a pastel striped top covered with a pink bow - pretty, but resembling a gift you'd bring to a baby shower.  There are a plethora of specialty chocolates, sold by the piece, gift set or bar (some Sucre chocolate can be found in stores throughout New Orleans, including Whole Foods, if you can't make it to the store.  The individual chocolates also included NOLA themes, such as a Fleur de Lis set, chicory (coffee folder into chocolate ganache), pecan ganache with candied southern pecans on top.

There was a full gelato bar with assorted flavors that could be made into fun sundaes (I wish I was hungry enough for the brownie sundae!)  There are seasonal and holiday themed gifts, and catering for weddings. This candy shop truly did have it all.  We spent half an hour looking at all of the different options, and if you tried something new every day it would probably take you an entire year to go through it all.

There was also a display case of pastries - eclairs, mousse, chocolate cake, bread pudding, and fruit tarts - as well as assortments of cupcakes topped off with frosting that contained glimmers of gold.  We decided on a brownie, since that's our go-to dessert and they looked right up our alley.

It was a good choice - the double fudge n'stuff brownie was thick, chewy and rich.  It was topped with caramel swirls and nuts, and ranked high with one of the better brownies we'd tried.  It held up well too; when we finished it hours later after having some drinks on Bourbon Street, it still tasted fresh and hadn't gone stale at all.  Sucré was voted #1 in the Best of NOLA 2011 for best sweet shop, place for dessert, and gelato, and the Cjaps second this ranking.  You can visit Sucré at 3205 Magazine Street, as well as in the Lakeside Mall in Metairie, LA.
They're open daily at 8am, and close at 10pm Sunday-Thursday, and midnight Friday and Saturday.
http://www.shopsucre.com/

No dessert round-up would be complete without a cupcake shop, so when we spotted a sign for Bee Sweet Cupcakes, in we went.  It was a small shop, with just one table and a display case of cupcakes so we were second-guessing making this our next stop, but once we went inside the employee was so friendly and informative that we had to stay.  He told us the ingredients of every single cupcake, as well as his personal account of Hurricane Katrina.  And when Caryn mentioned it was my birthday, he gave me my cupcake for free!

But on to what makes Bee's special now.
Bee's cupcakes are made from scratch each day including ingredients from around the world.  Chocolate from Germany, Belgium and France, vanilla from Madagascar, etc.  The cupcakes all have kitchy NOLA-themes.  There were two named after the Saints - one for the team and one for one of the players, although since I'm football-challenged I couldn't tell you what they were called.  There was a Prailines n Cream cupakes, with pralines baked into the cake and Aunt Sally's praline crumbles covering the frosting on top.  There was, of course, a Bananas Foster cupcake - a banana cake with caramel, a little bit of rum and cinnamon nutmeg buttercream frosting.  There were non-NOLA cupcakes that were just fun, like the Joe Dirt - a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting dipped in Oreo crumbs and topped with a gummy worm.  He said this one was popular with the kids, which of course made sense why that was the one I liked the most :)

But I went with the Chocolate Manic Attack (this blog isn't called 'Chocolate's Why I'm Fat for nothing!') - chocolate cake topped with chocolate frosting and sprinkled with chocolate crunch pearls imported from Belgium.  He put it on a cute cupcake plate and told us so many interesting facts about New Orleans - how life changed because of Katrina - he was 15 at the time and had to live with relatives in Florida for 5 months since his school was closed.  Apparently the crime rate went up in Texas because a lot of the poorer (and I'm guessing dangerous?) people evacuated and went to shelters there and reaked havoc.  Very interesting stuff.  But on to the cupcake!
I'm not going to lie.  It was a mediocre cupcake.  This can sometimes be a problem when you come from NY, where you can find the best of everything - it's hard for other cities to live up to our reputation!  It was okay, but the frosting was a little too sweet and it just wasn't doing it for me.  Caryn put down her fork after one bite, which never happens - especially when it's free!  But I give it points for the cupcake names, ingredients and creativity.

Bee Sweet Cupcakes is located at 5706 Magazine Street.  They're open Monday - Saturday, from 11am-6pm.  Why do they close so early?  Because once the freshly baked cupcakes are done for the day, the store closes - so make sure to get there early or there's a chance they'll be gone!
http://beesweetcupcakes.net/

Lastly was have Blue Frog Chocolates.  This was located directly across the street from Bee Sweet Cupcakes, and definitely had one of the widest assortments of chocolate creations I've seen.  The first thing I saw when I walked into the store was a chocolate pizza.  If it wasn't so hot out or if we were leaving that day, I would 100% have brought this back to NY with me - it looked phenomenal!  With a milk chocolate crust, mini marshmallows for cheese, red milk chocolate morself for pepperoni, and white chocolate and almond butter toffee nuggets for spices and parmesan - this was such a fun chocolate creation that I knew Blue Frog was a New Orleans gem.  They had chocolates for every holiday and occasion - birthdays, baby showers, weddings and the current Jewish holidays.  The store was massive, and we spent a good amount of time looking at the great chocolate masterpieces.
We settled on some chocolate cayenne drops, which left a kick of spice in our mouths and we thoroughly enjoyed.  Blue Flog has won the 'Best Candy Shop' by the Gambit-Weekly for the past 6 years in a row.
We didn't try much from here since they were on the more expensive side and had more gourmet chocolate, but it definitely should be checked out if you're in the area!
Blue Frog Chocolates is open from 10am-5pm Monday-Saturday, and 12pm-5pm Sundays.

http://bluefrogchocolates.com/
5707 Magazine Street