Remember when this blog used to be updated every day? and when it had original material? jeepers. big plans for this wk, tho (ice cream prods to share). but onto cupcakes, a trend that hasn’t really hit dallas but maybe will w/ the March arrival of Sprinkles, a cupcake co. from bev hills. cupcakes seize some people’s imaginations; there are numerous blogs devoted to cupcakes. it’s a visual thing and a miniature thing. anyway Magnolia came first, in 1996 (and got the SATC mention) but Sprinkles is the one coming to D (specifically, to preston center).
4020 Villanova Drive no fone yet

Rush Patisserie is named after chef-owner Samantha Rush (vs. the ’91 drug film vs the snicker canadian power trio), who moved back to D from Vegas, where she made pastry for hotels such as the Green Valley Ranch Resort. At Rush, she’ll do cakes, pastries, and hello, croissants. She’s taken over the space in Deep Ellum that used to be sweet endings, on the corner of elm & Malcolm X. oh but “taken over” doesn’t even hint at the transformation. IE, goodbye pepto-bismol pink exterior, we won’t miss you. and “hi” to the new exterior painted café au lait. She’s changed the whole vibe, man, from quaint pastry shop to boutique. To go w/ the pastries there’ll be hot coffee .. none of that cappuccino silliness

2901 Elm St. 214-749-4040, opening any day now

Restaurant impresario Dale Wamstad got some more good folks to drink the Kool-Aid: A third branch of Main Street Bistro & Bakery has opened in his Shire center at the corner of the 190 (George Bush Freeway) & Jupiter Rd. This is the development w/ a branch of Wamstad’s Silver Fox steakhouse as well as Ye Shire Tavern. A Richardson chamber of commerce newsletter quotes Main St. co-owner Yasmine Bohsali as saying that she & her partner Fabien Goury “love the architecture, the look and touch of the materials“, calling it “very European“, before giving a nod to the “whole, larger vision that Dale has.” Whoa. But hey, anyone living on the east side of plano has to love the Dale not only for the development, but for bringing in some of the area’s best breads and baked goods. Like the original in grapevine and the 2nd branch at legacy in plano, this Main St has breads, pastries, sandwiches, light entrees, & coffee drinks. service, however, is N.S.G.

3600 Shire, Suite 100, Richardson. 972-578-0294

Already experienced in the ways of the limited edition, Hostess is issuing ltd-ed banana Twinkies filled w/ banana-flavored cream (which they of course spell crème). The impetus for this flavor is some DVD release (ape movie, don’t make me name it, even mentioning “DVD” is shillish as it is), and part of Hostess’ blah-blah is the sorta-interesting fack that twinkies started out banana but switched to vanilla cuz of wartime shortages. But more intweeguing (to me, anyway) is that there’s already been another product announcement this summer w/ the same flavor. All you need is one more banana product to make it an official trend.

Pillsbury Sweet Rolls Cinnamon Mini Bites take an existing product & repackage it in another format: little squares rather than big circles. Before you go underestimating the accomplishment here, keep in mind how the regular Sweet Cinnamon Rolls W/ Icing can seem too like too much roll and not enough Sweet, Cinnamon, or Icing. These new mini bites solve that prob by offering a better surface area to volume ratio. Like so many of Pillsbury’s rolls-in-a-can, they’re yucky but strangely irresistible

S’mkt choc chips are bleh, especially the nat’l brands. And yet, endless spinoffs in size (mini, mega, chunks) & flavor (white, mint, PB, cappuccino) … someone’s buying it. The latest, Nestle Toll House Swirled Morsels, fascinates cuz they’re so overtly superficial (as in, obviously made not for taste but cuz they look cute). Insane, having to ensure that each chip has a spiral-y swirl. 3 “flavors” (tho the more approp word here is colors): milk choc w/ caramel, semi-sweet & white choc, and milk chocolate w/ pb. It’s just another way to get kids to eat more sugar, but Nestle suggests in a transparent effort to make them seem multi-purpose that they’d make a good “snack” don’t think so

coffee week day 4 - feeling nostalgic already!

What used to be Kozy Kitchen, a family-run bakery, is now Granat’s, which still has the bakery biz but also a 600-sq-ft café w/ little granite tables where you can get espresso drinks made w/ Segafredo Zanetti coffee beans. Owner David Granat made some dough in mergers & acquisitions but decided to focus on another kind of dough (har). He still does the cakes Kozy Kitchen was known for, but also bakes challah on Fridays, milktarts, a specialty of South Africa (that’s where he’s from), and even the foccaccia w/ which the café’s sandwiches are made.

4433 Mckinney Ave. 214-354-9000

Millie Ortiz had been making cakes for 20 years, but it was always a side thing. Three years ago, she created a website — and her business boomed. Last year, she decided to make it official and look for a space. She was having dinner at Bavarian Grill when she spotted a “for lease” sign on the storefront next door. It previously housed a caterer and, lo and behold, had kitchen gear. And that’s how Millie Got Her Cake Shop. No pies, no pastries, just decorated cakes. It was a fortuitous time to open, it being wedding season, and there isn’t a whole lot of competition. She’ll accommodate the occasional walk-in but she mostly bakes to order and so appointments are recommended.

221 W Parker Rd #520, Plano. 469-467-9620