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Brooklyn Bakery Intentionally Jumps The Shark
By
Nell Casey
Published Jul 17, 2014
Modified Jul 17, 2014
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By
Nell Casey
Published Jul 17, 2014
Modified Jul 17, 2014
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It's an interesting time for pasty 'round these parts, a fact somewhat bemoaned by wonderfully feisty and talented baker Allison Robicelli of Robicelli's Bakery in Bay Ridge. When Crumbs was left to die, Robicelli quickly derided the media for the "morbid" and "tasteless" glee with which we rejoiced the "end of the cupcake," in a fantastic letter to First We Feast. She also addressed the frustration around being tasked to constantly innovate, often for no other reason than innovation for innovation's sake. "We're not being asked to make good food—we're being asked to churn out gimmicks," Robicelli lamented. "Which makes the rash of cupcake hatred all the more ironic." Remember chicken wing cupcakes?
Now, inspired by—or perhaps provoked by—her frustrations, Robicelli and crew have dubbed this the Jump The Shark Summer at the bakery, a not-at-all-disguised ribbing of the intense food media hype propagated by, well, everyone. Each week the bakery will create a new, "viral" confection specifically designed to elicit the hyperventilation surrounding ironic or oddball Frankenfoods. To wit:
That’s right foodies, and the significant others who grudgingly get dragged along with them! We are dedicating every weekend this summer to getting even MORE intense. There will be no “wow, this cake is really delicious exactly how it is!” Oh HELL no! Why settle for just plain ol’cake, when we can hybridize it with a whole bunch of things. Maybe with make the cake with duck fat, stuff it inside a doughnut, deep fry the f*** out of it, then coat it in some sort of bacon Sriracha and locally-foraged mango glaze, or some equally intense stuff. Then you put it online with the caption “WANT OMFG (drool) (dead)”.
This is what we in the industry call “whimsy”. And we want you all to whimsy so hard that your junk falls off.
First up, the vafflecake, a stack of Norwegian waffles glued together with sour cream custard then covered in burnt sugar and served by the slice with some preserves. And because limited quantities only further serve clamoring lines and insanity, they're making "not nearly enough to satiate off of New York City's carnal waffle desires." Act fast, foodiots.
The vafflecakes will be available starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday at their Bay Ridge bakery—buckle up for a long-ass trip on the R train, kiddies!
Then after this weekend, we’ll all agree that wafflecake was so two days ago, and we’ll get to work on the NEXT next big thing. Then come summer’s end, we’ll have a veritable menu of exxxxtreme desserts for the bookers at Good Morning America to choose from, we can go on the talk show circuit, and license out our recipes to Costco. Everyone is winning here.
[via First We Feast]
Tagged
bay ridge
frankenfood
hype
jump the shark summer
robicelli's
vaffelcake
Nell Casey
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