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The best dessert at Saint Cupcake's big, new downtown digs
ain't a cupcake. It's a nutty, smoky chocolate chip cookie ($3) that
tastes like a campfire in a sugar forest. Yes, the adorable
eggshell-blue space still hawks a rainbow of full-sized and "Dot"
cupcakes from pumpkin spice to toasted coconut cream (along with a
handful of savory eats, cards and even birthday candles). But baker Jami
Curl's new cookie takes the cake. It gets its distinctive flavor from
flour that's been smoked with alder wood, courtesy of Michael Maynard of
Beaver Camp Sausage Company in Lebanon, Ore. It lends the sweets just a
hint of bacon flavor…without a bit of meat involved. (Appropriately
enough, Curl met Maynard at one of Camas Davis' Portland Meat
Collective classes—where else but Portland do cupcake makers attend
butchery events?) With their chewy centers and crisp edges, packed with
chunks of pecans and two varieties of creamy Swiss chocolate, these
cookies would be good without the special flour. But really, doesn't
everybody crave a good smoke once in a while?
EAT: Alder-smoked cookies are available only at Saint Cupcake Galore, 1138 SW Morrison St., 473-8760, saintcupcake.com.
WWeek 2015