Hanana Yogurt at 99 Nassau Avenue, had its soft opening about two weeks ago and invites the community to come celebrate Mother’s Day on May 12 with free servings for all moms!
Hanana yogurt is made using only authentic, high quality ingredients with no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. It contains calcium, protein, and live active cultures, which provide nutrition while satisfying the sweet tooth with a smooth and creamy taste. Packed with nutrients and probiotics, Hanana frozen yogurt helps to maintain a healthy diet.
Hanana Yogurt offers 12 flavors which rotates every month. Most of the flavors are gluten-free certified, non-fat or low-fat, and geared for the most health conscious individual, allowing customers to indulge without the guilt associated with eating desserts. Hanana Yogurt will always have flavors available for customers with special dietary needs. The store currently offers Original Tart, Strawberry Banana with No Sugar Added, and 10 other flavors.
Hanana’s self-serve model allows customers to create their own unique treat. Choose any of the delicious flavors, top it with any of the 48+ toppings, including a variety of fresh fruits and other goodies. Hanana Yogurt lets customers enjoy many health benefits of yogurt while satisfying the craving for dessert.
The store has a modern and fun atmosphere including music and special lightings. Stop by the new location and treat yourself to the healthier alternative to ice cream. Enjoy a guilt free pleasure that tastes good and is good for you! Eat right, live well!
On a recent super top secret important Greenpointers business meeting, I needed some sweet and Lauren at Milk n’ Roses described an Italian pastry stuffed with cheese and flavored ever so slightly with orange. “Give me that!”
What came was a sfogliatella, so I know why she didn’t even try to pronounce it. (Sf-oy-yuh-tell-uh) Crazy Italians! Who cares how to say it? It’s delicious and you shouldn’t talk with your mouth full anyway.
After working at an Italian bakery as a teenager in Queens, I quickly got sick of all the cannolis, rainbow cookies and the collect calls from the bakery owner’s mafioso son in jail, but I never got sick of the sfogliatelle (that’s plural).
Sfogliatelle are Nonna, my Sicilian grandmother’s, favorite dessert so it’s always in the box of pastries we bring to her house when we have our traditional Sunday eat-until-you-pass-out feast.
It is crispy dough infinitely layered into the shaped of a shell and inside is soft and not too sweet ricotta with a nice citrus tang and dusted with powdered sugar. Try one next time you’re at Milk n’ Roses (1110 Manhattan Ave), they’re irresistible!
It’s something I’d heard rumors about for years, but never knew if it actually existed. Finally, this summer a hand drawn sign appeared in the window of Greenpoint’s own Peter Pan Donut Shop (727 Manhattan Ave.) - advertising the great white whale of summer desserts: the Ice Cream Donut Sandwich. It sounded like a joke. A donut of your choice cut in half and stuffed with a large scoop of Haagan Dazs ice cream. I can confirm that not only is it real, but it’s delicious. Continue reading →
They sell gigantic and often tasteless strawberries all year round at the supermarket, but when the local farmers start wheeling and dealing these heavenly berries, I go insane. Often over $4 per pint, local strawberries seem pricey, but they are so worth it because they taste like they have been ripened in the sun not like they have been sitting in the refrigerator section of the produce isle. There are so many things you can do with these little treasures.
I have been on a jam rampage. Straight out of the 1970 Blue Ball Book of Canning, I make the trusted and true strawberry jam recipe, but I half the amount of strawberries and 1/4 the amount of sugar and it comes out great.
Strawberry Jam
2 Quarts Crushed Strawberries
3-6 C. Sugar
1/4 C. Lemon Juice (optional)
Slowly bring ingredients to a boil then fast boil it, stirring often, for 40 minutes until it passes the jam test. Hot water boil for 10-15 minutes in sterilized ball jars.
It may be off the beaten path, but the best things in life don’t just land on your corner. A new bakery called Ovenly opened last Friday on Greenpoint Ave between West St and the East River, near the soon to open Transmitter Park. If you haven’t stopped in yet, you are majorly missing out on biscuit perfection and cupcake elegance, not to mention cookie genius. And they have savory treats, too! Agatha and Erin, the ladies behind this recent start-up began their company right out of Paulie Gee’s kitchen, where I am convinced a little fairy lives whose magic wand turns food start-ups into major successes. Bacon Marmalade, Sea Bean Goods & Mike’s Hot Honey all began beside that big pizza oven, as well.
I’ve had this recipe for Rainbow Cookies on my fridge since last year and decided to make it. Working my first job as a counter girl at an Italian bakery in Queens and accepting collect calls from the grumpy bakery owner’s son, who was in jail for idiotic low-level racketeering, gave me have a distaste for Italian pastries, with the exception of a few things: Pignoli Cookies, Rainbow Cookies & Cannolis (but only the cannolis that the nuns from the San Carlo monastery on Erice, a medieval mountain town in Sicily make. God is in them.) The rest of the Italian pastries can burn in hell.
Rainbow Cookies are pretty pricey per pound and if you’re going to buy them around Brooklyn I would recommend Fortunata Brother’s on Manhattan & Devoe.
Making the rainbow cookies seemed pretty pricey, too. It didn’t help that I had to buy 3 half sheet pans at $15 a pop from The Brooklyn Kitchen, plus 4 tubes of Almond Paste at $8 a pop! I definitely came home grumpy.
“I should have just bought them at the bakery,” I said as I laid the ingredients on the counter. But the process and the end result were worth it, plus we got between 150-200 cookies out of it.
I cut the recipe out of New York Magazine from the chef of Torrisi Italian Specialties, a great Italian restaurants down on Mulberry, the walls lined with Manhattan Special: my favorite drink, espresso soda.
If you plan on making rainbow cookies, make sure you have an entire day off plus a partner with good hand-eye coordination. I am lacking in that area and Jon, who is mechanically inclined proved, to have amazing cake layering and chocolate spreading skills. Had I tried to take this endeavor solo, I assure you these cookies would not be so pretty.
When it comes down to it, “it’s a lot of work, Jane,” as Nonna, my Sicilian Grandma would say. There are many steps: beating the egg whites for stiff glossy peaks, splitting one batter into three for coloring, baking three cakes separately until just underdone so they stay moist, cooling the cakes then layering them using orange marmalade as glue, letting them set then spreading warm chocolate on the top and bottom. Start as early in the morning as you can.
While getting closer and closer to chocolatey soft almond cookie goodness, I was giddy. I remember saying, “this sure as hell beats last minute christmas shopping.” In fact, making these cookies is what the holidays are all about: slowing down, spending time with someone you love, making something you love, then giving to people you love.” These cookies put a truer smile on faces than anything you can unwrap and rip a price tag off of.
12 large eggs, separated
2 2/3 cups sugar
24 oz. almond paste
8 sticks butter, softened
5 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. red food coloring
2 tsp. green food coloring
16 oz. orange preserves, heated and strained
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
Preheat oven to 350. Beat egg whites in electric mixer until they just hold stiff peaks. Add ½ cup sugar, beating until whites hold stiff, slightly glossy peaks, then refrigerate. Beat together almond paste and remaining sugar in mixer. Add butter gradually and beat until mixture is fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add yolks and beat until well combined. Reduce speed to low and add flour and salt and mix until just combined. Fold in egg whites. Divide batter equally among 3 bowls; wearing gloves,(1) whisk red food coloring into one and green into another, leaving the third batch plain. Spread each batter separately and evenly, about ¼-inch thick, onto 3 half-sheet pans, each greased and lined with parchment paper. Bake until just barely set, about 7 minutes. (2) When layers are cool, spread half the preserves onto the green layer. Invert plain layer over it and discard paper. Spread on remaining preserves, and invert red layer over it; discard paper. Wrap with plastic and top with a weighted baking pan. Refrigerate for several hours. Remove plastic and bring to room temperature. Melt chocolate in a double boiler, and (3) spread thinly on top layer. Chill in freezer briefly until firm. Cover with wax paper, place another baking sheet on top, then invert cake onto sheet pan and remove paper. Quickly spread with remaining chocolate and return to freezer until firm. Trim edges, slice, and serve.
Hanana’s self-serve model allows customers to create their own unique treat. Choose any of the delicious flavors, top it with any of the 48+ toppings, including a variety of fresh fruits and other goodies. Hanana Yogurt lets customers enjoy many health benefits of yogurt while satisfying the craving for dessert.
