Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [174]
Using ice cream and milk from their own farm, Young’s blends regular shakes and extra-thick shakes (spoon required), as well as bullshakes that are extra-large, extra-thick, and come with one additional scoop of ice cream floating on top. There are exotic flavors galore, but give us a vanilla or chocolate shake every time, preferably with plenty of malt powder added. There’s none better. The dairy store counter is also a fine source of sundaes, banana splits, and bowls of ice cream from a choice of more than two dozen flavors. And you can have a nice little meal here, too: breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits or pancakes, or lunch-counter hamburgers and sandwiches.
Wisconsin
Bay Bakery
423 E. Silver Spring Dr.
414–332–5340
Milwaukee, WI
$
Here in the state with license plates that proclaim it “America’s Dairyland,” good pastries made with butter are not uncommon. But those made at Bay Bakery are some of the best we have eaten anywhere. Known to many customers as a place that makes elaborate celebration cakes, it is, for us, an opportunity to get bags and boxes full of sour cream donuts, cupcakes, fruit flips, caramel buns, single-serving bundt cakes, and fritters.
Fresh-baked bread is also outstanding. There are warm loaves on the shelf every morning, but the day we like stopping in is Friday, when you can count on caraway rye. We would describe this rye as “heaven on toast,” but in fact we’ve never had the opportunity to toast it. We buy a loaf and tear at it as we drive around Milwaukee looking for other good things to eat.
Mostly a take-out store, Bay Bakery does have a couple of tables for customers desperately in need of eating pastries now.
Beerntsen’s Candy Store
108 N. 8th St.
920–684–9616
Manitowoc, WI
LD | $
In the back of Beerntsen’s, past the confectionery shelves and through an elaborately carved archway, handsome wooden booths are occupied by customers who come for such ice cream fancies as a Sweetheart (caramel, vanilla ice cream, marshmallow, crushed nuts) or a Sunset (strawberry and vanilla ice cream, pineapple, marshmallow, crushed nuts). Up front are more than a hundred different kinds of hand-dipped candy, including a chocolate cosmetology set (brush, mirror, hair dryer), smoochies (like Hershey’s kisses, but bigger), raspberry and vanilla seafoam dainties and—the pièce de résistance—a bonbon known as fairy food, which is a two-inch square of gossamer spun sugar molasses shrouded in deep, dark chocolate. The chocolate is dense and luxurious. The molasses melts into nothing but flavor. We are very happy we live nowhere near Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and that fairy food is too delicate to be shipped; otherwise, we’d be addicts.
Bendtsen’s Bakery
3200 Washington Ave.
262–633–7449
Racine, WI
L | $
Bendtsen’s calls its kringle “the world’s finest Danish pastry,” a claim with which we would not disagree. If you don’t know what kringle is, think of an ordinary Danish, like you have with morning coffee. Now, imagine its crust buttery and feather-light, almost like a croissant, and fill it with a ribbon of pecan paste and chopped nuts, or a layer of almond macaroon paste, or a tunnel of cherry and cheese. Picture it as big as a Christmas wreath, a ring that is about a foot-and-a-half across and iced with sugar glaze or flavored frosting. Finally, imagine it served warm with butter melting on top, accompanied by a leisurely pot of coffee. There you have one of the great breakfast (or teatime) treats in America, a dish that is virtually unknown outside the city of Racine, Wisconsin.
Bendtsen’s has pictures on the wall that show the time they made the world’s largest kringle, but size isn’t what makes their pastry so wonderful. Each kringle made here, whether simply filled with apricot jam or fancy-filled with a mash of cranberries and walnuts, is a beautiful sight—a broad oval rather than a perfect circle, quite flat, and ready to slice into small pieces (of which you’ll want three or four).
There is no place to eat at Bendtsen’s,