SARAH BRUGGEMAN
Pastry Chef, Pangea Kitchen
In my years as pastry chef here, I’m beginning to recognize that Evansville has its favorite Pangea desserts. These are the four treats that our customers keep coming back for:
Tres Leche Cake
Tres leche translates into three milk. It is a traditional Hispanic dessert made from a vanilla sponge cake that we soak overnight in a mixture of heavy cream, sweetened cream, condensed milk and evaporated milk that’s been boiled together with a little vanilla bean and a splash of rum. It needs the whole night to soak to give the cake time to absorb all that milk. But, even still, when you cut into this cake the next day some of that cream seeps out — make sure your plate has a dip!
I think the reason this cake is so popular is it is something different for this area. I don’t know many other places that serve it, so when we cut up slices for individual sale on the weekends, it catches people’s attention. I’ve had people request this cake for birthdays and parties. We’ve occasionally made specially decorated bite sized pieces of tres leche to serve at special events.
I know some people don’t like this word, but the best description I have for this cake is — moist. And it is. The vanilla sponge cake that we start with is really just a vessel for eating all that milk. This is a true dessert cake, completely elevated, and definitely an Evansville favorite.
Macaron Towers
For a truly eye-catching dessert display, a lot of people lately are turning to our macaron towers. We get quite a few requests for these gorgeous centerpiece desserts, mostly for parties, showers and weddings. We can build towers in any colors. We do a lot of blues and pinks for baby showers, with the colors starting dark on the bottom and becoming lighter as they near the top. For one wedding, we made two rainbow colored towers that sat on either side of the cake. Beautiful!
Strawberry Cake
Our traditional strawberry cake with cream cheese icing is probably our most requested dessert item. It goes fast when we put out slices in the case, and once people have it, they come back for it again and again.
This cake is not particularly complicated to make. It is simply a traditional vanilla cake with fresh strawberries added to the batter. But there is something about those fresh strawberries that completely elevates this cake. It’s those simple ingredients that make it something really special.
Gelato Cake
Every day, we pack our dessert case with slices of gelato cake. They are made fresh from the gelato that we also make fresh in our kitchen! So, it’s no surprise to me that this is another Evansville favorite when customers need to special order a dessert.
The gelato cakes come in three different sizes, with the traditional being a 9-inch round cake. We’ll use two or three different flavors of gelato with each cake. The gelato is layered atop a chocolate sponge cake and topped with a chocolate hazelnut sauce. Our most popular is the mint Oreo chocolate — it seems to the the cake people select when in doubt! But the chocolate peanut butter cup is also a crowd favorite. My personal favorite is a pistachio with strawberry cheesecake gelato.
If you want to order one of our gelato cakes, remember, the options are endless! We make hundreds of different gelato flavors, and they can be combined in countless ways to make cakes.
So there you have it, our most requested desserts. Have we missed your favorite? Come on by and let us know — we’d be happy to make it for you!
