Serious Eats: New York
Sugar Rush: Flourless Chocolate-Walnut Cookie at Payard Patisserie
Dark and heavily studded with more walnut chunks than first glance would lead one to anticipate, Payard's flourless chocolate-walnut cookie satisfies many cravings. With a texture reminiscent of fudge, this sweet is a cross between cookie and meringue. But the six ingredients that go into making it (walnuts, confectioners sugar, cocoa powder, egg whites, salt and vanilla extract) prove that simple is best. The thin, crackling surface breaks into a chocolate moist interior, with so many walnuts one might easily be convinced that the exclusive purpose of the cocoa rich batter was to bind the nuts. Basically, if walnuts are your thing, this cookie will fulfill every fantasy you've ever had of the perfect pick me up treat.
Payard Patisserie
1032 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10021 (nr. 74th Street; map)
212-717-5252