Los Angeles is home to numerous dessert shops that feature a range of treats from cupcakes to doughnuts to shakes. Urban Confections will select dessert restaurants whose only West Coast location is Los Angeles, highlighting students’ opportunities to taste the city’s distinctive flavors. Follow columnist Lindsay Weinberg around Los Angeles as she samples local confections and suggests how students can take advantage of these iconic desserts.
It only seems fitting to end this dessert column with macarons, since that’s where I began 10 weeks ago with Bottega Louie. Going beyond those dainty chewy cookies, Milk’s macaron ice cream sandwiches incorporate two desserts into one iconic L.A. delicacy.
Milk’s ice cream parlor and bakeshop supply classic summer treats, accompanying the stereotypical Californian backdrop in central Los Angeles. The ornate white building resembles a movie theater, except that the shop has high ceilings as though representing a milk carton itself. Four images of red glass milk bottles on the store’s sign each display a letter to spell out “Milk” for passersby.
Inside, I was met with an ice cream counter, including a freezer with rows of pre-made signature macaron ice cream sandwiches. For $5 each, the sandwiches are fabricated from large macarons – not resembling the diameter of an Oreo so much as an orange. Around the corner is the bakery display, packed with “blue” velvet cake, moonpies and Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chip cookies. Resolved on the legendary frozen treat, I chose the banana dulce de leche macaron ice cream sandwich for its famed deliciousness and the Thai tea version for its ingenuity and bright orange color.
I gathered my goodies onto a cafe table outside, admiring the cliche L.A. setting – sidewalk graffiti, a Beverly street sign and patches of palm trees and sunshine. By the time I took the first bite of an ice cream sandwich, it was melted and dripping, so I didn’t get a brain freeze while sinking my teeth into the creation.
The banana dulce de leche treat was superb. The slight crunch of cracking the macaron’s shell was followed by a tender layer of cookie and cold, smooth ice cream; the sandwich was a melodic proportion of textures. The banana ice cream, riddled with chunks of nuts, was delicately stuffed inside two halves of lightly flavored macaron cookies and the whole sandwich was half-dipped in a crunchy caramel coating. Flavors were sweet enough to enjoy, yet not so overpowering as to distract from the chewy and soft texture.
The Thai tea version, especially in its thawing form, was very much like the iced drink itself, which is made from black tea and sweetened condensed milk. I was fond of the taste because I have an affinity for Thai tea, but the potent tangs were too dominant for me to recognize the harmonious textures.
Considering Milk is often listed as a must-visit L.A. dessert shop, I expected the macaron ice cream sandwiches to merely be a novelty, something to try once to check off a tourist’s list. However, the excellent combination of pliable, chewy cookies and soft, melting ice cream was heavenly.
For ice cream sandwiches, macarons seem a smarter option than typical chocolate cookies because the former’s thick chewiness contains the ice cream and retains the shape better than traditional crumbly or sticky cookies. Served in white cupcake wrappers, the macarons were a little messy to eat, but less so than normal ice cream sandwiches.
I also tried a baked item because it was too picturesque to resist: an ice cream cone filled with chocolate cake, topped with a giant portion of saccharine icing, a drizzle of thick fudge and a maraschino cherry for $3.75.
Unfortunately, its visual petiteness was outweighed by the difficulty of eating it. I couldn’t lick the treat like an ice cream because I’d end up with a mouthful of sweet frosting. I attempted to use a fork to cut down the narrow cone into the cake, but the cross-section was still mostly frosting. While adorable to photograph, I found this treat too challenging to eat as every inquiry only presented more cloying icing.
However, I was pleasantly surprised by my visit to Milk. I assumed it would be a local dessert just to test for its inventive macaron ice cream sandwiches; instead, I found those treats to be one of the highlights of “Urban Confections” with their celebration of textures. Shaded by red umbrellas, I licked the last of my dripping confection as cars raced down the worn urban street.
– Lindsay Weinberg
What dessert restaurant from “Urban Confections” has enticed your sweet tooth? Email Weinberg at lweinberg@media.ucla.edu.