Eating Out: The Apple Pie Bakery Café | Hyde Park, NY

When you feel like doing something spur-of-the-moment, just go for it.

Last Friday afternoon, I came up with this brilliant idea to drive up to Hyde Park, NY to check out The Apple Pie Bakery Café of The Culinary Institute of America.

We’ve been to CIA before (check out my Bocuse post here – still my most favorite post) and the experience was pretty great. When I checked Apple Pie Bakery’s website, I learned it was a casual enough of a bakery café that no reservations are required. Even better, their food was available for takeout, so even if we were late, we can just buy our food to-go. Not a bad plan, right?

Hudson Valley Magazine included The Apple Pie Bakery Café in their yearly “Best Of The Hudson Valley” awards, specifically for “Best Desserts” and “Best Lunch Spot”. Leaving there without getting desserts would’ve been a dumb thing to do.

I started off with this thirst-quenching Parisian Peach Granita, while hubby had his cafe mocha.

I ordered this Kale and Farro Salad to share. According to their menu, this salad has “Tuscan baby kale, spiced pecans, farro, diced red pepper, shaved radicchio, dressed with a red wine vinaigrette, and topped with shaved Parmesan-Reggiano”. Honestly, I’ve never heard of farro. Looking at the salad, I couldn’t even find it!

When I was getting my share of the salad, I found it on the bottom of the salad bowl, which ended up on top of the cheese. (If you’re curious to know more about farro, check it out here.) It’s actually pretty good! I’m surprised that I’ve never encountered it until now.

Hubby wanted to try their chicken wings with a garlic parmesan dry rub. It came with baby rainbow heirloom carrots, celery batons and a house-made local blue cheese.

As a woman with a purpose, I planned to buy three desserts because the Café was known for their desserts. But two more kept catching my attention. This one…

. . . and this one!

So we ended up with. . . drum roll please. . . FIVE desserts!

In fairness to us and our bottomless pits for stomachs, come dessert time, my sister was around for desserts, so there were three of us sharing the good stuff. So it’s not so naughty of us. . . sort of.

Anyway. . .presenting a platter of perfect desserts. I plopped them on one platter so it’s easier to take a picture. : )

What do we have here?

• Modern Black Forest – whipped cream with chocolate mousse, ganache and amarena cherries with flourless chocolate cake
• Cheesecake – cream cheese and sour cream cheesecake atop a crust of chocolate cookie crumb
• Candy Bar Crunch – layers of crisp chocolate cookie, moist devil’s food cake, whipped caramel, peanut butter ganache, chewy peanut caramel, surrounded by milk chocolate mousse and a milk chocolate glaze
• Milk Chocolate Nutella Mousse – orange milk chocolate mousse, nutella brulee and flourless chocolate cake on a sable base

This little guy couldn’t fit in the platter.

• Caramelized Banana Craquelin – pâte à choux puff topped with a brown sugar cookie filled with caramelized banana and dulce de leche and garnished with chocolate ganache

This turned out to be my favorite of the five. I’ve always enjoyed pâte à choux especially cream puffs, profiteroles, éclairs and beignets.

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UPDATE: March 29, 2018

We went back to eat at Apple Pie Bakery Cafe again. This time, we tried their Fried Pork Sandwich with Thai peanut slaw, Mac & Cheese, Operetta Cake and Cream Puff Profiterole.

Verdict: Visiting The Apple Pie Bakery Café is truly an enjoyable way of showing support to our country’s future chefs. The students delivered proficient service and reasonably-priced tasteful food. Even better, no reservations are required! What really stands out on their menu are the desserts – exquisite to look at, delicious to eat. What better way to help them with their education than by eating what they make and serve!

Address:
The Apple Pie Bakery Café
The Culinary Institute of America
1946 Campus Drive (Route 9), Hyde Park, NY 12538-1499