In honor of the opening of Pop-Tarts World–mass market pastry retail heaven for those of us who were under the impression that only four or five flavors of Pop-Tarts existed–in Times Square this month, my officemates and I decided to make the mythical Pop-Tart Ice Cream Sandwich.

Thanks to Fresh Direct, we had the followed delivered to our office last Friday morning:

• Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts
• Frosted Strawberry with Sprinkles Pop-Tarts
• Edy’s Grand Vanilla Bean ice cream
• Edy’s Grand Chocolate ice cream
• Edy’s Cookies ‘N Cream ice cream
• Edy’s Grand Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream
• Edy’s Slow-Churned French Silk ice cream (possibly my favourite storeice cream in the world)
• Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra ice cream

And with those ingredients, we made these:

strawberry with vanilla ice cream

brown sugar cinnamon with French Silk ice cream

The impending glee was too much for Chantee to handle,

but our notoriously non-gluttonous German interns Sven and Christoph surprisingly dove right in:

And speaking of diving right in, if you accidentally drop Pop-Tart down your bra, expect this from me:

This is one of those instances where once you have it, you can’t not have it. Like mixing heavy cream into iced coffee, spooning jelly into the center of a zeppole, or deep-frying a Snickers bar, I will forever be disappointed when there’s not a Pop-Tart in my dish of ice cream. The synthetic sugariness of it appeals so much to the truly indulgent part of me, and the lack of utensils needed to eat it appeals to my raised-in-a-barn-ness.

I would go to Wechsler’s every day. It’s one of those quintessential East Village finds that’s tiny, cozy, and cheap, yet unlike most of the East Village, it’s somewhere you can actually take a date.

Not, like, a snobby date.

A date like me.

Basically, I just want to go back to Wechsler’s, and I want you to go with me.

Anyway, here’s a picture of some meat covered in some sauce:

That’s what currywurst is: sausage, sliced and covered in a saucy blend of tomato and curry powder. It’s traditionally a German street food, but when I recommended Wechsler’s to my friend Steve, he reported back the next day that it’s waaaaaaaaaay more bland in Germany. Wechsler’s is spicy and sweet, like the base of a really good chili.

It is a meal at $6, and they serve it with crunchy fries and this tiny little fork that will make you feel like a curry-lovin’ giant.

The curry puff is common to Thai, Malaysian, and Singaporean cuisine, but none of those cuisines is common to me, so the first time I tried one, I was in heaven. Sort of like an empanada, sort of like a samosa, it’s pastry stuffed with a thick curry, chicken, potatoes, and onion and deep-fried.

Since that original curry puff, I’ve tried as many as I can find in NYC, but I always go back to the one at Lemongrass Grill.

It’s the flakiest, the curry-est, and the most way-too-delicious-to-last-more-than-two-bites. The puff isn’t hard like a samosa’s, so the filling gets to mingle with it.

But really, it wouldn’t be anything without the dipping sauce it comes with. It’s vinegar-based with chunks of cucumber that taste a little bit pickled and a little bit sweet. I didn’t even like cucumbers a couple of years ago, but I would still dig those things out of the little cup with my fingers when my boyfriend wasn’t looking.

And I always follow my curry puff up with their chicken pad thai (which is also my favourite in NYC), or the Gai Tom Kha soup.

I was in Ohio last weekend and spent much of it with my best friend, who–like me–finds lots of excuses to “cheat” on her low-carb diet. Meaning that whenever I’m in town, we go crazy and eat whatever we want, which is everything from Dairy Queen to Pizza Hut to McDonald’s with a couple of local joints thrown in as long as they’re all as unhealthy as possible. We’ve said 100 times in the past year that we’d love to try “being good” one time when I come home for a visit, but this time we actually meant it.

As luck would have it, the lovely Maria Emmerich posted a recipe for a low-carb version of the famed Hostess Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcake in her blog the very day I came home, and you know we went to town on those things. Here’s our take on her recipe:

Cupcakes:
1/2 cup of blanched almond flour
3 eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon of iodized sea salt
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1/2 cup of Splenda
4 tablespoons of melted butter

Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Combine the yolks, sweetener, and butter and whisk until well-blended. Combine all of the dry ingredients and blend well. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the whipped whites, then slowly fold in the dry mixture and blend well. Fill the cupcake pan 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 15-18 minutes at 350 degrees F or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Creamy Filling:
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup Splenda

Whip the cream until light and fluffy and add in the sweetener. Place filling in sandwich baggie with one corner snipped off. Scoop a dime-sized hole out of the top of each cupcake, push the snipped corner of the baggie into the hole, and squeeze until the filling rises to the top of the cupcake. (Maria injected hers into side of the cupcakes, so feel free to try both ways and see which gets more filling in.)

Frosting:
50g low-carb chocolate (we used a Lindt 85% Cocoa Bar, but Maria’s, made with a ChocoPerfection bar, turned out much shinier, like the Hostess version)
1 tablespoon heavy cream

Melt the chocolate bar in 10-second intervals in the microwave and add in whipping cream. Once the cupcake is cooled, dip the top of each one in melted chocolate.

Swirly White Topping:
Cream cheese

Add a small amount of cream cheese to another baggie, cut another tiny piece of the corner off, and swirl it onto each cupcake.

Nutritional Info:
297 calories, 6g carbs, 3.5g fiber, 2.5g net carbs
Makes 6 cakes

a cross-sectional view shows how much creamy filling was waiting inside for us

a cup of heavy cream makes a LOT of creamy filling, and you can guess where all of the leftovers went

Tracey and I loved these. A lot of low-carb swaps for common sugary foods are sad approximations that leave you wishing for the real thing, but we didn’t feel a sense of loss while eating these at all. The only problem we had was convincing ourselves not to eat all six in one sitting, and we were rewarded for that the next day with a deliciously hardened chocolate top on the two we saved. If you can double the recipe, I recommend it.