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Entertainment legend Jackie Gleason concocted that signature line for his show business career. But it's also a message blissfully echoed by Hispanic restaurants that are wringing the most from their dessert menus.
Just as ethnic tarts, helados, paletas and flans can satisfy the sweet tooth and swell the waistline, so too can they fatten the profits of restaurant operators.
Not even today's focus on healthy eating trends is slimming dessert sales at some eateries. Salpicón, a 75-seat, upscale, contemporary Mexican restaurant in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood, addresses nutrition concerns in part by offering smaller portions.
"Our desserts are not super-big," says Priscila Satkoff, Salpicón's chef/ proprietor. "They're also lighter, so customers have room for dessert."
At Pasion!, a 110-seat Nuevo Latino eatery and 12-seat ceviche bar in Philadelphia, dessert sales are often buzz-driven. "Something can taste great, but much of dessert sales relies on making the customer think it will taste great," says Patrick O'Malley, pastry chef at Pasion! "So we regularly talk about desserts in pre-shift meetings with the front-of-the-house staff. And we encourage servers to taste things. It makes a big difference when servers can talk about how something tastes from their own first-hand experience." presentation and flavor pairings
Promoting desserts is a no-brainer. The only real questions for most Hispanic restaurants are how often and what type of promotion. Desserts can comprise a significant percentage of profits and sales; at Pasion! for example, half of all customers order post-entree items. Desserts can also garner exceptional notoriety for an eatery.
Some proprietors sweep clients off their feet with romantic, enticing descriptions of desserts' ingredients and flavors. Others attract customers with modestly priced sweets, a panorama of choices, and distinctive items.
O'Malley says one way Pasion! has cultivated sales is by promoting seasonal fresh fruits and spotlighting them on the dessert plate. But the restaurant also lures clients with unexpected ingredients in many of its desserts.
A colorful example is the fondue de caramelo de cajeta, the most expensive ($12) dessert and one requiring the most elaborate preparation. The fondue consists of goat's milk, sugar, canela and baking soda. Arrayed around the fondue pot, which rests on a dried banana sheet underliner, are fried churros, an ice cream sandwich, a banana tres leches paleta on a skewer, a crepe pinwheel filled with cream cheese and membrillo (canned fruit jelly), alfajor de dulce de leche and fruit escabeche.
O'Malley surprises customers with how he prepares the fruit escabeche, which may include pears, apples, mangos, cranberries, pineapple and papaya. The fruit is frequently marinated, pickled, grilled, poached — sometimes a fruit receives two treatments — but the item always includes vinegar, sugar and sometimes lemongrass, peppercorn, ginger and other ingredients. "I think some people are surprised about the vinegar," says O'Malley. "But you have to get beyond how you might think of how vinegar is typically used. It doesn't taste at all like the vinegar you would taste in mustard or hot sauce."
Pasion! patrons are also intrigued by ingredients in the daily dessert for the Chef Taster menu. For instance, a fruit gazpacho is teamed with leche frita (fried custard). The gazpacho consists of mango, rhubarb, green pickled mangos, pineapple, persimmon, passion fruit and ginger. Crowning the gazpacho, served in a chilled white bowl, is a square leche frita, a dense pastry cream made with eggs, cornstarch, vanilla, cinnamon and an orange or lemon. It is rolled in breadcrumbs and fried, producing a crispy outer shell.
"That's a good example of what we do with Nuevo Latino here, pairing one traditional item with something modern and contrasting," says O'Malley. "The result is something delicious and beautiful. It's fun to see people's responses."
The restaurant's most popular dessert is the $7 Cuban flan, a baked custard in caramel sauce that is garnished with a phyllo cookie. But patrons also enjoy petits fours — simple, compli- mentary after-dessert sweets like chocolate truffles, banana fritters, tapioca fruit cocktail shooters or pepita brittle. "It's one extra fun, sort of uplifting item for customers before they leave," says O'Malley.
As a child growing up in Mexico City, Priscila Satkoff couldn't wait to savor her mother's and grandmother's delectable desserts. Now she's duplicating some of the same recipes in the nine desserts, including helados and sorbets, offered at Salpicón.
Her desserts, priced at $7 each, are like her children; she refuses to pick a favorite. Her customers don't play favor-ites, either. "I'm proud of the fact there isn't just one particular dessert people like," says Satkoff, whose desserts reflect influences from the French pastry school she attended. Yet customers are obviously fond of the tarta de pera y mango (pear and mango tart). Homemade cajeta ice cream fashioned from goat's milk is served atop a warmed tart resting in mango sauce that features cooked pear and mango and vanilla bean. A slice of crispy mango acts as a garnish.
Goat's milk is again featured with Salpicón's crepa con cajeta. This crepe, made with cinnamon, milk, flour and eggs, is filled with fresh mango and raspberries and topped with caramelized goat's milk. It is then baked and sprinkled with powdered sugar, while a sprig of mint offers a garnish.
The eatery's trio de pi–a is an experiment in flavors and textures from the same fruit. A vanilla-roasted pineapple ring is topped with homemade pineapple sorbet. It is garnished with an ultra-thin slice of pineapple that is baked until crispy.
"It's amazing to see the different tastes and textures you get from just one fruit," says Satkoff. a peruvian twist
Meanwhile at Machu Picchu, a 40-seat Peruvian restaurant in Somerville, Mass., owner Rosy Cerna racks up additional dessert sales simply by pointing them out to Americans. Peruvians need no such promptings, she observes.
A baked dessert called budin (bread pudding in honey syrup), comprised of bread, milk, raisins and sugar, is especially appreciated in the winter. Homemade honey syrup is drizzled over the $3.50 slice.
Machu Picchu's most popular dessert is the $3.50 mazamorra morada, a purple corn pudding. Why? "It's the purple corn from Peru," says Cerna. "You can't find it anywhere else." Purple corn and chopped pineapple are boiled together and the resulting juice is combined with sweet potato flour, lemon, sugar and plums. Mazamorra morada is served either hot or cold — Peruvians generally like it hot — in a larger, clear glass-stemmed cup.
Another popular dessert is the $3.50 arroz con leche, a cinnamon-topped and salt-free rice pudding. Many Peruvians relish the $5.50 Clasico, which consists of arroz con leche on the bottom half of a cup and mazamorra morada on top, all crowned with cinnamon.
"Clasico was my favorite dessert growing up in Peru," says Cerna. "You could always find mazamorra morada or Clasico at any celebration."
Recipe Reference: Crêpes con Cajeta
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