Everyone knows what CIA is, but do you know there is a place called “The Other CIA”??? It stands for The Culinary Institute of America, and it is an American private college and culinary school specializing in culinary, baking, and pastry arts education. The great thing is, you don’t have to be a student or teacher to enjoy their culinary creations. They have several restaurants open to public! They welcome you with the symbol of hospitality, pineapple, and the campus ground is quite lovely too.
We decided to make a full day out of it during one weekday, thinking it is much less busy. So, we walked around on our own, took a student-lead tour, and did some extra adventure off-campus in between. First, we got there in a morning for a breakfast from their Café, located in their centerpiece building, Roth Hall. You should also check out a grand, shiny, majestic sturgeon sculpture right next to it, made all with silverware!
We got there around 10am, and even though the Café was open, the dining area was still closed. When I asked the staff about it, they told us that the dining section don’t open until 11am.
But, you can still get their baked goods and sweets from there, just have to find a place to sit to eat them. The Café side is rather small, with an island in the middle with more offerings like jams and drinks. On the left side to the entrance all the way the back is where you can make your selection and order. The right of the entrance is where the condiment, milk, sugar and such are located.
The selections were beautiful, all sorts of baked goods and bread that were baked by students at attendant. They had muffins, scones, croissants, cookies, etc., etc… And of course, desserts! Very fun, colorful, elegant and all looked really good!
We got a few drinks and desserts, went outside by the beautiful fountain. They had several benches there around the fountain, and even a couple of nice gazebo too. So, for drinks, we got hot Café Latte ($4/large) which was REALLY big, they aren’t joking about large size… It was a good cup of coffee too!
Another drink we got was an Earl Grey Tea ($3/large), with milk. Again, super large cup, and had three tea bags! Wow! They are not stingy with Harney & Sons teas, which was awesome! And it was nice and strong because of it.
For food, it somehow ended up being all desserts…LOL. The first one was Blueberry Cobbler Cheesecake ($7). It had very light sky blue color, with crumbs and edible silver flake on top. I must say, I haven’t really seen edible silver flake before, more used to edible gold flakes, so it was interesting.
The shape reminded me of some kind of heavy duty military container for some reason… But in the inside, it had blueberry cardamom compote in the center, with sandwiched by yellow butter cake. The yellow butter cake was very moist and almost like a mousse. The cinnamon crumbs on top really makes this dessert to “cobbler” in my opinion. Very elegant and tasty, high quality dessert!
Next one was Raspberry Grasshopper ($7). I am a big fan of grasshopper cocktail, so I was excited to see this dessert. It had some kind of jelly-type round thing on the top, that made me think of those beet jelly out a can…I am not a fan of beet jelly, and I was a bit confused of this item coming with grasshopper anything. Anyways, it was not a beet jelly, but it was a raspberry jelly. It was just a-ok.
Anyways, it was a good, creamy, tasty treat. It was much more like a mousse, creamier Blueberry Cobbler Cheesecake. It was topped with some nuts and a thin chocolate piece, which added extra texture and flavor. It had raspberry jam center, surrounded by chocolate Chantilly, sitting on a thin chocolate flourless cake. Then it was hugged by mint mousse. Raspberry and chocolate usually don’t go with grasshopper that I am used to, and I didn’t really get much of minty flavor. Again, it was a tasty dessert, bit I don’t think I would call it “grasshopper.”
The last dessert was the most fun, or at least fun-looking dessert. It was called Milk and Cookies ($7) but it reminded me of Cookie Monster for sure. It had brilliant blue color, which transferred onto your finger and anywhere and everywhere it touched. It needed a really good, thorough, long wash time with soap to get most of it off…
Underneath the strong blue coating was a chocolate cup, holding a sweetened condensed Chantilly which was very creamy, milky, almost fluffy center with chunks of brownie pieces in it. The “cookie” part was made with brown butter pasty cream, I believe. It was quite good, but they do need to figure out how to get this item easier to eat without getting the blue coloring all over your hands. It is impossible to eat this without touching and holding onto it, otherwise, it will fall over to the side, since it is mostly round.
And on another fun note, they have a quite nice gift shop to the left of the entrance. They have all sorts of items related to the school and to cooking. Useful kitchen gadgets, tasty items like jams cupcake mixes, apparels like hats and sweatshirts.
They had a fun mugs with a “chef walking” sign, and we actually saw the real signs on campus everywhere. And of course, cook books of all kinds. They even had The Wizard’s Cookbooks! How cool! So make sure to check our their gift shop, even if you don’t buy anything from here, it is still fun to look around.
Overall, all of the desserts were quite tasty, high quality, and I thought the price point was good for the delicious creations. There are few things that they could do to make them better, of course, but I am sure all the ambitious culinary students will figure them out. And, the student staffs at the Café were not very friendly…but rather cold. Maybe they are not morning people??? Anyways, I am glad I got to try out their beautiful and tasty desserts!
Apple Pie Bakery Café – 1946 Campus Dr, Hyde Park, NY 12538