Barrington Brewery Chocolate Cake

Friend of Chocolate NYC Emily has been talking about Barrington Brewery's chocolate stout layer cake for years. The weekend before last, we finally got to eat it.



This cake has appeared in Bon Appetit magazine, which also provides the recipe, if you are a daring baker and want to try it yourself.

As you can tell, this cake is massive. I mean, I've seen babies smaller than this cake. One slice costs $7 and it's worth every penny. Emily and I split it and we couldn't finish it in one go.



I am usually not a cake person because I tend to find cake too dry, but this was almost brownie-like in its consistency, and that is a high compliment. It's still drier than a brownie, of course, but that just comes with the territory of being cake.

The frosting is the real winner here. Oh my gosh. This chocolate frosting! Perfect.

BOTTOM LINE: If you're going to the Berkshires, you should try a slice of this cake. Just find one or two people to split it with you first.

Soco Creamery

Soco Creamery sells pints of ice cream through various stores, including many stores in New York City. If you can’t leave New York for some reason, then I recommend buying one of these pints (especially the Mexicali Chocolate). But if you can leave the city, then I recommend driving all the way to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to go to the actual Soco Creamery in person.

Soco Creamery is my happy place. Unlike the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, Soco does a zillion different flavors. Their Dirty Chocolate is superb, and I always get a scoop of that, which I will then usually complement with a scoop of something more exotic. And toppings! They make sundaes here like no one’s business. Your best bet is to rope a friend into sharing with you so you can go whole hog: hot fudge, bananas, everything. That’s what I did when I got this:

This was on the Fourth of July, which explains the red, white, and blue whipped cream in here. What else was in here? Peanut butter sauce. Reese’s Pieces. Hot fudge. Two flavors of ice cream. Honestly I don’t even remember. I just remember being in an uninterrupted state of bliss.

BOTTOM LINE: One of the best places to get an ice cream sundae in the Northeast.