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What happened to the world Willy Wonka promised us, in which “Three-Course Dinner Gum” would give us an entire meal in a single, uninterrupted session of chewing?
They get it at Sauce on the Side, where this month’s calzone special, the Mayflower, wraps up herb-roasted turkey, candied walnut/sweet potato mash, dried cranberries, cornbread stuffing and Vermont white cheddar in a baked calzone (with a side of house-made turkey gravy).
They get it at NYC’s Momofuku Milk Bar, where the annual Thanksgiving Croissant does much the same trick.
And Simone Faure gets it – and for one day only, gives it – at her La Patisserie Chouquette bakery / house of wonders in Botanical Heights.
Faure’s “T-Duck” is her version of the complete-Thanksgiving-feast-in-a-croissant, and it’s arguably more elaborate than its Manhattan inspiration.
The T-Duck is a mini-Turducken of sorts, plus all trimmings, in a single pastry (below). It consists of roasted chicken, roasted turkey, duck confit, a bacon-cornbread stuffing, whole cranberry-and-orange compote and turkey gravy within a flaky croissant that’s topped with herb butter, baked, and finished with fried onions for a “casserole effect,” explained Faure.
Somewhere, a delirious madman rings a bell in celebration.
The T-Duck will be available this Saturday, Nov. 23 only, beginning at 9 a.m. until the bakery runs out. Veterans of La Patisserie Chouquette’s Cronut Saturdays know the drill. The line will form well before the 9 a.m. opening, and the rarities of the hour may actually disappear within the hour. They will go fast, even though the limit is two T-Ducks per person.
Faure refuses to reveal how many she’ll make, citing an oven-related disaster that once rendered one of her promises unfulfilled, she claimed. (She said she’ll make “more than 100 and less than 1,000” T-Ducks.)
The baker’s other Thanksgiving goodies, that you can order (through Sunday) for next week’s American saturnalia of gratitude, include pumpkin pie cookies (below left), red velvet cheesecake (below right), bourbon praline pie, pumpkin-and-ginger marbled tart, hazelnut caramel crunch tart, eggnog cheesecake, roasted pear-and-cranberry galette, and the pumpkin cronuts that the bakery disgorged for a drooling horde a few weeks back.
“Thanksgivukkah,” the rare confluence of Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah next week, has occasioned a particularly intense baking season for Faure and her ilk. Her Hanukkah treats include chocolate and raspberry babkas; cookies shaped like dreidels, Stars of David and menorahs; chocolate-covered Oreos wrapped in blue and silver foil; and challahs stuffed with an apricot/date/fig filling.
“Can we make a Hanukkah croissant?” wondered La Simone. “I wouldn’t stuff it with matza balls or gefilte fish,” she assured us, “but I’m working on it…”
The T-Duck
$7 (limit 2 per person)
Available beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 23
La Patisserie Chouquette
1626 Tower Grove
Botanical Heights
314-932-7935
