Crazycakes

Friday was my boss' birthday, but he didn't didn't tell me until late in the day when I was running around town like a headless chicken trying to fetch the actor's prop wedding rings. So I ignored the boss' declaration and decided that his birthday would be on Monday.
On Sunday I was eating ice cream (I had watermelon sherbet; Ted had black sesame ice cream) at Sundaes and Cones (95 E. 10th St. bw 3rd & 4th Ave.) and spied the perfect present. An ice cream cake, of course! There's a computer on the counter with a slideshow of the ice cream cakes styles. I really wanted to get the "Poop on grass" motif, but I really wanted people to try the ice cream. So I went with the "Balls". Little balls of ice cream formed a circle on the top surrounding the Happy Birthday phrase.
Sundaes and Cones used to be in Brooklyn, but the owner who happens to be Chinese decided to bring his fun flavors to Manhattan. Similar to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, S&C makes the Asian classics: green tea, ginger and red bean ice creams. But they also make more. Much more.
My second new favorite flavor is corn! Wouldn't that be funny in a poop on grass cake? It's quite tasty actually. Think about it. Corn on the cob is sweet. You put butter on corn. Butter is made of cream. Ice cream has cream in it.
But like I said, I really wanted the office people to try the stuff, so I chose the my #1 new favorite, black sesame, ginger, and mocha chip for the cake layers. The sesame lends a nuttyness and natural saltiness to the sweet cream, while the ground up seeds add a bit of flavorful grit that's yummy. The ginger is mostly sweet cream, but every now and again you hit a spicy piece of candied ginger. The mocha chip I threw in there for the mainstream peeps. Derrick doesn't like chocolate, but I still had them add chocolate crunchies in between the ice cream layers. It turned out really good, I thought. Reaction was mixed, but I had fun watching people think about the flavors. And the boss liked it, so he said.
Sundaes and Cones asks for cake orders (8"cake $28) a week in advance but they said they could do it for Tuesday August 1. That's MY birthday. So we had an early afternoon cake and an tea time cake. I told Erik when I started this job that I wanted this heart shaped cream puff cake from Choux, the other creampuff factory. I was fascinated by the mixture of cream, chocolate and puff pastry that I saw on their postcard. I have to say, I enjoyed the ice cream cake just a little bit more. I mean, there were surprises with the choux cake. Namely it was much smaller in real life than the picture; it was hard to cut; there was a fresh strawberry layer; and they misspelled my name! I loved this little cake, but I found the pastry part a little stale and the chocolate layer a bit rubbery. I wonder if that's because you have to order it a week in advance. Do they make it a week in advance?
Either way, I still enjoyed it and it was so pretty.