Freeze Jag: The Swiss Bakery
Posted by Warren Rojas / Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
August is historically the steamiest, stickiest, sweatiest month of the year–brilliant move, Founding Fathers, building the nation’s capital on a swamp–in these parts. We’ve tracked down 31 frozen treats (one a day for the rest of this month) to provide you with some temporary, and often insanely delicious, relief.
The place: The Swiss Bakery – Multiple NoVA locations; www.theswissbakery.com
The prescription: meringue glace. Pastry chef cum Swiss Bakery co-founder Laurie Weber clearly fears no sugar rush. So we, in turn, thought nothing of ordering the meringue glace, a double helping of your choice of house made ice cream (we recommend apricot, almond nougat, black forest and/or mint straciatella) or sorbet (dig into blood orange-pomegranate, green apple-kiwi, pink lemonade and/or chocolate-banana) escorted by twin meringues. The airy cookies double as textured spoons, the ice cream or sorbet naturally sliding between the grooves of raised sugar and soaking into the chewy center. Sangria sorbet was potent stuff, relaying lots of ripe red fruit (cherry, mixed berries, grapes), while the pina colada was mostly sweet, slightly tart and totally refreshing.
On the off chance you do over indulge—all the featured ice creams and sorbets, plus other overstock flavors are also available by the pint—just snatch up one of their novelty aprons (painted with images of rugged mountain men and buxom frauleins) to keep up the fit and trim façade.
–Warren
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Keep tabs on the month long Freeze Jag trek here.
Tags: Burke, cookies, dessert, Freeze Jag, Gut Check, ice cream, meringue, North Springfield, Northern Virginia Magazine, NoVA, sorbet, sundaes, The Swiss Bakery, Warren Rojas