Black Hound Bakery

Whenever I visit my grandmother, I bring her a cake or a pie. She knows her Upper East Side neighborhood inside and out, so I like to surprise her with treats from foreign lands below 59th Street. Lately I've been delighting her with goodies from the excellent Black Hound Bakery.

It's easy to be overwhelmed by the amazing variety of sweets at Black Hound. Jumbo chocolate-enrobed strawberries, tarts, truffles, cakes, tiny butter cookies, sweet cherries in syrup, and many other marvels beckon to the visitor. Today, feeling like Little Red Riding Hood, I filled a bag with four strawberries, an apple-ginger tart with a buttery cookie crust, a poppy-seed lemon curd white-chocolate-iced cake, and a hazelnut chocolate cake decorated with small candy bees. My grandmother's eyes lit up when I arrived at her apartment and presented her with the bag. She said she would look forward to sampling the sweets after dinner.

Apparently she was satisfied, because according to my aunt, she was later seen licking the white chocolate icing off of her fingers.

Black Hound Bakery: 170 2nd Ave., (212) 979-9505.