Currant rolls

sandcastler

Currant rolls are delicious. Just about every bakery on Nostrand Ave makes them. Basically, a currant roll consists of currants rolled into the middle of a flaky crust, formed into a long roll in a secret alchemical process that i'm told takes a day before it is baked and then cut on the bias into slices. Each slice is usually a dollar or a dollar twenty-five. But there the similarity ends. Some of the currants have a jammy candy flavor; sometimes they are a more natural-tasting currant which is slightly plumped by moisture. Some of the crusts are heavy and doughy and have been sitting around, and some of the crusts are light and flaky on the outside and moist and stretchey on the inside.

The most delicious of all the currant rolls can be found at the Trinidad Golden Palace Restaurant, which serves Trinidad Style Chinese Food according to their sign. They're on Nostrand Ave., near St. Johns. This bakery/restaurant/takeout place somehow manages to produce a currant roll that is so far and away better than any other, you must taste them, else your time on earth was wasted. I can say no more. Every day in the mid-afternoon, trays full of currant rolls and coconut rolls are brought out warm from the kitchen and put in the glass case near the door, where people buy them 2, 6, 12 at a time. A whole tray of them can vanish in the space of fifteen minutes. They are that good! And then they are gone!

If you have never been, I do hope you enjoy some one day.

carnivore

Great post!

Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely be checking that place out.

apollonia666

Thanks for the tip! Currant rolls sound delish, and I'll definitely have to try them. But I have to admit I'm more intrigued by coconut rolls. Are they made pretty much the same way?

shishkab

wow, that description made me salivate!

pitu

mmmmm I want to play *this* game!
'cause I was happy just to get a currant roll at Christie's on Flatbush every once in a while

appollonia, I think the coconut is the cocobread for patties. But maybe I'm wrong . . .

basketball fan

I live on Park pl right around the corner and I tried them for the first time at the location you are talking about on labor day. they were great.! i have been back several times I love them.

breatheeasy

aright now THIS sounds like something i'm down to try ;D thanks for the post

apollonia666

FYI:

Currant roll recipe

sandcastler

Subject: lime?

thanks for the recipe. it's great! lime? who knew? i am so distracted by the angels dancing across my eyes when i am eating one of these delicious currant rolls that i failed to discern the lime.

and yes, by appearance, the coconut rolls are made pretty much the same way. they're subtler in flavor. the insides are coconut shreds with some sugar (demerara?), and i would rather have one of these than an almond croissant any day! (except bastille day, i guess.)