Valentines Day: Cookies and cakes

MECHANICVILLE (Feb. 10) — If your special Valentine is hot, you might want to let him or her know with something that’s as spicy as your love. You can with a spicy chocolate chili cookie from Park 19 Cookies.

Of course, if your sweetheart is a sweetie, Park 19′s Valentines Day cookie collection includes the more tame varieties of chocolate-covered strawberry, strawberry dark chocolate chunk and strawberry white chocolate chip.

How did a chili pepper end up in a cookie?

“We wanted to created something new and different,” Park 19 owner Jenn Savino said. “If you like spicy, you would like that cookie. It’s one of our quirky cookies.”

Quirky cookies were how Savino got started in the business, beginning with the world’s first pretzel chocolate chunk cookie.

“One day I was making cookies. I love salty, so I decided to throw some pretzels in the dough,” she said. She and her friends loved the result. “That was the jumping-off point to creating unique cookies.”

Since then, she has created a bunch of unusual varieties, including 2 more world’s first — cinnamon bun cookies and peanut butter banana crunch — along with flavors such as red velvet, Bolton Landing smores, crème brule, Nutella, pancake breakfast with bacon, sweet Saratoga chip and nutty oatmeal apricot.

Park 19′s cookies are getting noticed nationwide. In addition to being mentioned in several online Valentines Day gift guides, they were featured as present picks on morning TV shows in New York and Philadelphia. Before that, they were featured in Modern Bride magazine and on Fox Business News. But the high point was being featured on the Rachael Ray Show.

“That was really exciting,” Savino said. “They contacted us, so we sent them some samples.”

Park 19 isn’t the only local bakery to be offering Valentines Day cookies. Dolce and Biscotti’s holiday specials include frosted Valentine cookies in vanilla and lemon flavors along with Valentine cookie bouquets and Valentine Italian cookie platters. The bakery also offers Valentine cakes (flavors include chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, red velvet, white, carrot, lemon cake, ginger molasses, rum , orange cream and banana) and Valentines cupcakes in the same flavors. And there are also chocolate-covered strawberries.

At Cinnamon & Spice Bakery in Clifton Park Center, owner John Zumbo doesn’t plan too many Valentines Day goods.

“It’s more of a candy holiday,” he said.

Still, the bakery — which will be open on Valentines Day — will have cakes with red and white frosting and a midnight mocha cake.

“Anything chocolate works for Valentines Day,” Zumbo said.

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