Psst–I have a confession to make.

Beneath my cranky and occasionally grim exterior beats the tender, kooky heart of a miniatures collector.

My boyfriend and I have just signed the lease on our very first apartment together. I have yet to buy a piece of furniture, but I’ve already begun accumulating the teeny pastries that I plan to house in a purpose-built display case in our new, much larger kitchen.

I buy my dollhouse snack items at Toy Tokyo in the East Village. Until yesterday, I was a devoted Re-Ment fan, favoring their attention to detail over competitor MegaHouse’s more workmanlike approach.

Everything changed when I discovered the Pierre Hermé Mini-Collection: MegaHouse has struck back.

This shopping bag is just three inches tall, but contains an entire tea party’s worth of the Parisian artisan-pâtissier’s creations.

Each plastic sculpture is a scale replica, no taller than a thumbnail, of one of Pierre Hermé’s desserts. Clockwise, from left: tarte citron au citron (shortcrust base, lemon cream, lemon zest confit, lemon jelly); millefeuille eden (caramelized puff pastry; white peach mascarpone cream; peach and apricot compote); tarte aux marrons (the chestnut cream tart is a classic, and the only pastry I was unable to match to Pierre Hermé’s online portfolio); tarte au café (shortcrust, coffee-soaked sponge cake, ganache; coffee chantilly).

Additionally, there is a boite à gourmandises containing one jar each (that really opens!) of sablés chocolats (chocolate cookies with fleur de sel) and sacristains (lengths of sugary puff pastry rather like sweet cheese straws).

Of course, I couldn’t forget my old friend Re-Ment, even if the corporation hasn’t scored any public relations coups like signing Alain Passard. So I bought myself a humbler but no less pleasing cupcake set from its Puchi Petite line.

The whisk attachments on the electric beater really are detachable, and one of the cupcakes has a bite taken out of it. The piping bag, unfortunately, doesn’t pipe real frosting, beet-tinted mashed potato or otherwise.

If you don’t live in New York, you can order Re-Ment and MegaHouse mini-products on Toy Tokyo’s website. (Sadly, it appears that the Pierre Hermé line is only available in-store, and the other online stockist I’ve found has run out.) Note that the little toys are sold “blind”, like baseball cards: this means that a range of possibilities are indicated on each box, but the exact contents are not known until you’ve bought the thing. I’m not a big fan of this blatant exploitation of the completist mentality, but the companies won me over anyway by including a piece of appetite-soothing bubble gum in every box.

• BROWSE
• « Fleur du Mal Cherry-Chocolate Cake
• » Spiced Mango-Blueberry Galette

Related Posts

• The Top Ten Reasons I Have (Temporarily) Lost Interest In Food Blogging
• Fashion Plates
• Semifreddo For Breakfast