The cake alone is a wonder — dense and moist thanks to the addition of milk and sour cream. You could eat just this and be happy. But someone behind the scenes at Sweet Melissa’s seems to be importing truffles from Belgium, cracking them open and using a butter knife to spread the insides onto that first cake layer. At least that’s what it tastes like. In reality, executive pastry chef Ashley Zinicola credits the highest-quality ingredients — Brute cocoa powder and Couverture chocolate — for the taste and texture. You don’t taste sugar, you taste chocolate in its best possible form. Sweet Mel’s charges a pastry pittance ($5) for what it so understatedly calls a Triple Chocolate Torte. We call it a blessing from the bean. 19337 Detroit Road, Rocky River; (440) 333-6357; sweetmels.net
best of cleveland
12:00 AM EST
September 24, 2008
Story:
Colleen Mytnick
Beth Stallings
Andy Netzel
Anne Hartman
Katie Kuehn
Emily Ouzts
Jim Vickers
Amber Matheson
Erick Trickey
Kim Schneider
Jennifer Bowen
Steve Gleydura
Jennifer Keirn
Heide Aungst
Chuck Bowen
Samantha Pirc
Adam Griffiths
Aman
Find more than 150 editor and reader picks in food, entertainment and shopping - all of which make Cleveland just the best. Stories by Danny Cunningham, Allison Jack, Kate Bigam Kaput, Julia Lombardo, Paris Mather, Annie Nickoloff, Christina Rufo, Olivia Szmania and Maura Zurick
