The Sicilian Baker
The Sicilian Baker/Submitted

Sicilian Baker executive pastry chef Thierry Delourneaux knows what his guests crave. 

“In the summer, people want something refreshing and light,” Delourneaux says. 

For the bakeries next to The Sicilian Butcher, Delourneaux has created just that. This summer, he’s featuring fresh fruit tarts, lemon tarts, tarallucci, gelato lobster tail, zeppole and new cannolis. 

“I try to use whatever is in season,” says Delourneaux, who hails from the Caribbean and lived for a time in France. 

“We can use fruit in the spring and summer, and I implement that into my desserts.” 

The fresh fruit tart ($9) is bright and topped with blackberries and strawberries. 

“Basically, it’s a very light crust and strawberry jam,” he says. “I top it with pastry cream, and inside there’s a little bit of mascarpone. On the top, there’s whipped cream with pistachio. It’s a very light crust. It’s one of the bestsellers.” 

On the fresh fruit tip is the lemon tart ($8), a house-made pastry shell filled with baked lemon custard and topped with meringue.

“You can never go wrong with a lemon tart,” Delourneaux says. 

“With the lemon tart, you have a vanilla crust and traditional lemon curd with Italian meringue, and it’s caramelized with a torch.” 

Those who love lemon can try tarallucci ($1 each or $18 per pound). The crumbly lemon cookies are glazed. 

The cool gelato lobster tail ($12) is a buttery, flaky Sicilian pastry filled with a gelato flavor of the guest’s choice and chocolate sauce.

“I put a chocolate sauce with any type of gelato,” he says. “We have eight flavors, but it does rotate. With the summer, we will try to have sorbetto, which has a fruit base. It’s very light also. We’ll have lemon, raspberry and mango for the lighter sorbetto.” 

Zeppole ($7) is a Sicilian doughnut. Delourneaux’s iteration is light and airy and resembles those found in the bakery shops all over Italy. It has a fluffy batter squeezed through a pastry tube into a circle, fried in oil, then filled with sweet ricotta vanilla cream and sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar.

“You fry or you bake it,” he says. “The one we have right now is baked and filled with vanilla mascarpone cream and topped with a maraschino cherry.”

Rounding out the new desserts are orange creamsicle, dulce duo and cheesecake-flavored cannolis. The orange features ricotta cheese with orange paste and white chocolate chips. 

The dulce duo is filled with Nutella chocolate cream, enhanced with whipped cream, and dusted. 

“All the desserts are to die for,” he says. “They’re like my babies.”