I have eaten crickets.
I have eaten mealworms.
They’re fine. Toasted crunchy, if memory serves correctly. That said, the bugs were also small. Cicadas are a much bigger creature. And so, the notion that some chefs are incorporating them into recipes feels a little less appetizing. Biting into a big fat cicada is a ginormous commitment.
Fortunately, My Old World Bakery has an alternative way to celebrate the arrival of cicada season. It’s offering cicada cookies. As luck would have it, there are no crawlies in the ingredient list. Instead, the cookies are shaped and decorated to resemble the insect: glossy wings, green bodies, and red-hot candy eyes. As opposed to actual cicadas, the bakery sugar cookie is charming in every way.
Of course, there’s no reason to stop with the cookies. The modest bakery’s shelves are filled with other breads and cookies and confections in all shapes and sizes. It also fries up fresh doughnuts in the night before opening early in the morning. Standouts include its sticks (thickly iced and featuring a fried finish that feels positively decadent), the jelly-filled (jelly quality is on-point), and most importantly: it makes life-changing apple fritters.
Let’s talk more about those fritters. They have deep, deep crevices. You know what happens to those big cracks? They fill up with icing and hold extra pockets of sweetness in every bite of tender fritter pastry. This is an especially important feature in a place that has good, old-fashioned icing. This bakery delivers.
So we’ve talked critters.
We’ve talked fritters.
What remains?
We snagged a bag of pepperoni rolls, too. It’s old-fashioned bread-rolls, wrapped around an empire of pepperoni slices. Good value, and even better when paired with marinara at home.
You can find My Old World Bakery on the West Side at 962 Demorest Rd.
For more information, follow My Old World Bakery on Facebook.
All photos by Miriam Bowers Abbott