We love pie, but Fort Worth’s favorite dessert is this iconic cake with 50-year history
The favorite Fort Worth dessert of all time is also a bit of a mystery.
The Black Forest cake at Swiss Pastry Shop, nearing a half-century at 3936 W. Vickery Blvd., is the most talked-about and most ordered dessert in Fort Worth.
Yet it’s not one of those cherry-chocolate Black Forest layer cakes from Germany, like you get at cafeterias.
This cake is actually from Sweden.
The Swedes call their version Schwarzwaldtårta — Black Forest cake.
It’s more like an almond dacquoise, with sugar, almond flour and crushed almonds baked into meringue layers, then stacked with whipped cream and fine Belgian chocolate sprinkles and shavings.
The result is a simple cake made of sugar and chocolate — “gluten-free before it was cool,” says second-generation baker Hans Peter Müller.
Müller’s father, Hans, came to Fort Worth in the 1960s along with other country-club and fine-dining chefs from Switzerland and Germany.
Müller came from Zell, Switzerland, outside Zürich.
He landed as pastry chef at Ridglea Country Club in its heyday, and his Black Forest began winning Fort Worth’s heart for a generation.
From the country club, he moved to the Green Oaks Inn, a now-gone luxury motor hotel on Calmont Street.
When Müller opened Swiss Pastry in 1973, it was all about strudels and sandwiches. The restaurant now serves a broader menu of burgers, cheesesteaks and specials.
Swiss Pastry also serves about 10 cakes and 12 pies daily, including a classic coconut meringue pie and a high-end chocolate mousse cake called the Metropolitan.
But nothing sells like Black Forest.
Paris Coffee Shop
Fort Worth is known for Texas home-cooking and pies.
But when the foodies come to town looking for a classic American pie diner, they come to the Paris Coffee Shop, 704 W. Magnolia Ave.
There is nothing French about the Paris. It was opened in 1926 by a man named Vic Paris, back when Hemphill Street was part of the “Main Street of North America,” a major north-south intercontinental highway connecting Winnipeg, Canada, to Mexico City.
By 1931, Paris sold the restaurant to the Smith family, and the restaurant later moved across Hemphill into a former supermarket.
Mike Smith’s friendly greeting at the door has won him the nickname “the Mayor of Magnolia Avenue,” and the restaurant’s pies have been featured on the Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes” and listed among the nation’s best in USA Today.
The Paris has special pie days, like lemon meringue pie on Fridays and pineapple meringue pie Mondays, along with cherry, apple and sugar-free fruit pies.
But the daily classic is coconut meringue pie. Smith still comes in at 4 a.m. daily to start baking.
At the holidays, the Paris sells hundreds of coconut, chocolate, pumpkin, sweet potato, pecan, apple and cherry pies to go.
The next day, the crew is up again at 4 a.m. baking more pies.
Carshon’s Deli
The single most popular pie in Fort Worth comes from our oldest bakery.
In 1906, Jewish immigrant David Carshon opened a bakery on Crump Street downtown. By 1925, he and a partner had opened Carshon’s Kosher Market on West 11th Street downtown, and it would move three times before settling in its current location at 3133 Cleburne Road near West Berry Street.
Carshon’s serves sandwiches, cakes, pies and cookies daily. Owner and baker Mary Swift’s rich chocolate meringue pie — using a finer chocolate than most restaurants — has been praised on ESPN and heralded in novels by the late Fort Worth writer Dan Jenkins.
This indulgence has its limits. The chocolate meringue pie is served Wednesdays and Saturdays only.
On other days, Carshon’s serves pecan pie or coconut, lemon, banana or caramel meringue, depending on the season.
The deli also serves a daily whipped dessert called “strawberry delight,” plus chocolate pudding cake, cappuccino ice cream cake and Swift’s own homemade cheesecake.
The Reuben and other sandwiches are considered the best in town, too. But that’s another column.
This story was originally published November 20, 2019 at 8:32 AM.
