Bread pudding, a New England favorite, gets dressed up for this pairing. It consists of toasted cubes of banana cake, brioche, and chopped pecans soaked in a chocolate custard and served warm. The many components of this dessert — chocolate, caramel, and pecans — play perfect partner to the complexity of this fortified wine.

Winter 07		Quarterly Review of Wines Post-Prandial Perfection Bittersweet Chocolate Tart with Cherry Port Sabayon
11/07		Yum! Tasty Recipes from Culinary Greats Recipe in Dessert chapter: Cornmeal Currant Wafers with Orange Muscat Gelee and Berries
11/07		WCR National Conference Master Session with Jeannie Rogers, co-owner and wine manager, Il Capriccio: Heaven in the Glass and on the Plate: Have you been there? Newport, Rhode Island
10/07		The French Library Alliance Francaise of Boston French dessert wines and tastings for la Semaine du Gout 2007
9/07		Sante Magazine In the Kitchen- Luscious Liaisons Article
9/07		www.fineliving.com Pinot Noir Granite Recipe
5/07		Sante Symposium Guest Chef The Equinox, Manchester, VT
Winter 06		Quarterly Review of Wines Chocolate Hazelnut Torta recipe featured in "An Epicure's Guide to Dark Chocolate" by Elisabeth Townsend
10/06		French Culinary Institute Dessert and Sweet Wine Pairing Presentation New York City
10/06		eurostoves Sweet Wine and Fall Dessert Pairing Beverly, MA
08/06		Plum TV Cooking with Carol Guest chef with Carol McManus Martha's Vineyard, MA
9/04		Great Cheeses of New England Featured chef on www.newenglandcheese.com
3/04		Boston Globe Sunday Magazine — Featured in "Brownie Points"
11/03		Boston Globe — Featured in "Make Desserts Just for Fun"
3/03		Santé magazine — Food and Wine Pairing
2002		Women Chefs & Restaurateurs Scholarship The CIA Greystone — Mastering Wine with Karen MacNeil
2001		Community Servings Pie in the Sky Featured in "Don't Dessert Us" Calendar
11/00		Third Annual Chocolate Show, NYC — Celebrity Chef
1997, 2000, 2004		James Beard House Guest Chef Appearance
10/00		Boston Globe — Featured in "Sweet Surrender"
9/00		CitySearch — Best of Boston Editor's Choice Award for Best Dessert
7/00		Chef magazine — Featured in article on ice cream
7/00		Boston Cable News — Featured in "Chef's Corner"
11/98		Pastry Art & Design magazine — Pastry Chef Signature Series
3/98		McCall's Magazine — Feature article
3/98		Chocolate Fool's Day — Award: Chocolate Espresso Pyramid
1/98		Zagat Survey — Ranked No. 2 for Dessert in Boston
9/97		Chocolatier magazine Feature dessert: Chocolate Orange Timbale
7/94		Boston Magazine Readers Restaurant Poll — Best Dessert, Olives
6/94		A Night of Chocolate Madness Best of Category; Best of Show; Peoples' Choice Award
5/94		Chronicle — Channel 5 Featured Boston TV news magazine segment entitled "Just Desserts"
2/94		Boston Globe Featured in Food Section article entitled "The Poets of Pastry"

"Dessert's a splurge at lunch, too, but here it's a necessity. The waiter strongly recommends the passionfruit cheesecake gelee. He's absolutely right. Pastry chef Judy Mattera creates a beautiful mold of fluffy cheesecake and tops it with a thin layer of gelee flavored with the vaguely astringent taste of the fruit. Passionfruit seeds dot the top. A little scoop of coconut sorbet and another of mango and passionfruit add more elements of flavor. As a fillip are tiny moonshaped pieces of mango and raspberry gelee that taste like the insides of gumdrops. It's a dazzling finale."
— Alison Arnett, "Ah, the Luxury of Lunch," Boston Globe

"Desserts at the Fed are creatively conceived and skillfully executed. The hot chocolate-banana brioche pudding with banana chocolate chip ice cream and caramelized bananas was really three desserts in one, with the ice cream a perfect counterpoint to the intensely chocolate bread pudding and the caramelized bananas."
— The Improper Bostonian, 2/23–3/7, 2000

"Pastry chef Judy Mattera is a master, and her desserts shine. A chocolate ganache with chartreuse cream is a chocolate lover's fantasy, complete with a nearly six-inch web of opaque sugar soaring skyward from the dense cake. A more subtle option is the calvados tart. Accompanied by an apple-jack sorbet, it awakens the palette just enough to help one emerge from the mahogany vault of The Fed to return to the day's work."
— Elizabeth Lorne, "The Fed Raises Interest in Downtown Dining,"
Banker and Tradesman, March 27, 2000

"With its vat of creme anglaise and mortar of sophisticated chocolate sorbet, the light and airy Strawberry Souffle was an alchemist set for creating culinary gold."
— Phantom Gourmet, The Federalist, 5/5/2001

"Judy Mattera, pastry chef at Grill 23, made a name for herself while working at Olives in Charlestown and Pacifico in Brookline. Judy experiments with Asian ingredients like galangal ginger, Chinese cinnamon and lemongrass. Two of her latest creations for her dessert menu are the striking double layered chocolate custard and galangal crème brulee and a key lime tart in a coconut shortbread crust that is perfect for summer dining.
— Richard Brunson, The Improper Bostonian, 6/5–6/18, 1996

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