I was too young to fully understand the dessert in my hand. This was decades ago, in early Before Times, when an aptly-named bakery called Patisserie used to occupy a prime spot on Main Street in my hometown. Sometimes, after elementary school let out, Mom and I would walk over.

My favorite dessert from the case was kind of insane: two meringue discs bonded together with rich chocolate buttercream, and then a coating of the same buttercream along the edge rolled in chocolate sprinkles. Oh, yes.

Patisserie is long gone, but that particular sweet stuck in my memory. Despite visiting bakeries all over, I’d never found anything exactly like that meringue concoction. Now, this girl is no stranger to chocolate buttercream. Yet none of it recalled that delightful dessert of yore until a serendipitous recipe tweak.