New York City Bakeries and the Top Places to Find Sweets
MILK AND COOKIES BAKERY
Nestled on a quiet tree-lined street in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood is the lovely Milk and Cookies Bakery (19 Commerce Street at 7th Avenue South). Featuring a wide array of delectable goodies, husband and wife team Marc and Jennifer Limotte have created an oasis of dessert with everything from brownies to cookies to ice cream.
The shop offers a number of standard cookies for $1.00 a piece including typical favorites like chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and sugar, while also blending in some of the unusual including chocolate mint, and oatmeal cranberry blueberry. Often times you can get your cookie fresh out of the oven and still piping hot, as I did with an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie one afternoon.
Fear not if you don’t see exactly what you are looking for. At Milk and Cookies Bakery you can design your own dozen. First you start off with your base: peanut butter, sugar, vanilla, oatmeal, or chocolate. After choosing the base, you can move onto the mix-ins. There are many options, but some that caught my eye were pecans, strawberry, and Snickers. After placing your order, just wait about twenty minutes and your cookies will be finished. You can even call ahead and have them waiting if you already know what you want.
If you rather not eat your cookies at the bakery, purchase a five pound container of dough in any of the standard flavors. I was told this container can make about eighty one ounce cookies. This is a bargain at just under $20.00.
If cookies aren’t your thing, don’t worry. There’s a large assortment of brownies and bars. My personal favorite however, brings me back to cookies. It’s a fresh take on the ice cream sandwich. For $3.95 select any of the standard two cookies and one of the flavors of homemade ice cream and the good folks at Milk and Cookies will assemble an ice cream sandwich for you. This is by far the best ice cream sandwich I have ever eaten. In fact, I’ve returned to the shop many times this summer just for that (but not on Mondays – they’re closed). Once you get a taste, I’m sure you will too.
MAGNOLIA BAKERY
Featured in Sex and the City, Magnolia Bakery, New York City’s sweets hot-spot, is now famous for its delicious cupcakes. Topped with a delectable buttercream frosting, these cupcakes are worth the lines you sometimes have to wait in to purchase them. On Friday and Saturday nights it’s not uncommon to see sugar-crazed people lining the West Village block that Magnolia Bakery is located on. People who have yet to taste the cupcakes may not understand how a piece of pastry can be worth waiting for, but once you take a bite of the chocolate or vanilla buttercream frosting you will be confused no more.
While cupcakes are what made Magnolia Bakery famous, they aren’t the only goodies available. You can get a giant slice of icebox or red-velvet cake, a mini Snickers-flavored cheesecake, or banana pudding.
Since the bakery has been featured in so many high-profile projects (Prime, the SNLLazy Sunday video), the best time to go is during a weekday when the crowds aren’t so big. The actual bakery itself is pretty small and so the number of customers allowed inside at one time is limited. But believe me, whenever you go to Magnolia Bakery, New York City’s cupcake destination, it will be worth whatever wait you have.
BEARD PAPA’S CREAM PUFFS
On a street largely dominated by Pizza joints and Italian eateries one wouldn’t expect to find a Cream Puff Store. But on Carmine Street in the West Village, Beard Papa’s Cream Puffs have opened up shop. The shop, originally from Japan and now expanding into the United States, features cream puffs as their specialty.
Beard Papa Cream Puffs are made up of a unique two layer shell, the inner being choux pastry and the outer being piecrust. The custard, made with real vanilla beans takes 2 hours to prepare and batches of it are made 4 to 6 times a day at the store. These vanilla beans are from Madagascar, a country known for their superior vanilla beans.
While it may be treat to eat the Beard Papa Cream Puffs, it’s also fun to see them being prepared. Once you order your cream puff, you can watch as one of the employees picks up the hollow pastry and inserts it onto the custard filler. The employee then injects the custard right in front of you, ensuring the cream puff’s freshness.
ADDITIONAL INFO:
Milk and Cookies Bakery
19 Commerce Street (between 7th Ave and Bedford)
212-243-1640
closed on Mondays
Magnolia Bakery
401 Bleeker Street (at 11th Street)
212-462-2572
open late on Fridays and Saturdays
Beard Papa Cream Puffs
5 Carmine Street (at 6th Avenue)
212-989-8855
additional locations around NYC
