Today’s National Cookie Day brings a second chapter of the black and white cookie inquiry I began in 2018. Then as now, New York City is a dominant character in the story.
Breads, a popular Manhattan bakery, has created a distinct variation.
The bottom is textured somewhat like a croissant and the interior resembles a danish. The chocolate half is chocolate cake of the same danish-like texture. The vanilla icing displays flecks of vanilla bean.
Delicious unto itself, it takes the genre in a different direction from the traditional cookie. As the NYT explains, the original is “more cake than cookie, with a fine crumb and velvet texture …”
It is a vicarious thrill to research bakeries by watching this video. On prior fieldwork excursions, I’ve sampled cookies from Russ & Daughters, William Greenberg Desserts, and the late Glaser’s Bake Shop.
On Long Island, I even found a cupcake with the familiar icing.
Sprinkles interprets the genre this way.
Speaking of, an Irish reporter just penned a love note to New York with a prominent role for Sprinkles. The cupcake is treated to a Central Park photo shoot in the story, which concludes with this observation: “One thing that has remained consistent, and I expect always will, is the illustrious New York energy. Even on the emptiest of streets, you can feel it. The spark, the spice, the hope. That city zeal has me in a chokehold and, despite all that’s changed, it’s what keeps me coming back for more.”
Baked goods, especially cupcakes, express connection to people and place. Here Breads embraces its hometown upon opening its Upper East Side bakery.
“We started in Union Square [in 2013], then opened on the Upper West Side, and now we’re on the Upper East Side, and if you draw a line connecting those three, it feels like we’re giving a big hug to Manhattan, to New York City, the city that I love.”
Breads Bakery owner Gadi Peleg in “Breads Bakery Reimagines The Iconic NYC Black & White Cookie.”
Like cupcakes, cookies tell stories and encode symbolism.
Andrea Adleman | Cupcakologist 