I hope you’re hungry. I hope you have a sweet tooth. This is an extensive Tour of NYC Desserts, hitting all of the hot spots in the city!

Tour of NYC Desserts

If there is a popular NYC dessert, we found it and sampled it! There is such a great variety of NYC desserts, and our mission was to try as many of them as possible. Delicious photographs ahead!

A few years ago, I hit the streets of New York City with my sweet blogging friends Maria, Jenny and Amanda. We pounded the pavement looking for every bakery in the city, tasting many delicious treats along the way. The girls are in Alice’s Tea Cup, where we drooled over their much-talked-about scones.

Bouchon Bakery was one of our favorite places… we sampled a Ho Ho, Vanilla Macaron, Peanut Butter & Jelly Macaron, Homemade Oreo, Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwich, Chocolate Chunk Cookie and some kind of pastry. One of these delicious goodies was my favorite of the entire NYC trip… but you’ll have to scroll to the end of this post to find out which one it was!

Of course, we had to hit Magnolia Bakery on our tour of NYC desserts and check out the infamous cupcakes.
Here are the treats we sampled at Magnolia.

The cupcakes were quite good, but my very favorite was the Red Velvet Cheesecake- pretty much to-die-for.

We cruised through snowy Central Park. Here’s Jenny, Maria, me and Amanda. 

I am SO not a big-city-girl, but it sure was pretty.

Levain Bakery was our next stop- another fun one!

And this is what happens when food bloggers visit a bakery!

The cookies at Levain are as big and thick as scones. Bobby Flay did a Throwdown here with their Chocolate Chunk- Walnut Cookie (and lost). We sampled that one, as well as this Chocolate- Peanut Butter Chip Cookie and Brioche with Cinnamon Butter. All very good!

Good thing we walked a lot… all of that sampling, you know?! We wandered into Buttercup Bake Shop and gazed at their hot pink glazed and rainbow-sprinkled donuts, but we were too sugar-dazed at that point to try anything there. Next we headed to Patsy’s for some pizza, and we met up with our dear blogging friend Maggy.

Here’s me with Maggy- isn’t she beautiful? Inside and out… Maggy is definitely one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. I’m a zillion years older than Maggy, but we click pretty well together.

Momofuku Milk Bar was our next stop. Here we tried compost cookies, crack pie, birthday cake truffles and cereal milk ice cream. All really interesting treats, but no real stand-outs for me there.

We did enjoy our time together upstairs in the Momofuku Lounge… girl gossip, blog gossip and just plain fun. Left to right: Susan, Jenny, Amanda, Maggy, me and Maria.

This is Gina and Jenny. Gina and I had talked for a couple of years on Twitter, and finally we met!  She’s another one who is exactly as I expected her to be… so pretty and fun and completely real. I visit her Skinny Taste recipe quite often in my lifelong quest to be skinny. After all of these years, we’re now good friends. 

New York got snowier and snowier… yet we still trudged through the city on our mission to find more bakeries!

We found Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwiches at Billy’s Bakery. And Cinnamon Marshmallows at Three Tarts.

NYC cookies

Lulu’s had Alfajores, Black & Whites and Raspberry-Filled Snickerdoodles. If I wasn’t so stuffed, I’d have tried their White Chocolate Dipped Red Velvet Twinkies too. Amanda found a rather decadent Double Chocolate Cupcake at Two Little Red Hens.

This was my very first time visiting Chelsea Market. It really is a must-see for food lovers- gourmet shops and bakeries of every kind.

We sampled the original Fat Witch Bakery brownie… which I thought was just ok.

We wandered into Jacques Torres, where Jenny picked up a hot chocolate.
Eleni’s was next… all kinds of cupcakes and cookies. I thought these were cute. There were frosted cookie samples out so we nibbled… and they just tasted like frosted cookies. SaraBeth’s is also in Chelsea Market– didn’t get anything there but everything looked delicious.

At Ruthy’s Bakery we ordered up a slice of New York Cheesecake. The cheesecake itself was amazing, but we wondered where the crust was. Why would they leave the crust off? Isn’t that the best part sometimes?  And I just thought this Spaghetti & Meatball Cupcake was adorable.

girls in nyc

Hope you enjoyed the tour of NYC desserts! All of that, and would you even believe that I lost two pounds that week??  Small tastes and daily hotel workouts were my secret… and a bit of city walking too.

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48 Comments

  1. susan from food blog says:

    What darling pics of you all! It looks like you had a fabulous time! I’m not sure which I’m more envious of, meeting Kim Katrall or eating at Fat Witch. OK. Fat Witch. Hey, I’m a foodie.

  2. Emily says:

    Ahh! I’m so jealous! This seems like such a blast.

  3. RecipeGirl's Mom says:

    You all look so cute walking around in my favorite city (I’ve never been there in the winter.) It’s beautiful! I loved all the photos and your documentary style. The desserts looked awesome. Did you see any Gluten Free items along the way?

  4. Tiffany Rosenberger says:

    Loved your photoblog of the trip. Looks like an amazing time. Congrats!

  5. Gina @ Skinnytaste says:

    Lori, loved your recap! I live in NY and haven’t been to half of those bakeries! But that’s probably a good thing:) Can’t wait to meet up with you again! Let me know when you plan on coming back to NY!

  6. Cakewhiz says:

    That looks like the most fun trip ever! If i ever went to that magnolia bakery, i would never want to leave…heheh

  7. Va says:

    The crustless cheesecake is for me! I can’t eat gluten.

    1. Lori Lange says:

      @Va, good point!

  8. Paula - bell'aliment says:

    Oh my GOODness. You lucky girls ; )

  9. Emily says:

    Wow! Just reading these makes me so hungry! I was in NYC not long ago, and I only got to visit 3 bakeries. Next time I go, I’m going to hit up a few of your places.

  10. Liz says:

    Reading the recaps from all of you ladies has drilled one thing into my mind for my next NYC visit – vanilla macaron!!