Tag: cookies

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Art Culture Dining Featured NYC Restaurants

Downtown Highlights: Funny Face Bakery – Hilarious, Delicious, and A-dough-rable Cookies

Downtown Highlights: Funny Face Bakery - Hilarious, Delicious, and A-dough-rable Cookies
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Hilarious, Delicious, and A-dough-rable Cookies

 

In this episode of Downtown Highlights, we visited Funny Face Bakery, where they make a variety of very detailed, hand-piped cookies.

About Funny Face Bakery

 

Funny Face Bakery They are located in the Seaport District at 6 Fulton St, New York, NY 10038

 

Funny Face Bakery was founded in 2016, Sarah Silverman opened her first bakery in East Village. She gained attention for her cupcakes, made with Swiss meringue buttercream. Silverman debuted her face cookies in August 2016 for the first time with the faces of the 2016 Presidential Candidates. These cookies quickly gained a lot of attention. As a result, Silverman hired a cookie decorating team to keep up with the demand. 

Some classic cookies at Funny Face Bakery: Kim Kardashian Crying, Leonardo DiCaprio as the Great Gatsby, You’re Doing Amazing Sweetie Meme, and an Adidas Sneaker.

 

Each cookie is made with a laser printer cookie cutter to ensure each cookie is the exact shape needed. Cookies go through two rounds of icing, first a base coat of icing and then the detailed hand piping. The making of one cookie can take 20 to 30 minutes to make depending on how involved the design is.

Five deluxe cookies at Funny Face Bakery: Chocolate Chip, Rainbow Crumbfetti, Double Chocolate, S’mores, and Oatmeal Raisin

They also have freshly baked, 6-ounce deluxe cookies that come in flavors including double chocolate, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and more.

Some of Funny Face’s best-selling cookies are the Kardashian cookies, the Harry Style Cookies, the Birthday-themed Cookies, and the Mean Girl’s themed cookies. Funny Face Bakery’s animal cookies, such as the horses and dinosaurs, are very popular among kids. They will also make personalized cookies of your face or your pet, the perfect gift for someone who loves sweets.

 

Tasting the Cookies at Funny Face Bakery

 

These cookies taste as beautiful as they look! Since Funny Face Bakery has not yet developed gluten-free options, Sam did the tasting in this episode. First, she tries a birthday-themed decorated cookie. This cookie was absolutely beautiful and sweet. She almost felt bad for eating such a detailed piece of art. The second cookie Sam tries is the deluxe double chocolate cookie. This cookie was so gooey and soft, and of course, very chocolatey.

 

Funny Face Bakery is Something Really Special

 

This bakery is one of a kind. There are no other bakeries nearby that create as detailed and beautiful cookies as Funny Face Bakery. Also, Funny Face is in on internet culture, allowing them to relate well with people, especially younger generations, with their celebrity and meme cookies. Funny Face Bakery is definitely worth the visit! 

For more Downtown Highlights episodes, click here.

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Dining Featured

Seven Best Places for National Doughnut Day!

NYC National Doughnut Day

Today marks the second sweetest day of the year! November 5th is the second National Doughnut Day (yes, Doughnut Day is just that amazing) and we’ve rounded up the most delicious doughnuts in New York City in celebration of these sweet treats.

A doughnut (British English) or donut is a type of fried dough confection or dessert food. The doughnut is popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty vendors. Doughnuts are usually deep-fried from a flour dough, and typically either ring-shaped or a number of shapes without a hole, and often filled, but can also be ball-shaped (“doughnut holes”). Other types of batters can also be used. Various toppings and flavorings are used for different types, such as sugar, chocolate, or maple glazing. Doughnuts may also include water, leavening, eggs, milk, sugar, oil, shortening, and natural or artificial flavors.

Trust us, you do-nut want to miss out on these not-so-average donuts.

 

IT ALL STARTED WITH A DOUGHNUT – The Doughnut Project

What began as mad science meets culinary venture is now known as The Doughnut Project. In a world that is stuffed to the gills with sweet shops and fad foods, we want to go beyond sprinkles and cream cheese frosting. We like to amp things up with fresh, seasonal ingredients and a menu that beckons you to ask, all that’s on a doughnut? To which we reply, yes, it certainly IS all on a doughnut.

 

 

National Doughnut Day
The Doughnut Project

 

Everything Donuts Sampler – Flex Mussels

Choose between donuts and bagels, never when you can have both? The Everything Donuts Sampler from Flex Mussels is a breakfast lovers dream. The sampler consists of fried balls of dough, covered with everything seasoning and stuffed with scallion, jalapeño cheddar, maple bacon, and smoked salmon fillings.

 

 

National Doughnut Day
Flex Mussels

 

One of the Classics – Doughnut Plant 

In 2000, Doughnut Plant opened its first storefront on Grand Street in the Lower East Side. The passion for originality pours out into every detail of our shops, too. Every detail has a story here. The colorful doughnut tiles were made by Mark’s potter father, Marvin. The mirrored bathroom with a disco ball was inspired by Studio 54, one of Mark’s first jobs in NYC.

 

 

National Doughnut Day
Doughnut Plant

 

Famous Doughnut Grilled Cheese – Clinton Hall

The Famous Doughnut Grilled Cheese, a fresh glazed doughnut sliced and filled with mozzarella cheese, is served piping hot over a bowl of tomato soup. The sweet, yet savory doughnut sandwich hangs on a banana stand, allowing the cheese to drip and ooze out into the hot soup.

 

 

National Doughnut Day
Clinton Hall

 

 

World-class donuts – The Donut Pub  

Opening its doors on a cold and blustery December morning in 1964, the Donut Pub has come to represent New York City at its very best, brightest and most delicious. Whether it’s our out-of-this-world red velvet donuts or our black and white cookies the Donut Pub has something for everyone.

 

The Donut Pub

 

Salted Caramel Doughnuts – Aunt Jake’s

Bite-sized, ricotta-based, salted caramel doughnuts are topped off with a house made caramel sauce for the perfect amount of sweetness.

 

National Doughnut Day
Aunt Jakes NYC

 

 

Gluten Free Paradise – Senza Gluten Bakery and Cafe

Gluten Free, no PROBLEM, Senza is 100 % GF Certified. They are aware that being celiac or choosing a gluten-free diet can sometimes be challenging, especially when dining out. At Senza Gluten they want to make sure your dining experience is perfect and safe by guaranteeing a 100% gluten-free cuisine and bakery.

 

National Doughnut Day
Senza Gluten Bakery

 

 

Don’t worry if you just happen to miss today’s delicious sweet treat, because there is another National Doughnut Day the first Friday in June!

Categories
Dining

Cookies, Cakes and Everything Baked

With so many options to indulge on something sweet in Downtown New York, it can be hard to know where to go. Not to mention what piece of cake is actually worth the calories – there’s nothing worse than ordering a cupcake that turns out to be nothing special. Baked in Tribeca is one of those places we keep coming back to, which means we know exactly what to order. We’ve done the eating for you, so your life doesn’t have to consist of any disappointing desserts.

Before we dive into the selection of cakes, cookies and pastries, let’s talk about the space first. Whereas many bakeries in the city are small and more suitable for grab-and-go, Baked has a large seating area that invites you to stay as long as you want. The free WiFi means people are often typing away on their laptop, while enjoying a slice of cake — guilty as charged.

The selection of cakes and cupcakes at Baked rotate daily in house, giving you a little variety and surprise upon arriving. The cakes are definitely worth choosing over the cupcakes, because of the most perfect layers you have ever seen, ensuring every bite has frosting and cake. No dry bites here!

Our favorite is the rich and chocolate-y Diner Double Dark cake, frosted and filled with a semi-sweet chocolate frosting and topped with crunchy chocolate malt balls. Other highlights are the light and fluffy lemon drop (lemon cake filled with lemon curd and a vanilla lemon buttercream) and the Funfetti cake topped with thousands of sprinkles – it will put a smile on your face before you even bite into it.

Baked is more than just cake though, with its rich brownies and blondies, an amazing gooey gluten-free chocolate cloud cookie and innovative Brooksters (a dark brownie base filled with chocolate chunk cookie batter). All of these are definitely worth your bite!

Photography by Siobhan Gunner

Categories
Dining

Sweet Corner Bakeshop Pride Specials

Sweet Corner Bakeshop is located in the West Village, serving home made baked goods all day. They are known for their warm cookies: the famous red velvet cookie filled with gooey nutella, the crunchy chocolate chip cookies with lots of salt or even a cookie filled with cheesecake. There’s simply no need to choose between your favorite desserts if you can have it all in one cookie!
Sweet Corner Bakeshop has recently stepped up their game in honor of pride month, turning their delicious sweets rainbow-colored. And we all know, everything that looks aesthetically pleasing is way more fun to eat, not to mention delicious.

If rainbow colored cheesecakes, cupcakes or layer cakes don’t make you feel like a happy unicorn, we’re not sure what will. Let’s start with the rainbow colored cheesecake — we are in New York City aka the city of cheesecakes after all. It’s topped with a light cream and sprinkled with confetti, while keeping its traditional cookie crust. It’s a must try.
The layer cake is surprisingly light and fluffy for a seven(!) layer cake with buttercream, and the thousands of sprinkles and confetti add crunch to each bite. We’re just hoping those thousand sprinkles doesn’t equal a thousand calories. But then again, when it tastes like this, we don’t really care about the calories…
Want something similar but smaller? The unicorn cupcake has your name written all over it.

If you haven’t got a sweet tooth however and these sweets don’t get you salivating in the slightest, Sweet Corner Bakeshop also serves up plenty of savory sandwiches, bagels and paninis. The cherry on top the rainbow-colored cake? They recently started serving brunch, and the outdoor seating is great for people watching.

Categories
Dining

Downtown’s Cookie Guide

In New York City, most people know Levain Bakery, famous for its mission to create the world’s best cookie, but there are so many other places to satisfy your cookie craving — without the line and the trek to the Upper West Side.

Here’s Downtown’s complete guide to the greatest cookies in Downtown New York.

Ben’s cookies

Ben has brought the traditional English cookie to New York City. If you go here with an American cookie in mind, chances are you’ll be disappointed. Their cookies aren’t big, rich or overwhelmingly filling, but small and light with a crumbly texture. What makes Ben’s cookies unique is that they are baked with chunks instead of chips, and we should all support chocolate chunk cookies in a world full of chocolate chip cookies. Some interesting flavors include the cranberry white chocolate, orange milk chocolate and ginger dark chocolate.

Address: 822 Broadway
Closest subway station: Astor Place
 

Insomnia Cookies

Insomnia is already one step ahead of the game, because all their cookies are served warm. The only thing better than a cookie is a warm cookie. The hardest decision you will have to make is choosing between their small traditional cookies or big deluxe cookies. The Traditional Cookies are thin and crunchy, whereas the Deluxe Cookies are soft and gooey. Our favorite is the Deluxe s’mores cookie, it’s softened to perfection in the oven with melted chocolate and warm fluffy marshmallows. The best part? Insomnia Cookies deliver their warm cookies right to your door until 3:00 AM. Hello midnight cookie cravings.

Address: Multiple locations
Closest subway station: Multiple stations
 

Pasticerria Rocco

This Italian bakery in the West Village has been around for quite some time and it’s not hard to understand why. Their large specialty cookies will easily capture your eyes while walking by their storefront window: chocolate chip, s’mores, m&m, brownie or double chocolate… So many cookies, so little time. The m&m cookie is the crazy cookie you want in your life. It’s chunky, colorful, and a feast for the eyes alone.

Address: 243 Bleecker Street
Closest subway station: W 4 St
 

Baked Tribeca


The award for the best chocolate cookie goes to Baked Tribeca. The cookie is rich, intense and overwhelming, it’s everything you want a chocolate cookie to be. It’s definitely not for the fainthearted, but chocaholics will love it. The outer layer of the cookie is crisp and crunchy, yet the inside is amazingly soft and moist. Once you have come down from your chocolate cloud in heaven, you probably won’t believe its gluten-free. Gluten-free must mean it’s kind of healthy, right?

Address: 279 Church Street
Closest subway station: Franklin Street


Milk & Cookies

This place does so many different cookies, it’s not surprising it gets mixed reviews. Your experience will depend heavily on which flavor you order, because some cookies are a little underwhelming compared to others. The salted oat sunrise and sea salt caramel chocolate chip cookies are by far the best ones to order. Milk & Cookies seems to master cookies with sea salt! Sit in with your cookie in their cute store and enjoy the smell of homemade baked goods from their kitchen.

Address: 19 Commerce Street
Closest subway station: Christopher Street

 

Sweets byChloe


Sweets byChloe is showing the world you can be vegan and have your dessert too. Their cinnamon espresso chocolate chip cookie is the biggest cookie you will ever lay your eyes on. The cookie is super thin which makes it incredibly crisp and crunchy. If you love coffee, you will love the slight taste of coffee combined with the chocolate chips. Vegan or not, this cookie is delicious.

Address: 185 Bleecker Street B
Closest subway station: West 4th Street

 

Oatmeals

Where can you get the best oatmeal cookie? At Oatmeals of course, a store that revolves around whole grain steel-cut oats. They serve the traditional oatmeal cookie with a layer of old fashion icing on top. You can’t go wrong with a classic, and it’s perfect if you’re not interested in all of those crazy cookie flavors. Also, we believe anything with oatmeal is perfectly acceptable to have for breakfast.

Address: 120 West 3rd Street
Closest subway station: West 4th Street

 

Now… If you’re truly on a quest to taste test every cookie, you might want to trek up a little further. The following cookies are located above 14th street, but they are definitely worth the walk — and the calories. 

City Cakes

City Cakes is a tiny bakery tucked away in a basement in Chelsea. The stairs that lead to their basement is your stairway to cookie heaven: half pound cookies. The red velvet cookie filled with cream cheese is the real winner here. Every crunchy bite is combined with sweet cream cheese, making the cookie soft and gooey. Unlike most filled cookies, which only have a slight filling in the center, the cookies at City Cakes are generously filled throughout the whole cookie.

Address: 251 West 18th Street
Closest subway station: 18th Street


Cacoa V

Cacoa V specializes in dairy-free, vegan chocolate and confections, but you won’t be able to tell the difference. Their cookies come with dark chocolate chips and a pinch of salt, balancing both sweet and savory flavors. The dark chocolate chips make the cookies rich, but the salt takes the edge of things. After eating their cookies, you will realize milk chocolate chips in cookies are just a little meh-tasting.

Address: 174 9th Avenue
Closest subway station: 23rd street

Photos by Siobhan Gunner

 

Categories
Events Featured Living

DOWNTOWN GIFT GUIDE: 6 Gifts For The Foodie In Your Life

With Black Friday around the corner, we are edging towards the time of year when gift-giving hits its peak. For those that refuse to give a gift card and instead prefer to give something personalized, there is no shortage of gift options out there for the 2016 holiday season. Here are six high-end yet affordable gift suggestions for the foodie in your life:

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1) FAWEN Soups

FAWEN makes soups that are vegan, organic, and gluten-free. The soups — currently offered in three flavors: Beet & Cabbage, Broccoli & Cauliflower, and Sweet Potato & Red Lentil — are ready-to-drink, perfect for both a mid-day snack and a mid-exercise consumption. The couple behind the brand, Fabio Fossati and Amanda Bowen, are New York-based.

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2) Pumpkin Beer Making Kit

Every year, pumpkin-flavored items seem to be hitting shelves earlier and earlier. The Pumpkin Beer Making Kit from the Brooklyn Brew Shop contains everything that one would need to brew their own craft-quality pumpkin beer. In turn, one can have pumpkin almost any time of year. As an added, beer-making can be a wonderful, rewarding process. For those looking more ahead to Christmas, the Brooklyn Brew Shop also produces a Peppermint Porter mixing kit.

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3) Hamptons Sea Salts

The Hamptons are generally associated with the summer, but the Hamptons Salt Company provides year-round excellence with its salts and spices. Infused flavors to its products include Black Truffle, Garlic, Ghost Pepper, Smoked Hickory, Rosemary, Garlic, Smoked Mesquite and Espresso. Founder Peter Pierce splits time between Manhattan and Southampton Village.

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4) Snake River Farms Holiday Gift Box

Don’t let the name of the brand fool you: Snake River Farms produces some of the most tender, quality-oriented meats that you will ever encounter. Chefs like Thomas Keller, Wolfgang Puck, Gabriel Rucker and Michael Mina are fans, hence why Snake River Farms’ beef can be found at Per Se, Bouchon, Delmonico’s, Aureole and Charlie Palmer Steak.

Snake River Farms offers gift collections of all price points — Hugh Acheson’s Curated Steak Box consists of two 8 oz. American Wagyu filet mignon, two 6 oz. American Wagyu ribeye filet, one Lodge skillet, one Mercer saucing spoon, one Bragard kitchen towel, and Jacobsen’s Flake Finishing Salt and Hugh Acheson’s Steak Cooking Guide — and I am ready for my next set.

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5) Fleishers Craft Butchery Subscriptions

Just in time for holiday gifting, Fleishers Craft Butchery has introduced a brand-new jerky subscription program. This is not the typical beef jerky that you will find at a big store, rather these are flavors like Pastrami, Maple Pepper and Triple Chili. The beef is 100% grass-fed, free of gluten and unnecessary additives. Fleishers also sells Roasting Kits and Jerky Crafting Kits, in case that you yourself want to try making some jerky.

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6) Mrs. Fields Cookie Boxes

After you have experienced the soup, beer, salt and meat mentioned above, you are probably craving something on the sweeter side. Mrs. Fields is a legendary cookie company founded nearly 40 years ago. The brand offers a variety of holiday-themed towers, tins and baskets, featuring not only chocolate chip cookies, but also brownies, popcorn, pretzels and bark. Countless options are available, and on Cyber Monday, online shoppers can save 25% at www.mrsfields.com when using the coupon code “FIELDS25.”