Day Eleven • 12 Tastes of Brooklyn
The window at Betty Bakery on Atlantic Avenue one recent December evening.
I WAS INVITED TO MY FIRST COOKIE-EXCHANGE holiday party this year, but alas, now it’s been cancelled and all motivation to cover myself in flour and sugar has gone out the window. Luckily, Brooklyn is rich in cookies—beautiful ones made by hand with the finest ingredients by the most ingeniously creative bakers. Here are just a few to tempt you.
Vintage Santa Postcard Cookies and Holiday Cookie Tin, from Betty Bakery
Bakers and cake designers Ellen Baumwoll and Cheryl Kleinman entice you with their beautiful store window and win you over with their delicious flavors and inventive designs. A large vanilla sablé decorated with a vintage Santa postcard image will be available during the holidays. I have my eye on the Holiday Cookie Tin, filled with 40 chocolate-chocolate trees, small gingerbread men, walnut linzer wreaths, lemon shortbread stars, sugar snowflakes plus a decorated cookie. Or how about gingerbread girls and boys, or some adorable little marzipan penguins and snowmen, or rugelah? Happy times.
Ninjabread and Mustache Cookies, from Butter + Love
We met Alison Walla of Butter + Love at Brooklyn Flea and fell in love with her Mustache gingerbread cookies, which have bits of crystallized ginger rolled into the dough—and her fun Ninjabread cookies, gingery and sweet.
The Ninjas were named as one of the “Best Holiday Cookies” this year by Timeout. We have to agree. And we love the story of how Alison, who came to New York to be a Broadway actress and singer, developed her cookie business.
Macarons, from Vendôme Patisserie
The Parisian pastry house Ladurée is credited with having invented the macaron—two airy almond meringue confections united by cream in the middle. Now we have Brooklyn-based Vendôme Patisserie, whose macarons “are the only ones in New York to rival the French forebear’s…Ladurée and Vendôme touch the hem of heaven,” a New York Times reviewer effuses.
Vendôme Patisserie macarons at Brooklyn Flea
Vendôme’s macaron flavors roll off the tongue: Campari Pamplemousse, Limoncello, Black Truffle and Roasted Chestnut, Kaffir Lime, Champagne Cocktail, and then melt in the mouth. We spied the beautiful red and green tower above at Brooklyn Flea. Vendôme Patisserie doesn’t have its own shop, but you’ll find their macarons at Bacchus Patisserie on Atlantic Avenue, and at the Columbus Circle Holiday Market until, yikes, December 16. Macarons are gluten-free.
Holiday Tea Collection and Whoopie Pies, from One Girl Cookies
The holiday season is always busy for bakers, but One Girl Cookies founder Dawn Castle and co-owner Dave Crofton really have had their hands extra full since last month when their second store, in DUMBO, which had been open just nine months, was damaged by Sandy flooding. One Girl Cookies is back up and running now, turning out their sweets.
Holiday Tea Collection
(Photo courtesy One Girl Cookies)
The cookies all have names—Lucia, Lana, Sadie. You’ll find descriptions (and can buy them) online. For their Holiday Tea Collection, the bakers came up with three limited edition tea cookies with flavors inspired by the season: Lena, a rosemary shortbread named after One Girl’s mom; Kris, a chocolate cherry crinkle cookie and Fiona, a “sugar plum” thumbprint cookie filled with plum jam. And for a true Brooklyn experience, how about a Whoopie Pie—cream cheese frosting sandwiched between pumpkin or chocolate cake? You’ll find the recipe in the One Girl Cookies Cookbook, along with 66 others. Maybe I’m feeling a little motivation coming on after all.
What’s your favorite Made in Brooklyn cookie?
Betty Bakery
448 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Hill
718-246-2402
Butter + Love
Fort Greene
info@butterpluslove.com
Butter + Love Etsy Shop
Vendôme Patisserie
Available at Bacchus Patisserie
411 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Hill, and at Brooklyn Flea
917-892-2127, 917-602-2251
One Girl Cookies
68 Dean Street, Cobble Hill
212-675-4996
33 Main Street, DUMBO
347-338-1268
Photographs (except One Girl Cookies) by Basia Hellwig. Date stamp typographic design by Joy Makon Design. The font is Industria, by Neville Brody, Linotype, 1989.
Brooklyn Artisan 
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