Besides Cheesecake, many other sweet treats were invented in New York City, such as Jell-O, Blackout Cake, Chocolate Fondue, and even Key Lime Pie!

Have you finished all your vegetables? Good...time for dessert!

A surprising number of famous final courses were created and popularized in the Big Apple. Here is a collection of classics which may bring back youthful memories, and inspire you to seek them out today (if you can find them.) Like most obsessed researchers, I’ve divided these into groups: cakes, pies, and other NYC specialties. Let’s dig in.

Cakes

The German immigrants who began arriving in New York in the 1840s included numerous experienced bakers. They wielded the most formative influence on NYC’s desserts. Many of the cakes described below are of German origin. (The full story of their neighborhood Kleindeutschland can be found in the Beer Chapter.)

Cheesecake

Folks have been combining cake and cheese since the 15th century, when Europeans used “curd cheeses” such as pot cheese and farmer’s cheese in their cakey concoctions. But it wasn’t until the advent of cream cheese in the 20th century that the “New York-Style Cheesecake” was born. Dense, smooth, and mouth-meltingly luscious, the Gotham version has become the go-to cheesecake for many devotees around the world.

Cream cheese is a New York invention, first produced by an Orange County dairyman for sale in New York City by distributor A. L. Reynolds. He packaged it in foil and named it “Philadelphia,” which, at the time, had a reputation for fine dairy pastures. In 1920, Lithuanian immigrants Isaac and Joseph Breakstone, owners of a Lower East Side grocery store, began making cream cheese for the local Jewish community. The table was set for a dessert application.

Many delicatessen owners have claimed to have invented the New York cheesecake. Arnold Reuben, who ran Reuben’s Restaurant on East 58th Street, insists that he originated the popular dessert in 1928. He was also the first to ship cheesecakes worldwide. Lindy’s in Times Square was equally famous for cheesecake; owner Leo Linderman didn’t exactly steal the recipe from Reuben, but he did steal Reuben’s pastry chef, Paul Heghi, who used a cookie crust and added strawberries on top. Both of these delis are long gone.

Today’s most famous cheesecake can be found at Junior’s in Brooklyn. In the late 50s, owner Harry Rosen hired Danish Baker Eigel Peterson to create the creamiest cheesecake ever. He succeeded wildly; in 1973 New York Magazine declared Junior’s “the best cheesecake in town.” When a fire threatened to destroy Junior’s in 1981, a huge crowd gathered outside and chanted, “Save the cheesecake!” Thankfully, they did. Today Junior’s proudly displays dozens of flavors in their bakery case (or “cheesecake shrine,” as I call it.) They’re available via mail order worldwide.

You can also get an excellent cheesecake from a small bakery which takes pride in their ingredients and hands-on techniques: Eileen’s on Cleveland Place in Manhattan’s Little Italy. Eileen and her two daughters have come up with some incredible flavors, such as red velvet, dulce de leche, and cookies ‘n cream. Food & Wine named Eileen’s “The Best Cheesecake in America,” and I’m not about to argue with them.

Crumbcake

Every New Yorker (and Jersey-ite) has grown up snacking on this iconic tri-state treat. Although lackluster cello-wrapped crumbcakes are mass-produced and sold everywhere, local bakeries still offer the superior version: mounds of gigantic crumbs sitting atop a sliver of yeasted cake, the whole thing showered with powdered sugar. You just can’t have too many crumbs. When sliced, a crumbcake becomes Crumb Buns, synonymous with seashore communities.

The cake evolved from streuselkuchen, one of the many coffee cakes the Germans introduced to their new home, which include coffee rings and Danishes filled with jams or cheese (Danishes are not from Denmark; the Danes call them “Viennese.”)

Brooklyn Blackout Cake

This fondly-remembered fudgy bomb, made from devil’s-food cake, filled and frosted with dark chocolate pudding, and crowned with chocolate cake crumbs, was made by the beloved Ebinger’s Bakery. Beginning in 1898 on Flatbush Avenue near Cortelyou Street, immigrants George and Catherine Ebinger baked many different German-inspired sweets and pastries, such as coffee rings and strudels. But it was their decadent Blackout Cake which New Yorkers took to heart, making it the quintessential holiday and birthday cake. The sight of the signature green box tied with string foretold an exciting, scrumptious occasion.

Named for the World War II darkening of all Brooklyn lights to prevent an attack on the Navy Yard, Blackout Cake was difficult to make, and the Ebinger family kept the recipe a secret (it remains so, to this day.) The company grew to over 50 locations in Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau County. The Ebingers refused to establish automated factories like other successful bakers, maintaining freshness without preservatives.

From Park Slope to Sheepshead Bay, Blackout Cake defined the borough during Ebinger’s 70-year reign. Decades after the bakery closed in 1972, residents still remember the cake with joyful reverence. As one Brooklynite told the New York Times in 1991, “It wasn’t just a cake...it was a way of life!” Noted chefs, nostalgic bakeries, and home cooks have tried to duplicate the original Blackout Cake, with mixed results. No one knows the recipe, so no one has tasted the true original in over 50 years.

Drake’s Cakes

Virtually every American has sampled a Drake’s Cake, from Ring Dings to Yodels to Devil Dogs. What’s forgotten is the story of their creator, Newman E. Drake. In 1896 he opened a small bakery on 135th Street in Harlem, and started selling pound cake by the slice. Business boomed, and in 1902 he and his brother Charles moved to a new bakery in Brooklyn’s famous Wallabout Market. They expanded again in 1913 to a five-story bakery at 77 Clinton Street in Brooklyn, with a rooftop garden for workers to enjoy during breaks.

The Drakes delivered their pound cakes to homes and grocery stores via horse-drawn wagons. The large cakes were cut to order for each customer to insure freshness. Drake’s was soon the largest commercial cake bakery in the northeast, maintaining their prices “within reach of everybody.” They were also sticklers on cleanliness: all employees wore white uniforms and gloves, which were washed daily in the bakery’s laundry. Human hands never touched a Drake’s cake.

By 1924 Drake’s was baking 15 tons of pound cake every day! But it wasn’t long until they launched a new, revolutionary product consisting of two devil’s food cakes sandwiched with “creme” filling, individually wrapped for sale. The Devil Dog was born! This was followed by Yankee Doodles in 1928, Coffee Cakes in 1930, Ring Dings in 1958, Funny Bones in 1961, and Yodels in 1962.

In 1981 consumers were invited to participate in naming Drake’s iconic duck mascot. The winner was “Webster.” So now you know. In 2013 Drake’s was bought by McKee Foods, a fourth-generation family bakery, which is still making Drake’s snack cakes.

Entenmann’s

There are so many boxes of Entenmann’s baked goods in so many supermarkets around the country, it’s hard to believe that it all started in 1898 with one William Entenmann, another German immigrant, delivering cakes in a horse-drawn cart (like Drake’s) from his small bakery on Rogers Avenue in Brooklyn. The business thrived, and in the 1920’s moved to Bay Shore, Long Island. After World War II, Entenmann’s expanded sales through out the Northeast, then around the country. Today, their products are among the largest-selling pastries and doughnuts in America. The huge commercial bakery remains a Bay Shore fixture.

Cupcakes

The original recipe for these single-serving delicacies appeared in the very first American cookbook, 1796’s American Cookery by Albany resident Amelia Simmons. Before muffin tins were available, cupcakes were baked in individual pottery cups, hence their name. Over the decades these diminutive treats were taken for granted, until the early 21st century. That’s when Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw and her pal Miranda filmed a 30-second segment at New York’s tiny Magnolia Bakery on West 11th Street, munching on their luscious cupcakes. Within days of the episode’s airing lines formed around the block, and cupcake mania overtook the city and then the country. Suddenly, everyone wanted the nostalgic mini-cake. Magnolia Bakery expanded to 30 stores around the globe. To this day, busloads of tourists taking the Sex In The City Tour regularly invade the original Magnolia. Other cupcake producers abounded; Sprinkles Cupcakes even offers them via “Cupcake ATMs.” Gotham standout Baked by Melissa offers miniature cupcakes the size of a quarter. There seems no end in sight for New York’s cupcake infatuation.

Molten Chocolate Cake

In 1987, when illustrious New York chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten mistakenly pulled his chocolate sponge cake out of the oven too soon, little did he know he was inventing a dessert classic. Cracking open the spongy exterior, he was met with a river of hot, oozing, liquid chocolate. What a delicious mistake! Others may claim credit, but it was Jean-Georges who popularized the gooey delight, sometimes called lava cake. It became a Gotham sensation, a must-have on the dessert menus of high-end restaurants everywhere, reaching global popularity.

Red Velvet Cake

Commonly considered a Southern specialty, this cake recipe traveled around the country, gradually collecting tweaks, until exploding into popularity in New York City in the 1930s. “Velvet Cake,” which had a softer crumb than regular cakes, appeared in the 19th century. At the turn of the 20th century cocoa was added, creating Devil’s Food Cake. Southern cooks added buttermilk, which reacted with the cocoa to generate a red-brown color. Then extract-maker John A. Adams decided his red dye would sell like crazy if he advertised a devil’s food recipe including it. Soon bakers everywhere were adding up to four ounces of the red extract to their cakes, and the term Red Velvet Cake was coined.

In the 1930s, New York’s famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel began serving red velvet cake, calling it “Waldorf Astoria Cake,” of course. The hotel is recognized as the major popularizer of the dessert. Guests came from far and wide just to sample it. The recipe was a guarded secret until one day a diner asked the chef for it. She was given the recipe, along with a $100 additional charge on her bill for it! Furious, she retaliated by freely distributing the once-secret recipe to as many people as possible, passing out copies to people on the street, on trains, and writing chain letters (an early version of “going viral.”)

Today, red velvet cake, cupcakes, cookies, beverages, candles, air fresheners, body washes, et al, are ubiquitous around the continent. Once again, a little-known regional food was launched into stratospheric popularity due to its appearance in the Big Apple. 

Three of New York’s most famous cake bakers, including red velvet expert Cake Man Raven, carrot cake impresario Lloyd Adams, and rugelach genius Alvin Lee Smalls, are featured in Meet the Bake Masters, available by selecting below: (there’s another link at the end of this chapter)

Pies

Originally, most pies were baked at home. New York City’s tiny apartment kitchens impeded pie baking, so most city dwellers purchased pies from neighborhood bakeries, as many do today. In previous centuries, pies were much more popular than they are today; savory and sweet pies used to be a daily staple. They were a favorite quick bite for downtown workers. Hawked by street vendors in “Pie Alley,” and served to thousands in busy lunchrooms, pies sold fast. An NYC favorite was Washington Pie, now extinct, made of chocolate cake with vanilla custard filling (sort of the opposite of Boston Cream Pie.) Later in the century, dainty tearooms such as Aunt Clemmy’s and Marie Antoinette’s served memorable pies to women shoppers along the Ladie’s Mile. Here are a few pies associated with New York:

Mrs. Wagner’s Pies

Sound familiar? That’s probably because Simon and Garfunkel’s song America is lodged somewhere in your memory, with the immortal line, “So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner’s pies...” Yes, there was a real Mrs. Wagner, who started baking pies in an old wood-fired stove in Ocean Grove, NJ in the 1880’s. Mr. Wagner delivered his wife’s delicious creations in a horse-drawn wagon (what else?) The couple moved to downtown Manhattan and opened a pie outlet in the bustling Washington Market. By 1907 they were turning out over 200,000 pies a year. The company opened a baking plant on 283-301 Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn; some Brooklynites remember stopping by and buying broken-crust pies for a dollar. Wagner’s went out of business in 1968 (the same year Simon and Garfunkel’s song was released) but their distinctive metal pie pans embossed with Mrs. Wagner’s name can still be found on eBay.

Nesselrode Pie

Some of my loyal readers may recall this luscious dessert, although it has practically disappeared. It’s based on the French Nesselrode Pudding, named for Count Karl Robert Nesselrode who negotiated the Treaty of Paris in 1856. No one knows how or why this pudding was transformed into a beloved New York City pie. It features a custard filling with chestnut puree and candied fruits, surmounted by a cloud of whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Enormously popular in the 1940s-1960s, many Gotham bakeries and restaurants offered it.

Key Lime Pie

Here’s where I get into trouble. If I tell you that Key Lime Pie was not invented in Florida, but in a lab on Madison Avenue, my Southern friends may hurl things at their screen (don’t do it...you’re only hurting yourself!) According to the exhaustive research conducted by Stella Parks, author of the award-winning book BraveTart, the claim that a Floridian named “Aunt Sally” invented the pie in the 1860’s can not be correct.

One reason is that Key Lime Pie requires sweetened condensed milk, which wasn’t invented until the 1930s. Early Florida bakers probably made a lime version of Lemon Meringue Pie, which uses a flaky crust, a baked filling, and an egg white topping. Key Lime Pie is made with a graham cracker crust, a no-bake filling, and whipped cream on top. Big difference!

Ms. Parks discovered just such a recipe developed by the Borden Dairy Food Testing Laboratory in Manhattan. After Borden invented sweetened condensed milk in 1931, their Food Lab went to work promoting it with recipes. Their “Magic Lemon Cream Pie,” published in a promotional brochure, became a big nationwide hit. When limes are substituted, it becomes Key Lime Pie.

Of course, some of our Florida friends refuse to accept this story. They claim possession of “historical documents” which prove that Aunt Sally was very real, and had access to sweetened condensed milk 70 years before it was invented. Oh, well. (By the way, very few Key Lime trees survived the 1936 Miami hurricane; since then, the little yellow fruits are imported from Central or South America.)

Other NYC Specialties

Jell-O

You’ve probably heard of the industrialist Peter Cooper, inventor of the steam locomotive, and namesake of Cooper Union, Cooper Square, and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. What you probably don’t know is that in 1822 he bought a small NYC glue factory which processed animal bones, horns and hooves collected from “Pig Town” (where the Plaza Hotel stands today.) Cooper experimented with the gelatin extracted from the animal bi-products. In 1845 he secured US Patent #4084 for powdered “portable gelatin,” which transformed into a jiggly mass when mixed with liquid. Although colorless and flavorless, a recipe book was included in every package suggesting the addition of fruit juice and sugar. Even so, there was little interest, so in 1895 Cooper sold the patent to Pearl Wait, a cough syrup manufacturer, who added colors and flavors and advertised the hell out of it. His wife May renamed the product “Jell-O,” and it eventually became a huge national craze.

Charlotte Russe

Many NYC Eats fans mention this wonderful city-wide sweet from their childhood. Inside an individually-sized paper ring sat a disc of sponge cake, topped with a mountain of whipped cream and crowned with a maraschino cherry. This popular yet simple treat, sold only in Autumn and Winter, was made with such basic ingredients that any candy store/soda fountain could offer them. I haven’t seen one in decades (if you find any, please let me know!)

Biscuit Tortoni

This dessert, popular in New York’s Italian-American restaurants and caffes, is unknown in Italy. A cousin of Spumoni (which has metamorphosed into triple-flavored Neopolitan ice cream,) Biscuit Tortoni is a frozen cream concoction, served in individual fluted paper “soufflé” cups, topped with chopped toasted almonds. A true old-school dessert, you can still find it in some of the city’s classic Italian eateries.

Crème Brûlée

This wildly popular dessert was introduced in 1982 by Sirio Maccioni, the so-called “ringmaster” of the restaurant Le Cirque on East 65th Street. While Maccioni was vacationing in Spain he tasted crema catalana, served from a large bowl of rich custard topped with caramelized sugar. He asked his pastry chef to lighten and refine the dessert, and make it in individual servings. The reviews were ecstatic. It has since become a contemporary “fine dining” classic.

Chocolate Fondue

Swiss restaurateur Konrad Egli introduced New York (and America) to cheese and beef fondues in the 1950s at his Chalet Suisse restaurant in midtown. In the 1960s he began contemplating a dessert fondue which would please his customers, and fondue au chocolat was born! The rich crowd-pleaser consisted of heavy cream, kirsch (cherry brandy), and Toblerone chocolate (a promotional partner.)

Belgian Waffles

I just couldn’t end this chapter without giving a shout-out to this sweet memory from childhood. If you visited the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, then you no doubt encountered “Bel-Gem Waffles,” the culinary superstar of the whole event (to my mind.) The gigantic, thick, hot, crispy waffles were crowned with whipped cream, strawberries and powdered sugar. I can still smell their aroma! The Bel-Gem stand, located in the fair’s “Belgian Village,” was operated by the Vermersch family from Brussels, who made a killing with their waffle invention, selling 2,500 of them a day. “From the moment we opened there was a line,” Mariepaul Vermesch recalls. I was in that line (and maybe you were too!)