Bakery Tour Of The West Village/Chelsea

• Posted on November 19, 2015
• by Jamie Stahl
• in Restaurants
• 2 Comments.

I’ve seen all kinds of NYC food tours advertised online.  If you can think of a food, there is probably a group of people who have already organized some kind of walking tour of “the best” places.  I’ve always been interested in going on one of these tours, especially a chocolate tour or a cupcake tour.  The problem is that you usually have to pay a minimum of $60.  I just can’t see myself shelling out any money for a tour of a bunch of places that I can go to on my own.  Especially if I can go there with people I like, or even better by myself!

This is why I decided to give myself a miniature walking tour of my own.  Okay, I might be making it seem like I planned this out a bit more than I had.  To be honest, there was not intention of any kind of tour initially.  But, after I made two stops, I figured I would just keep going to a few more places and pretend to be on a tour.  I am calling it a Bakery Tour of The West Village/Chelsea.  Had I put a bit more thought into this tour and planned my route accordingly, I would have made several more stops on this adventure, but I didn’t.  My mini tour consisted of four bakeries.

First Stop: The Doughnut Project

The Doughnut Project just opened in the fall 2015 in the West Village.  They don’t have a very large selection of doughnuts at one time, but what they do have are a lot of creative and inventive flavors.  On my tour, I decided to purchase a maple-bacon doughnut.  This is the only one that isn’t round or “doughnut” shaped.  It also has a giant piece of bacon across the top.  If you like bacon, go here and get this.

Second Stop: Milk and Cookies Bakery

I have been a fan of Milk and Cookies Bakery for years.  I actually celebrated a birthday there 5 years ago (which makes me feel so old it’s not even funny).  They sell tons of different cookies (obviously) along with lots of other treats like whoopie pies, brownies, and ice cream.  I had a hard time choosing what to buy and ultimately decided to pick out 6 cookies because that fills a small box.  I ended up with a double chocolate chip, an oatmeal raisin, a s’mores, a sugar, a regular chocolate chip, and a rainbow sprinkle sugar cookie.  Each one is better than the next and since they have been eaten in no particular order, they are all equally as good!

Third Stop: Empire Cake

Empire Cake is a bakery that I had never visited before going on this mini tour.  I’d heard of it, but assumed for a while that it was primarily a cake bakery and didn’t have much retail inventory.  I am very glad I was proven wrong.  When you walk into Empire Cake there is a long glass counter filled with tons of baked goods from cookies to cupcakes to slices of cake to muffins.  Everything is very clean and pretty (not a great adjective, but it really is pretty!).  I spent a little time looking at all of the different items sold, until something caught my eye.  It was a tray of Snowballs, one of my favorite junk-food snacks.  These were huge and looked a lot more appetizing than the kind you buy at a highway truck-stop.  They tasted a whole lot better too.

Fourth Stop: City Cakes

The last stop on the tour was City Cakes.  I’d walked passed here a number of times, but never went inside because like Empire Cake, I didn’t realize they had daily baked goods for sale.  I had recently learned that City Cakes was actually known for their customized cakes as well as their 1/2 pound cookies.  That’s a huge cookie!  And the cookies can be purchased at any time.  It’s a tiny place with a small countertop displaying a number of flavors of 1/2 pound cookies practically the size of my head.  I had a really hard time choosing what to get, but eventually settled on a chocolate chip (as per staff recommendation) and a red velvet (the inside of the cookie is filled with cream cheese frosting).  Neither one of them disappointed, but I have to admit I did not eat either cookie in one single sitting.

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