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World's Best Sweets

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining



Luxist Readers cast their votes for the best chocolates, truffles, cakes, cookies and cupcakes. The winners for each of these categories are:

Best Cake
Crumbs Bake Shop is the winner of the Luxist Awards' Readers' Choice Award for Best Cake. The bakery is also famous for its cupcakes (it was nominated for a Readers' Choice Award in the cupcake category, accordingly).

Crumbs offers an irresistible blend of comfort-oriented classics and elegant baked goods. Crumbs homemade cakes come in a variety of delicious flavors, from Red Velvet to Vanilla Cake and Chocolate. Crumbs cupcakes come in three different sizes. At each of its bake shops, it offers more than 50 varieties baked fresh daily and a new cupcake of the week every Monday. Crumbs also offers a variety of delicious cakes, from Red Velvet to Vanilla Cake and Chocolate. Accordingly, Crumbs Bake Shop is also a nominee for a Readers' Choice Award for Best Cake.

Currently, Crumbs has locations in California, Connecticut and New Jersey. Its baked goods can also available by placing an order online.

Gallery: Best in Sweets

CrumbsCrumbsCrumbsGodivaGodiva



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Tate's Bake Shop Wins Readers' Choice Award for Best Cookie

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining


Tate's Bake Shop is the winner of a Luxist Readers' Choice Award in the Best Cookie category.

This award will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever tasted the signature cookie of one of the country's leading independent bakers.

The company was founded by Kathleen King, who has been baking professionally since she was eleven. Born and raised on North Sea Farms in Southampton, she started to baking cookies to earn spending money. Packaged simply at first, Kings' cookies came in plastic bags with twist ties.

Gallery: More from Tate's Bake Shop

Kathleen King of Tate's Bake ShopTate's Bake Shop's award-winning cookies.Tate's Bake ShopThe exterior of Tate's Bake Shop in Southampton, N.Y.


By the time King was in high school, she was baking 12-hours a day, and perfecting her thin, crisp, buttery and caramel tasting chocolate chip cookies. She was so successful, her baking put her through college: SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill, New York. When King was 20, she opened her first bakery and within one year she had made a name for herself in the fashionable communities on the south fork of Long Island.


Tags: awards-main, best bakery, best cookie, BestBakery, BestCookie, luxist-awards, southampton, tates bake shop, TatesBakeShop, winners-sweets

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Levain Bakery: Large and Divine Cookies in NYC

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining


Recently described by The New York Times as "the largest, most divine chocolate chip cookies in Manhattan," the handiwork of Levain Bakery is also a nominee for a Luxist Readers' Choice Award in the best cookies category.

Swimming pools and chocolate chip cookies aren't often associated, but in the case of Levain, the link is crucial. That's because co-founders Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald met at a pool on Manhattan's East Side. The pair became fast friends; in 1994, as both were training for an Ironman challenge, they hungrily discovered their shared love for chocolate chip cookies.

Gallery: More from Levain Bakery



In 1995, the pair left their jobs in banking and fashion to launch Levain Bakery. They chose the name after the French word for leavening bread. Opening their first shop on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Weekes and McDonald made a commitment to baking everything fresh onsite every day; leftovers would be donated to charity every night, a tradition that continues to this day. In 2000, growing demand prompted the pair to open a shop in Wainscott, NY, a posh vacation spot near East Hampton, NY.

For those who can't make it to either location, Levain takes online orders as well. Wrapped in French cellophane and topped with a blue ribbon, the 12-cookie gift box ($66) is a terrific treat; customers can mix and match varieties including oatmeal raisin, dark chocolate butter chip and chocolate chip walnut.

Vote for the company you believe makes the best cookies. Readers' Choice Winners will be announced on March 1st.


Tags: awards-main, best bakery, best cookie, BestBakery, BestCookie, levain bakery, LevainBakery, luxist-awards, sweets-main

Sweet Adeline Bake Shop: Local and Organic Cookies from the Bay Area

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining


Though it's a single-store operation in California and doesn't ship its wares beyond the Golden State, Sweet Adeline Bake Shop's cookies are so delicious that they've been nominated for a Luxist award anyway.

Located at the intersection of Adeline and 63rd Streets in Berkeley, Sweet Adeline is owned and operated by Jennifer Millar. A Culinary Institute of America chef, Millar gained early experience working for Jam's, Bud's and Hulot's in New York; in 1988, she moved to California and became pastry chef at Square One in San Francisco before starting Sweet Adeline.

Today, Sweet Adeline is one of the Bay Area's best cookie makers. Its offerings include the bittersweet chocolate cookie, praline cookie, ginger cookie, peanut butter cookie; beyond cookies, the bakery offers a host of breads, tarts, pies and cakes. Everything is made in small batches, and most of the ingredients used are organic and local. The bakery's fruit usually comes from the vendors at the Berkeley Farmers' Market.

Sweet Adeline also specializes in baking cakes. Favorites include The Americana, a dark-chocolate, Devil's-Food-style cake that's filled and iced with a creamy dark chocolate ganache (9-inch cake: $35) and the Rigo Jancsi, a chocolate soufflé filled with chocolate ganache and raspberry jam or fresh raspberries, glazed in chocolate (9-inch cake: $40).

Vote for the company you believe makes the best cookies. Readers' Choice Winners will be announced on March 1st.


Tags: berkeley, best bakery, best cookie, best sweets, BestBakery, BestCookie, BestSweets, luxist-awards, sweet adeline, sweet adelines bakeshop, SweetAdeline, SweetAdelinesBakeshop

Tom's Mom's Cookies: Chocolate Chunks that Melt in your Mouth

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining


Located less than 75 miles south of the Canadian border, the sleepy town of Harbor Springs, Mich. (pop: 1,600) may be known as the birthplace of the Shay Locomotive, but today, it is also famous for being the location of Tom's Mom's Cookies. Thanks to delicious dough and chunky chips, Tom's Mom's Cookies is up for a Luxist Readers' Choice Award in the best cookie category.

Tom's Mom's Cookies has operated in Harbor Springs for the past 25 years. As Harbor Springs is a resort community with many out of state residents during the summer months, Tom's Mom's Cookies has a very large and loyal following all over the country. Its customers use its cookies as wedding cakes, as favors at receptions, and in gift packages. Its recipes date back to its earliest days. Chocolate chunks are cut buy hand from 10-pound bars of semisweet chocolate while careful attention is paid to the selection of other ingredients such as almonds, pecans, walnuts, macadamia nuts and locally-grown cherries. No additives or preservatives are used.

Gallery: More from Tom's Mom's Cookies



For a small outfit in a tiny village, the volume of press received by Tom's Mom's Cookies is a testament to the quality of the tasty treats it produces. In 2003, Tom's Mom's Cookies were featured on The Food Network's "Food Finds"; in 2007, the cookies were featured as Rachael Ray's "snack of the day." The company has received additional attention from Family Circle and Business Week.

Tom's Mom's Cookies are available via mail order from the company's website; they ship from the retail shop and bakery in downtown Harbor Springs. Swaddled in star-covered tissue, shipments are sure to please the recipient's eyes as well as their taste buds. Popular gift packages include the Cup of Cookies – a coffee mug packed with a dozen mini-cookies ($18.50), as well as a variety of cookies priced by the dozen ($17.50) plus shipping.

Vote for the company you believe makes the best cookies. Readers' Choice Winners will be announced on March 1st.


Tags: awards-main, best cookie, BestCookie, luxist-awards, sweets-main, toms moms cookies, TomsMomsCookies

Eleni's New York: Eat Desserts First is its Motto

by Carrie Coolidge (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Dining


As a maker of delicious, creatively designed sugar cookies, Eleni's New York has a fitting motto: "Eat Dessert First." Similarly, it should come as no surprise that the New York-based shop is a nominee for a Luxist Readers' Choice Award in the best cookie category.

Eleni's founder and name sake, Eleni Gianopulos, came by her baking acumen naturally. During her childhood in 1970s Northern California, Eleni's mother was known for treating the neighborhood kids to batches of home-baked oatmeal cookies. After switching coasts and trying her hand at the cookie-cutter corporate world, Eleni found herself with a craving for a more creative career. In the kitchen of her Manhattan apartment, she fine-tuned her mom's recipe and began selling the fruits of her labor directly from home. Just like the kids in her hometown, the "kids" in New York ate up the oatmeal treats and clamored for more; Eleni complied by opening up shop at the Chelsea bakery and dabbling in the creations that since have earned her the title of "cookie couturier."

Gallery: More from Eleni's New York



From the beginning, this homegrown company has offered an array of quirky but beautiful, delicious iced sugar cookies celebrating a variety of whimsical themes – from spring flowers to high-heeled shoes to Halloween ghouls. Eleni's cupcakes, brownies, and classic cookies do tradition one better, raising the bar for basic desserts. Nicknamed "conversation cookies", the treats are baked and frosted in the shapes of everything from bees to bikini-clad women. Eleni's makes fresh dough every day, then chills it for several hours. After that, it's sheeted, hand-punched with custom-made cookie cutters, re-refrigerated, then baked and iced.


Tags: awards-main, best bakery, best cookie, BestBakery, BestCookie, eleni, elenis, elenis new york, ElenisNewYork, luxist-awards, sweets-main

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