Update Review, August & October 2023 visits
Whenever I used to visit my New York office, I kid you not, I discovered extra Empire Cakes cupcakes or full size cakes in our microkitchens every single time. Usually this would happen on my first day there, and often nearly every day thereafter. Everyone seemed to order from Empire Cakes (which, makes sense, it is right across the street), and everyone seemed to always be having celebrations, and copious leftovers. I'm sure if I worked there normally, I'd get a bit sick of Empire Cakes eventually, but for me as a visitor, this was such a treat. I really, really like Empire Cakes, definitely the best I've had in New York, and some of my favorite cake from anywhere really. I've liked nearly every flavor, and every format, I've tried. It is just my style of cake. If you prefer a lighter, less sweet sponge cake and minimal or very fluffy frosting, this isn't the place for you, but for moist, dense, American style butter cake, it is perfection. And, swoon, that buttercream.
So when I recently visited New York for the first time since 2019 (damn that pandemic!), and I didn't encounter any Empire Cake the first two days, I was a bit sad. But, my luck all changed by day 3, and then again on day 4. And day 6. And 7. And the next week. Phew. And, I was thrilled to see that I do still absolutely adore this cake!
Cakes
The most common goods I find are abandoned layer cakes, from a party of some kind. I'm always thrilled the actual attendees don't seem to have great cake appetites.
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| Chocolate On Vanilla. |
"Vanilla crème fraîche cake with our rich Belgian chocolate buttercream filling and frosting."
Oh, this cake. Just as good as I remembered. Even the simple chocolate on vanilla.
The cake was perfectly moist, dense, sweet, buttery, slight tang from the crème fraîche. Exactly my style of cake. I could almost even just eat the cake, no frosting nor ice cream pairing needed. Which is really saying something for me, a person who usually sees cake just as a vessel for frosting. ****+, simple cake, but, fantastic.
And then, the buttercream. This isn't a light, fluffy buttercream, but rather, a more firm style. Which might not sound great, but I really like it. I even like it straight from the fridge, when it is super firm, although, letting it warm up a bit is best. The chocolate flavor here was mild, and the buttercream was sweet but not cloying. Again, simple, but just how I like it, ****+. I also appreciated the ratio of frosting filling and topping to cake.
<3 this cake!
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| Liliko'i (Passionfruit). *Deluxe* |
"Vanilla crème fraîche cake layered with passion fruit curd and frosted with a light coconut Swiss meringue buttercream."
Another day, another abandoned Empire Cake in the kitchen. This time, a flavor I haven't yet tried: lilikoi!
This one had the same excellent moist vanilla cake, but also a curd filling and different buttercream frosting. It was interesting that the passionfruit curd didn't go all the way through the layers, rather, it was in the center 60% of the cake, with buttercream around the outer part. I've never seen a layer cake broken down that way before. It made for some very fruity bites (any from the center) and some great buttercream bites (from the edges), and I liked being able to pick my own adventure that way.
Anyway, the curd was tangy but sweet, lovely passionfruit flavor. No seeds though, I kinda wished it had those for some crunch or to make the curd seem more "real". Still, quite creamy and enjoyable. The buttercream was softer and fluffier than most I've had from Empire Cakes - maybe the host hadn't refrigerated this one at all? I still quite liked the buttercream - as always with their buttercream, a nice balance of butter, cream, and sugar. The coconut flavor came through well. Together, this all combined to a tropical island feel.
This wasn't my favorite of the Empire Cakes I've had (I'm not generally one for fruity cakes, or coconut in cakes), but, it was well made. Like most of the more interesting cakes with fillings other than just buttercream, this is a "deluxe" offering, so priced a bit higher. ****.
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| Black Forest Cake. *Deluxe*. |
"Three layers of chocolate cake filled with kirsch brandy-marinated Morello cherries and crème légère, frosted with dark Belgian chocolate ganache."
This is the first Empire Cake I had that didn't have their incredible buttercream frosting. Instead, the exterior was covered in very thick, very rich, dark chocolate fudge. I was thrilled to see so much extra "debris" left behind by others, as that fudge-y frosting really could make a dessert in itself. It paired wonderfully with my afternoon coffee for a little pick me up! But, beware, richness abounds in that fudge! ****.
The cake was the same as other Empire chocolate cakes. Always a reliably good cake. ***+.
And then, the filling. I didn't know what cake this was when I tried it, and I was describing the white cream to co-workers as "it is sorta like whipped cream, just a touch thicker. Not nearly as heavy as a pastry cream though, and definitely not buttercream. It is lighter, than those, but more stable ...". Turns out, it is crème légère, which is literally crème pâtissière that's lightened by folding through whipped cream. It was exactly the contrast this cake needed against the very decadent and thick fudge ganache coating. Perfect level of light sweetness too. I really liked this element. ****.
And finally, the cherries. Yup, a bit boozy, soft due to soaking. I don't actually love black forest flavors in general, and at first I thought there was just the cherries on top, but I kept finding them throughout, so I think they were within the layers as well. I'd rather not have these, but that is just a personal thing, and clearly what make it black forest in the first place.
Overall, I was happy to try something different from Empire, and as always, it is their frosting/filling that really shines. ****.
Cupcakes
Less common to find are cupcakes, but they made several appearances as well. I do prefer the layer cakes, as I think the cakes are generally a bit more moist, and the frosting to cake ratio even more in the frosting's favor (my style!), but, the cupcakes are still top notch.
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| Chocolate on Chocolate. |
"Our moist chocolate cake with a rich Belgian chocolate buttercream frosting."
I had this as a day-old leftover from someone else's party, so it wasn't particularly fresh. That said, I did still absolutely love that buttercream - the texture, the flavor, everything. I love it. It is best soft at room temperature, but I do even like it when refrigerated and a bit hard. <3. ***+.
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| Chocolate on Chocolate #2. |
A few weeks later, another party, more cupcakes, this time fresh.
The cake was light and fluffy, great cocoa flavor. <3 the buttercream. A very good chocolate cupcake. ***+.
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| Very Vanilla. |
"Our moist vanilla crème fraîche cake frosted with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream."
This is the cupcake that shows you that vanilla on vanilla is not boring and basic. The crème fraîche in the cake makes all the difference, giving it a slight tang. Truly great vanilla cake. The cake is always moist and enjoyable, and, swoon, that frosting. Sweet and perfect consistency.
I truly cannot fault a thing about this cupcake. ****+.
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| Pistachio Praline. |
"Vanilla crème fraîche cake frosted with pistachio Swiss meringue buttercream and a sprinkle of pistachio praline."
Finally! The pistachio praline cupcake. This flavor was at the top of my list of flavors to try when I finally ordered from Empire myself, rather than relying on the leftovers from other events. This was for Chrome's 15th birthday party, and we had them customized with the Chrome dino game dino with a Google "Noogler" hat on.
I was slightly let down by the pistachio praline cupcake. It was a very good cupcake, don't get me wrong, but, I wanted a stronger pistachio element. The base of this was the regular (great, but plain) vanilla crème fraîche cake, rather than a pistachio cake. Standard, very good, basic cake. The toppingg is where the pistachio elements came in to play. The buttercream had a reasonable mild pistachio flavor (and light green color), and the sprinkle of praline added a touch of crunch and of course a bit more pistachio flavor.
I really did like the very sweet fondant custom printed topping too. Mmm, sugar!
So, overall, good, quality Empire cake, but, not dramatically better than the very vanilla. I think a pistachio cake, or maybe some pistachio paste filling, would really amp this up. ****.
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| Gluten-Free Chocolate w/ Vanilla Buttercream. |
"Our moist gluten-free chocolate cake with either a rich Belgian chocolate or vanilla buttercream frosting."
We also had gluten-free cupcakes available, and there were plenty extra. I tried one, as it had been a few years since I had the gluten-free ones.
The gluten-free cake really was good too. Slightly lighter than the regular one, but, I liked it just as much. Good cocoa flavor. And of course, I just adore that buttercream. This one sorta reminded me of cookies and cream, in a good way (I'm not usually a lover of Oreos or Oreo-adjacent things).
This is a gluten-free treat that gluten eaters will never notice. ****.
Cookies
Most of my encounters with Empire Cake have been with, well, their namesake cake, but I also finally got a chance to try some of their cookies.
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| Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. |
This cookie might not look like anything special, but it was great. Perfectly soft, slight chew. Great peanut butter flavor. Plenty of sugar and butter. Little chips.
A very satisfying, totally normal size, unassuming cookie. ****.
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| Callebaut chocolate-dipped coconut macaroon. |
A very standard coconut macaroon, with the bottom dipped in high quality dark Callebaut chocolate. The coconut is shredded, sweetened, and bound together well. Very coconut forward taste, which you'd expect, and overall quite sweet, a bit too much for without pairing with a black coffee. The dark chocolate was fabulous.
Overall, good execution of a classic, albeit a touch sweet for me. ***+.
Setting
The bakery is, literally, across the street from my office. It was easy for me to go check out in person.
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| Store Front. |
The front of the store is quite inviting, with huge cakes in the window, although, alas, those are not real.
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| Cupcakes. |
However, there are plenty of real ones once you step inside! Cases and cases of goodies. The cupcakes are what seem to show up constantly in my office.
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| Other Goodies. |
They also make standard cakes, assorted bars, and some fun novelty items, like snowballs and swiss rolls!
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| Cupcakes at the Office. |
It still shocks me that, literally, something like 80% of the time I visit the NYC office I find cake or cupcakes from Empire Cake in a microkitchen. I know the boxes now well. This is a very normal sighting - extra cupcakes, free for the taking!
Cakes & Cupcakes
Given the name, Empire Cake, it should come as no surprise that cakes are their speciality. Available in many sizes, many tiers, many flavors, all sorts of customizations, buttercream or fondant decorated, etc. I'd love to see their wedding cakes sometime!
The cakes all feature one signature thing: buttercream.
"Buttercream is what you’ll commonly see on many traditional cakes. It is made primarily of butter, egg whites and sugar. At Empire Cake we make a Swiss Meringue Buttercream which has a silky, delicious taste and will allow for a nice, smooth finish on your cake."
Yes, most cakes have buttercream frosting, but ... the buttercream at Empire Cake, uh, takes the cake for being the best I've ever had. The quality of their sourcing, local butter and cream, is apparent, as is the commit to quality throughout, like using fresh seasonal produce from the Union Square Greenmarket.
July 2018
My first encounter was in July 2018 when I walked through a microkitchen and found a bunch of cupcakes, many only halves or quarters remaining. I remember trying a few kinds, including a shockingly good gluten-free one. I liked them enough that I paid attention to the brand, so I was rather thrilled a few days later when the event I was attending had cake ... from Empire Cake!
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| All The Cakes: Vanilla, Carrot, Red Velvet, Chocolate, and Raspberry Lemon. |
The event was large, and our hosts went all out, ordering 5 massive, supersized, cakes.
These cakes had a huge diameter, and were 3 very thick layers tall. Slicing off "just a small piece" of any of them was impossible, comical even.
We ... didn't come remotely close to finishing them. I took some extra back to hotel and had it as midnight snacks most nights.
Very Vanilla:
"Our moist vanilla crème fraîche cake filled and frosted with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream."
Carrot:
"Spiced organic carrot cake with pecans, layered and covered with cream cheese frosting."
Red Velvet:
"Our moist red velvet cake filled and frosted with cream cheese frosting."
Raspberry Lemon:
"Vanilla crème fraîche cake layered with raspberry Swiss meringue buttercream and lemon curd filling, covered with raspberry buttercream."
Seriously so much cake!
I had them all, and didn't take notes at the time, but my favorite was the carrot, loaded up with goodies/nuts/raisins/pineapple/etc. But I remember liking them all, and again, zomg, that buttercream.
October 2018
The next time I was visiting the office, my very first day, basically the same experience as in July. Walking through a microkitchen and ...
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| Box for Cupcakes. |
Yup, boxes of cupcakes!
And these ones *weren't* all cut up. They did have only simple vanilla and chocolate left, but I was still pleased to find them.
Two days later? Same thing. Ones does not need to look hard for Empire Cake in this office.
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| Very Vanilla. |
"Our moist vanilla crème fraîche cake frosted with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream."
I started with a simple, classic "Very Vanilla". It was a good cupcake. Seriously, for a cupcake, this was great. Sweet dense moist well made cake. As good as a vanilla cake is going to be. The creme fraiche clearly helps make it good.
On top? Perfectly sweet fluffy buttercream. And plenty of it. That buttercream is really shockingly good. But yes, sweet sweet sweet.
I really enjoyed this, enough so that I took a second cupcake (a different kind!), and I had literally just had other dessert before it ... thank you, random team, for having extra cupcakes!
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| Very Vanilla. |
Two days later ... more cupcakes. Another event. More extra cupcakes.
I gladly snagged a vanilla, this time with blue icing and a different fondant topper, but still, the same cupcake essentially.
I again adored the frosting, and I think the blue color made me enjoy it even more. I know that sound silly but ... I loved it!
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| Vanilla on Chocolate. |
"Chocolate cake with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream."
Next I had the chocolate cake version, same incredible buttercream.
The chocolate cake was also good, it had an interesting flavor to it, a bit of a tang almost? I think I preferred the vanilla though.
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| Vanilla on Chocolate. |
Two days later, yup, more of the cupcakes.
This time, I preferred the chocolate to the vanilla. But my preference is slight, as both versions are truly wonderful.
The blue buttercream was again just slightly more fun.
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| GF Vanilla on Chocolate. |
"Our moist gluten-free chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting."
And finally, since there were plenty of these still left at the end of the day, I opted for the
gluten-free one, remembering that the gluten-free cupcakes I tried before were actually quite good.
It too had the same great frosting, and looked almost like the regular chocolate, but was a darker brown.
It too was good, and honestly, I would have never guessed it was gluten-free. Such good cupcakes.
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| Hazelnut Cake. (Oct 2018). |
"Vanilla crème fraîche cake filled and frosted with hazelnut Swiss meringue buttercream and hazelnut praline, topped with a bittersweet chocolate glaze."And then ... yes, that same visit, just a few days later ... a cake! This was also very good.
Same moist tangy creme fraiche based cake, this time with the same style of incredible fluffy sweet buttercream, just, nutty hazelnut flavored. Loved it. The chocolate glaze complimented it well.
I first thought this was peanut butter and chocolate, but once I learned it was hazelnut it made more sense.
Very tasty cake, would gladly eat again.
July 2019
I can't make this up. Seriously, every visit to the office, cupcakes.
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| Chocolate and Vanilla Cupcakes. |
These all had orange colored buttercream, but it was just plain vanilla, not flavored in any way.
I adored the buttercream as always, soooo generously applied, and sweet and buttery and tasty.
The vanilla cake was good, very sweet, moist enough, but not quite as magical as I had remembered.
The chocolate however? OMG. So very good. Rich, dense, chocolately, and balanced nicely by the super sweet buttercream. This place makes me like cupcakes!
Uh, congrats "Vector" team? And thank you.
Classic Treats
"We are well known for our homemade, gourmet versions of classic American treats, which have been featured in such publications as The New York Times, New York Daily News, and Martha Stewart Weddings, and even presented by Whoopi Goldberg to Jimmy Fallon on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon!"
It was hard to stray from the cupcakes and cakes, but when I actually visited the bakery myself, in person, to purchase some goodies, I decided to expand my horizons and try some "classic treats". These treats range from homemade Twinkies, to Swiss Rolls, to Snowballs. or, you know, their take on them.
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| My Goodies. |
Since I didn't plan to eat them right away, I wanted something that would hold up ok a few days, although, I knew from plenty of experience, that the cupcakes do hold up absolutely fine for a couple days in the fridge.
Still, I wanted to branch out.
I went for a couple items, really just impulse shopping at this point.
Snack Cakes (Homemade "Twinkies")
The item I've been eyeing on Instagram is the snack cakes, basically, their version of Twinkies: cakes filled with a cream filling and covered in a white or milk chocolate coating. I was told these would hold up even better than cupcakes.
The snack cakes were available in a few flavors, including Brooklyn Blackout, Red Velvet, and a Pride special Funfetti version.
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| Red Velvet. |
"Red velvet cake with cream cheese filling, dipped in Belgian white chocolate."
I couldn't remember if I liked the red velvet before, but I knew I really liked the carrot cake, and that had cream cheese frosting, so, I mostly selected the red velvet to try the cream cheese frosting again. Also, I wanted a white chocolate shell rather than milk.
The white chocolate shell was fine, pretty standard white chocolate, thicker than I expected, sweet.
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| Red Velvet: Inside. |
Inside, the cream stuffed cake.
I was hoping for more cream cheese filling inside. I realize now this is still a totally reasonable filling amount, but, I adore the frosting from Empire Cake so much, and I appreciate their usual ratio of very generous frosting, so, this was far less filling compared to the usual frosting, which left me wishing I had a cupcake.
The cake seemed more dense as well, and I wasn't really into the red velvet flavor.
I ... wished I had gotten a cupcake. The snack cake didn't seem to be the thing for me.
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| Funfetti. |
"Confetti cake filled with cake batter frosting, dipped in white chocolate & drizzled with rainbow colors."
But I also opted for the fun Pride themed snack cake, Funfetti! Of course, I got this before I tried any snack cake, and didn't realize I wasn't a fan of the form factor.
I wasn't drawn in by the rainbow colors exactly, but I do generally like a good funfetti cake, and also, I really wanted to try the cake batter frosting.
The shell on this was the same thick white chocolate, this time drizzled with rainbow colors.
The filling amount was pretty much the same as the red velvet too - the amount appropriate for a Twinkie, but, not nearly as much as I wanted. The blue color was fun, and I liked the colors in the funfetti cake. Clearly, this was a fun item.
But ... it was much like the other snack cake. The cake was fine, dense, fairly standard cake. The frosting amount was too minimal to really taste. I can't say I tasted birthday cake.
The snack cakes are cute, but ... I'm a frosting girl, so these aren't what I'd go for again.
Cookies
"Our cookie selection changes daily, but some of our most popular are classic chocolate chip cookies with Callebaut chocolate, walnut thumbprints with apricot or raspberry jam, Russian tea cakes, oatmeal raisin cookies, molasses ginger snaps, rainbow sprinkle sugar cookies, cinnamon sugar snickerdoodles, and the “8th Avenue”—our almond-flour cookies with dried fruit and nuts."
I'm not a
cookie person. You know this. I know this.
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| Cookies Galore. |
It wasn't until I visited the shop that I learned that, along with cupcakes and cakes obviously, cookies are a big focus of Empire Cake's offerings.
I wasn't drawn in by most of them, but on the bottom shelf were cookie sandwiches, filled with buttercream. Swoon, that buttercream. I almost went for one of those, but the cookies themselves really didn't look special.
Plus, I had read many reviews of the black and white cookies. People love them. Available in several sizes, including mini. How could I not at least try a mini?
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| Mini Black & White Cookie. |
"Our Pride inspired white chocolate covered "Black and White" rainbow cookies are available all month!! Come taste the rainbow!!"
The black and white cookies are normally, well, black and white, but for Pride, in addition to the classic black and whites, they had several different rainbow color choices. I went for purple, just because.
This is the mini size, a regular size, and larger size, are also available.
It was ... boring. It was much like the snack cake, but, without frosting at all. Just plain cake, and white chocolate coating. Very uninteresting, even though the white chocolate was good quality.
