Make My Cake a Cobbler

It’s not often that I’m in Harlem. But when I am, I always make an excuse to visit Make My Cake (and when Levain opens around the corner this week, it, too, will be on the diet-busting-in-Harlem list). The bustling bakery has been around since 1995, serving ooey-gooey, over the top Southern specialties like hot cross buns, red velvet cake, and cobblers.

Unlike crumbles and crisps, cobblers usually have top and bottom crusts—sort of like deep-dish pies. Sometimes they’re made with pie dough, other times (and/or regions), with thick, cakey biscuits.

Make My Cake’s family recipe uses the former. Their giant pan of blueberry cobbler was crisscrossed with lattice shortbread crusts.

Amply dished into a plastic container, there was no thought to its presentation. It was all about the contents.

Wickedly-sweet, syrupy blueberry filling. It coated my belly. Filled me up. And felt like a sloppy-sweet embrace.

Mini red velvet bundt cakes

There I was in Harlem. Within three blocks of Make My Cake, which I had wanted to visit ever since Mitchell introduced me to their moist and amazing cupcakes. For over two years the memory of the dense, spongy cake and sweet (but too much so) frosting had haunted me. And there I finally was—an egg toss away.

The thing is, it was 9 in the morning. Would it be hideous to start my day with a 400-calorie sugar bomb? Maybe. I went in anyway.

I was charmed by the pink and exposed brick walls and tempted by the display cases. Trays of cupcakes: chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, yellow cake with chocolate frosting and, the prizewinning red velvet cupcakes, with or without crushed walnuts on top.




Giant three-layer cakes beckoned, too: yellow with strawberry frosting, German chocolate, double chocolate, carrot cake. Plus, cookies and pies and puddings.

But then a little number caught my eye and I knew I’d found breakfast: the red velvet mini bundt cake.

It was the same delicious red velvet cake the bakery’s known for. Springy, even in this novel form, and a titch chocolaty. Instead of a thick cloud of frosting, it was delicately drizzled into ribbons of sweetness.

Was it the healthiest way to start my day? Of course not. Were the hundreds of calories worth it? Hideous. But, yes.

Vampy cupcake

When the gals at Daisy May's told me their red velvet cupcake had won a blind taste test conducted by The New York Times, I was swayed. I had to order one (barbecue chicken and bourbon peaches be damned!).

What the gals didn't tell me was that their top honors, clinched from a sampling of 19 bakeries, were shared with Make My Cake — reminding me that I have to get to Harlem for one of their amazing cupcakes, some of the best I've ever had.

The Times' piece explores the history of red velvet cake, its recent rise in popularity and some of the tricks to baking it right (beets to make it red, not food coloring). It's an enlightening article. But what makes it really great is its descriptive language: "clouds of snowy frosting," "rich fluff," "vampy allure," "the Dolly Parton of cakes." Awesome.

Back to Daisy May's: their red velvet cupcake is more about the taste than the presentation. It's served in a plastic tub. But the cake is moist and slightly crumbly. The frosting, super thick and creamy. The combination of the two, "rich" and "vampy."

Daisy May's BBQ USA
623 11th Avenue at 46th
212.977.1500